Breathing Underwater

When I was younger, I had dreams that I could breathe underwater. I’d lie down on the ocean floor and bury myself under sand, and I would look upward – nobody ever does that, do they? We always look down into the water. Never up into the sky – and the sunlight would make the water shimmer in blue and green and pink.

I remembered you laughed when I first told you about my dreams. And I got mad, because I thought you were making fun of me even though you tried to tell me you weren’t. It was hard to believe you when you were snorting koolaid out of your nose from laughing so hard. But I got over it, because the koolaid splattered all over the front of your shorts and it was lemon koolaid.

Well, also because you chased after me and threw your arms around my waist and held me so tightly that I couldn’t move – so I was forced to listen to you say sorry over and over again until your apologies drove me mad and I had to let it go.

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But then you grinned and took my hand – and I knew what that meant. You were up for another adventure. So you tugged me to the edge of the water, even though you knew I would be terrified, but you pulled me along anyway until we were ankle deep.

I was trembling, just waiting for the tide to come in and pull me under. But you wouldn’t let me run away. You pointed at some random spot out in the water, but I couldn’t see what you were pointing at. So you pushed me closer, and pointed again – there, right there! – and then I could see it. A bit of movement under the water. A flicker of a fish’s tail, iridescent in the sun.

You can see pretty things about the water too, you said.

I said nothing. Because I knew you just liked being right.

You made me a deal. You’d teach me how to swim better than any little fishy in the sea. In exchange, I would have to forfeit my legs for a pair of fins. And if I failed to learn, then you would forever trap my soul in a cactus plant.

It sounded fair enough, so I shook on it.


People could float, you said. Because people are so full of hot air.

I thought you’d get used to me not believing you, but you urged me into the water anyway. I looked back at the plastic orange floaties I’d left on shore. I’d spend the whole car ride blowing them up – you watched me blow them up – and then you forced them off my arms once we’d arrived.

You flopped backward into the water, and – oh my god, YOU DIED – but you reemerged seconds later, spewing water from your mouth and laughing. You told me to look, to see that you were perfectly fine. But I pointed out you were full of much more hot air than me, and I would surely sink.

Since common sense wasn’t working, you tried guilt tripping me.

Don’t you trust me? you asked. It was unfair of you, really, when you were grinning like that with your hand out. Because then the only thing I could do was take that hand as I walked out to sea.



That was a while ago. And the memory of it still frightens me a little.


I walk alone now, in the between space before the sea meets the surf. I’m not as afraid anymore, but I still can’t bring myself to step into the water. Sometimes I flinch when I feel the water under my feet, my heart racing – thumping madly against my chest. I feel stupid when this happens. There was a point in time that I was okay, at least as okay as I had been for a while, and I’d backtracked to this. Regressing like the tide.

I pick up a flattened, sea-washed, stone from the sand and toss it out into sea. But it disappears into the skyline and I don’t know what happens after that.


The first time I met you, you’d taught me how to skip stones.

I sucked.

You made it seem irritatingly easy, when every rock you threw out to sea would just bounce right off the water – once, twice, three times, four. You’d try to top your own record every time, and I cheered you on as you counted, your voice getting increasingly louder as the stone made another jump.

You’d recognized me from school, you said. But had never caught my name, though you’d seen my face a lot. I didn’t remember you, though. It had been a while since I moved I explained politely. I had to leave whenever that hurricane took out the length of the beach where I’d lived before.

You’d nodded in understanding.

Maybe I can only make them sink, I suggested with a laugh.

But you got mad when I said that, and pressed another rock in my hand and told me to try again. I got mad, too. You were a stranger. You weren’t allowed to boss me around. So I kicked you by the shin and chucked the rock into the water… and it skipped across the surface once before plopping into the water.

You snorted and smugly told me how you had so told me.


I’m standing at the end of the world.
You tried to teach me how to be fearless,
I don’t know fearless, so I’ll try being brave.


