Mandy Hubbard - Ripple

The air tastes like salt, like summer, like everything I love, and the urge to get in and swim is overwhelming.

I twist around in his arms, until I’m facing him. He leans down, and the kiss is long, lingering. I can’t believe we’re really here, really doing this. It’s like something from a dream. I find myself backing up without breaking the kiss, until I feel the sea lapping at my feet. Steven pulls away for a second, surprised by the feel of it, but I yank him back down to me, wanting more.

More, more, more. That’s all I can think. The need is overwhelming. “Let’s go swimming,” I whisper between kisses. I don’t know why I want to swim, but I do. Desperately. And before he can react, I’m pulling his T-shirt over his head and throwing it onto the beach.

Steven blinks. Maybe I’m moving too fast after waiting so long. But he wants it, too—I can see that. He watches as I toss my shirt with his. And when I pull my pants off, he does the same. And then we’re standing there, in our underwear. I grab his hand and lead him further into the water.

I’m nervous, but I don’t care, and I can’t seem to stop myself from dragging him deeper.

I’m always so cautious, so carefully controlled. But tonight I’m reckless, taking what I want without regard for the consequences.

An overwhelming sense of desire spirals inside me as our feet leave the sandy bottom. He goes to kiss me, but a wave splashes into us. We throw back our heads and laugh.

I’m giddy and euphoric, so exquisitely happy it’s uncontainable.

I laugh again and flip onto my back to float and paddle out further. Steven’s saying something, but the water filling my ears makes it impossible to decipher. I laugh again, and it comes out strange, melodic. It bubbles out and changes, fills the night air with a hauntingly beautiful song.

It can’t be me, singing it, but it is. The notes ring out, stronger and stronger as I pick up an urgent paddle. I don’t know why I’m doing this; I only know it feels right. As if I’ve waited my entire life to sing this song.

Soon, I stop thinking altogether, my arms paddling steadily, until I’m propelled faster and faster, gliding along more rapidly than any other creature in the water. Vaguely, I know Steven is out here with me, but I can’t seem to think clearly. The song grows, intensifying, louder, vibrating in my chest.

But abruptly, as I reach for another stroke, the melody dies in my throat. Silence rings out.

Suddenly, the urge to sing is gone. My head clears, the fog lifting all at once.

What am I doing? Where did Steven go?

I swim upright, treading water, trying to make out the beach in the distance. Did he get out? Swim to shore? I peer into the darkness, but it’s impossible to see beyond twenty feet. The swells rise around me, and I bob along the surface, waiting.

The desire to swim has vanished. The memory, now faint, of my laughter twisting into a strangely wordless song rattles me. I want to get out, and I can’t seem to remember why it seemed so important to swim in the first place. It’s nearly midnight, and a storm is sure to roll in soon.

I flip onto my back and kick my way to the shore. I knock into something with my head, so hard it seems to echo inside my skull. Quickly, I right myself, get my feet underneath me.

The inky darkness makes it impossible to see what is floating in front of me. I reach out, the water rippling with my movements. At first, I’m not sure what I feel beneath my fingers. But then, I know.

Hair.

Skin.

I jerk back, so fast I bob under and inhale a mouthful of water. I have to kick hard to keep my mouth above water as I cough and gasp.

I reach out again, my heart thundering in my chest, my hand trembling as I pull the body around, squinting into the darkness.

It’s . . .

Steven.

A scream rips free of my throat and, for a moment, I’m frozen. My legs no longer kick. I slowly sink. But then I cough up more seawater, and it occurs to me to tread. I watch his body bob along the surface, the waves swelling around us.

My mind clears and spurs me into motion. I hook an arm around his chin and kick hard, propelling myself toward the shoreline. I glide through the water faster than any human could possibly swim, faster than I ever knew I could. It seems to be just seconds before I am hauling him up onto the sand.

But he hasn’t moved, hasn’t struggled in my arms.

No. No, no, no, no.

I lean over and try to breathe life into him. I plug his nose and give him everything I have. I press on his chest, trying to force his heart to beat. He can’t be that far gone. He can’t be. It seemed like only seconds we were apart.

I desperately pound on his chest, try to force the air into his lungs, but it doesn’t work. Tears clog my throat.

“Steven!” I scream at him, pound at his chest, sobbing.

His eyes are blank, glassy. Haunting.

I lean over and cry. For everything he was. For everything we’ll never be.

A truck rumbles by on the street above us, so loud I jump back. It brings reality screeching with it.

Help. Someone can help.

I scramble up the sandy bank, reed grass slicing into my bare feet, until I’m standing under a streetlamp. The night air is no longer warm on my bare, wet skin. The rain that has threatened for days sprinkles down as I step foot onto the pavement.

Headlights swing toward me as a car comes from around the bend. I stumble into the middle of street, waving my hands above my head. The lights beam right onto me, blinding me, until I have to shield my eyes. I must look crazed, soaking wet and half naked.

And then a spotlight joins it and the lights flash red and blue.

It’s a cop.

I play it over and over in my mind, every day of my life, but every time it ends the same. I’m wrapped up in a blanket in the backseat of a police car as Steven’s cold, sheet-covered body is wheeled past me. The bed jostles as they lift it into the ambulance, and his hand slides out from under the sheet, and all I can see is his pale, lifeless fingers.

I blink, hard, washing away the memory. You don’t have to sleep, you don’t have to dream, to have nightmares.

His death was considered suspicious. He was a vibrant seventeenyear-old athlete who shouldn’t have succumbed to the waves—he swam in his family’s pool every day and surfed during the summer. The police never understood why we went swimming on such a dark night; and at the time, neither did I.

I was brought in for questioning again and again. I retold the story over and over—leaving out the part where I sang. Even then, before I really understood what that meant, I knew not to mention it.

Eventually, the police determined that there was no way I could have drowned him myself. At least not by any normal means. Steven was so much bigger than me, so much stronger. When the autopsy came back clean—no bruising, no skin underneath his fingernails, no sign of a struggle—the drowning was ruled accidental.

Reporters speculated that he’d become disoriented in the dark. Unable to find the shore, he simply got too tired to keep his head above water. Others said it must have been a leg cramp, worsened by the growing waves. A sad, tragic accident.

But my friends never saw it that way. They wanted to know why I led him out of the house, toward the beach. Why I didn’t save him. And when I refused to explain anything, even to Sienna, they turned on me.