Page 27 of Blue in the Deep Blue Sea

I straightened, carefully stepping around the puddle of vomit at my feet.

“Even though this sounds like the perfect plan, I don’t think I can do this.”

“Why?” she asked quickly, her wide doe eyes already glistening, as if she was preparing to beg me to accept it. “It’s good money, and it’ll get us close to Dante’s brother.”

“I…” The words caught in my throat. “I never…” I squeezed my eyes shut, then let out a slow breath.

“I have a fear of deep sea.”

She blinked twice while staring at me.

“I’ve never left the coast,” I said with a nervous chuckle. “I’ve never swum further than I could stand. And if I can’t see what’s underneath me…” My fingers curled tighter around the crumpled tissue. “I panic. Sometimes I pass out.”

She raised one eyebrow as her lip twisted to the side.

“Is it really that bad?”

“Yeah.” I said. “It’s bad.”

“But how bad?”

“Bad enough that if someone needed saving, I’d probably let them drown.”

She chuckled. “You’ll be fine.”

I nodded, then shook my head.

She slipped her hand under my arm and gently pulled me away from the port. As we walked, she rested her head against my shoulder. I think she needed someone close, just as much as I did.

We wandered along the right side of the coast, closer to the farmer’s market. The only sound between us was the crunch of pebbles and dirt beneath our sneakers. I looked at the cliffs that led down to the beach, lost in thought.

I missed Annie.

This was the first summer she wasn’t here.

The memory pulled me back to 2001, to the night of the Light Festival.

She was quiet. Usually, she was bubbly, saying whatever came to her mind, but that night she barely spoke. She reached into her purse, pulled out two bottles, two sheets of paper, and a pen, then sat down on a rock.

She handed me one of the papers, then passed me a bottle. She turned to the sea and fixed her eyes on the dark horizon before asking, “Do you ever think about what would happen if we were just… gone?”

“Yes,” I said. “Many times.”

I leaned back against the rocks, stretching my legs out in front of me.

“What do you think they’d think?”

I watched the tide pull thin ribbons of foam back into the darkness, as if the ocean couldn’t decide what it wanted to keep. Somehow, I knew it would keep our secrets.

When Annie was around, my phobias were easier to swallow. She had a way of quieting the noise in my head. Knowing how the world looked through her eyes, and how much it saddened her, broke my heart a thousand times over, but somehow healed me at the same time.

“They’d probably make us into better people than we actually were.” She let out a quiet laugh, but it sounded worn. “They’d probably say we were the light in every room we walked into.”

“You really think so?” I chuckled. “I don’t think they’d say the same about me.”

“That’s what people do.” She shrugged. “They sand down the sharp edges. It’s easier that way.”

A breeze rolled in off the water. She turned to me.