I’d dropped a rock into the water, and we watched as it made its way to the bottom.

One sinking stone.
Two sinking stones.
Three sinking stones.
Four.

But the fourth one didn’t sink. The fourth one didn’t dare to leap. It just stayed. And the waters swallowed up the other stones and they were swept off to the ocean with hundreds of other little stones that couldn’t resist the waves.

You took the remaining stone from my hand. It was a small, pink thing – the color of coral. And you said that there was a way to make them fly, if I’d give it a try. You said you’d teach me how, if I’d let you.

But trusting you was hard when I was so afraid.

I lashed away from your hand, and I said I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go into the water.

You were usually patient with me, but not always. You got irritated, but I was too terrified to even combat your temper. You looked sorry for yelling, though, and held out your hand to me again.

You want this, you said, or else you wouldn’t have come back.

I knew it was true. But feeling the pull of the tide around me – I could see their faces. Screaming as the dark waters swallowed them up and pulled them under. A sudden goodbye. And goodbye again. And goodbye a third time. Wordlessly, because I never got the chance to say them – because I had stayed behind, where it was safe.

I didn’t realize I was shaking until you put your hands on my shoulders, trying to calm me down. But I was still trembling, uncontrollably, even when you took me out of the water and back on solid ground.

Don’t think about them, you said.

But I was. And I couldn’t help it. That was why I came back here. For them.

When I didn’t stop, you buried your head into my neck and breathed out a silent sorry for my sorrows. Because there was nothing you could do to undo it, and because there wasn’t really any one right thing to say in a situation like this.

Talk to me, you pleaded. But I never had, and I wouldn’t now. It felt too soon, even when a year had already passed, but it was a long year I’d felt so hollow and afraid all of the time.

So I just shook my head and asked you to drive me home.




Over the phone, you’d said you missed me. And you asked if I wanted to go out to the beach again. It’d been a while since we’d last gone. I said I was busy and maybe later.




You called again.




You asked me if I wanted to talk about it. I didn’t.




I let my phone go to voice mail.




When I listened to the message three days later, you said you wanted to go to the beach for my birthday.




I would never know, but you probably got mad when I didn’t show.




They unzipped the bags one by one, showing the muddled and waterlogged faces from underneath. They’d found the bodies washed ashore up the coast, they said. The man asked me if I recognized this man, that woman, this girl, that boy. I slowly nodded and swallowed – and then on repeat. Nodded and swallowed, nodded and swallowed, until the bodies were carried out and I was left in an empty room.


I didn’t go out expecting to find you. So I was surprised when I did.

You looked really happy with her.

You didn’t have to talk to me when I asked, but you did anyway. Too forgiving, you were. Or maybe too forgetting.

“I’m heading down to the station,” I said. “They said they found another body. But they want to do some testing.” I mimed a needle extracting blood from my arm.

You didn’t tell me it would be okay or not to worry or anything. That’s what I’d liked about you.

“What will you do if they find a match?” you asked.

I wondered.

“You know what I hate the most?” I said.

You tilted your head to me curiously.

“I never said got to say good-bye to them,” I said. “And I never said good-bye to you.” I stretched my hands out toward the sea. I could see you watching me out of the corner of my eye. “So. Yeah,” I said, in conclusion. I turned to face you. “Bye.”

You laughed. “Bye,” you said.


I’m standing over the place where we first met. Where I’d told you stories of sinking stones. Where you’d taught me how to make them fly. Where the sea meets the surf, and the tide washes away messages written in the sand. I’ve written names there, side by side, and this is my farewell. I watch as the tide comes in to take them away.

And I slip off my shoes and spread out my arms, because I’m ready to take the leap now.
Because this is what they had intended,
And you,
And me,
Even when I didn’t know it.
This is how it is to be fearless and stupid and brave, this is.
So I suck in a deep breath before taking the dive,
And then I’m breathing underwater.