15. BLUE
BLUE
Inever thought I would see fear on Oliver Sinclair’s face, but the fear in his eyes terrified me more than the deep sea ever could.
I felt the yacht tremble beneath my bare feet.
I heard sounds I had only ever heard in nightmares, and the moment I saw him standing in the doorway, I knew my worst nightmare was coming true.
Isabelle had said we were one in a million for this to happen. Maybe we were just unlucky. Or maybe it was a sign that we could finally all be together somewhere on a better place.
I turned to the window for just a second, and that second became the worst of my life.
When fear corners you, when you have no choice, you think about nothing except survival.
You don’t think about who you love or who you hate.
You only think about how you’ll get out, how you’ll swim to the surface.
But if you’re like me, so worn down by life that drowning almost feels like an escape, you only hope that, even then, you won’t be alone the way you’ve been alone your whole life.
Oliver was by my side within seconds. Those same seconds sent panic tearing through me because I knew everything was about to end. He reached for me, pulling me into him. My hands clutched the collar of his white linen shirt, and I held on with everything I had.
“Stay with me,” I whispered against his chest as my tear-filled eyes met his.
But there was no time for answers. No time for questions.
A massive wave crashed over us, swallowing us whole. The only sound that escaped us was a single breath, too small against the hunger of the sea.
The wave slammed into the windows, exploding the glass into thousands of razor-sharp shards that tore across our skin.
Seawater burst through the broken frames, hurling us against the wall as it flooded the master suite.
The yacht groaned beneath the force, then rolled, the sea swallowing it as it capsized.
Panic ripped through me. My mouth fell open as the current tore Oliver away from me. It dragged us further and further apart until only our fingertips brushed before slipping away. I sank deep, deep down, and he was pulled toward the surface.
My eyes searched frantically for him as he disappeared above me. A dark shadow circled through the water while streams of bubbles blurred my vision. My body twisted and shook, finally surrendering to the sea.
I once read that when you’re drowning, your brain finally accepts what’s happening. It fills you with a strange sense of peace, making you believe you’re breathing. Your mouth opens wider, convinced it’s drawing in air, but all it does is swallow water until there’s nothing left.
For me, there was no peace. Only panic.
I couldn’t tell what was beneath my feet. It wasn’t just the endless blue that terrified me, but whatever it was hiding below. My vision clouded over, my eyelids growing heavier until they began to close.
Then, suddenly, I felt something grab my hand.
The feeling you get in dreams isn’t the same as reality. In dreams, there is still some hope, but in reality, all hope is gone. In that moment, panic takes hold because you know it’s over. Still, you keep fighting, even when part of you wants it all to end.
Oliver turned me around, his palms cupping my face as he shook his head, silently pleading with me not to panic. I wanted to strike him, to drag him down with me, to drown him. But when he motioned for me to look to the right, I understood why he was trying so hard to stay calm.
Two sharks circled the yacht as it slowly slipped beneath the surface.
The second wave crashed over it, and the buoy disappeared first. Then a smaller, three-meter shark spotted a man swimming.
It surged towards him with terrifying speed, seized him like prey, and when its jaws clamped down, it thrashed its head from side to side.
The water erupted into a cloud of blood as the man’s body was torn in half.
Meanwhile, the larger shark continued circling, never taking its eyes off us.
Judging by what was left of the man, I think it was George.
But the panic only tightened its grip. I was no help to him.
Oliver raised two fingers to my forehead and gently drew them down over my eyes, urging me to close them. When I finally did, he pulled me towards the surface. My lungs burned as I fought for another breath, but my body was already beginning to give in.
Darkness had long since swallowed my vision. Now it was creeping into my mind. I felt us drawing closer to the end. The pressure in my ears built until all I could hear was the deep, relentless hum of the water, growing louder with every second.
Then everything blurred. My life. My thoughts. Reality.
And there was no light anywhere.
I woke up with my eyes fixed on the dark gray sky.
I was floating. The waves carried me while my body rested on something beneath the surface, but I couldn’t bring myself to look down. If I did, I knew the panic would swallow me again.
My fingers clutched the fabric of my uniform shirt against my chest so tightly that my fingertips throbbed. Tears came on their own. A scream swelled inside me until it felt too big to hold.
Is this the end? There should be peace at the end, but I still felt like I was in hell. Only instead of fire, there was water.
Lightning split the sky above me. Rain kept striking my face. All around me came the sound of splashing and screaming, yet I couldn’t move.
What if I had to save them?
That thought hurt more than anything.
What if I had to save Oliver, and I couldn’t? What if I had to watch him drown?I’d imagined that outcome so many times, convinced I wanted it. Now that it was real… I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
Something inside me forced my head to turn left.
Oliver was swimming towards an overturned inflatable raft drifting through the waves. Behind him, a massive fin sliced through the water.
“No,” I breathed. “Watch out!”
He looked back. The moment he saw the shark closing in, he drove himself forward, his arms cutting frantically through the water. Within seconds, he reached the raft.
Then the fin disappeared.
The shark had dived.
“No… no… no…”
I squeezed my eyes shut. The scream tore out of me. Water crashed, something slammed against the raft, but I couldn’t force myself to look.
“Hey!”
A familiar female voice came from my right. Splashing cut through the darkness.
“Fucking 1squalo! Come here!”
“No, Isabella! Are you crazy?” Oliver shouted.
My breaths came in shallow gasps as panic wrapped around me again. I turned my head.
Isabella was clinging to a piece of floating plastic barely a meter from the sinking yacht. She looked at me, her lips trembling, her lower lip quivering as tears filled her eyes. She didn’t raise her voice.
“Save him.” I read the words on her lips.
Then, in the space of a heartbeat, the shark dragged her beneath the sea.
This time, the shock forced my eyes open. Quiet sobs escaped me as I shook, leaning against the tree beneath me. Until then, I hadn’t even realized I had been floating on the door the entire time. My face trembled, my head slowly shaking from side to side, while the tears could no longer fall.
My gaze drifted across the depths, the horizon, and the sea I feared. It was no longer blue. It was stained with blood. Another person had just been torn from my life.
I blinked twice, as if dragging myself out of the shock, when her body, cut in half, floated to the surface of the sea. Then reality crashed into me, and I screamed.
“No!” Was all that came out.
I collapsed back onto the door, which rocked beneath me as I cried. My palms covered my face, and I wept into them, unable to stop. You tell yourself you’ll go numb, that no pain can reach you because you’ve grown used to it. But you can never get used to loss.
I was completely and utterly shattered. She was gone. And this time, the last piece of my heart went with her.
Everything was different now. Before, whenever I lost someone, I somehow gathered the broken pieces of myself and kept moving, even though I carried that pain every single day.
But now… now I had to survive. I had to pull myself together all at once, stand face to face with my greatest fear, and fight for my fucking life. And I had no strength left.
There was no time to grieve. No time to sit in shock, to cry, to bury her, or to visit her grave whenever I needed to talk to her.
This time, she floated like a discarded piece of nothing in the open sea while my worst fears circled beneath her.
This time, I couldn’t hold her one last time and carry that memory with me.
All I would remember was how she risked her life to save ours, and how a monster from the deep blue sea tore her away from me.
In such a short time, she had found her way under my skin. She gave me everything she had, even the little hope she carried for Gianni. Without ever knowing it, she had saved me twice. Not just now, but back at the farmers’ market when she handed me that pink flip phone.
I felt so useless. Like a piece of nothing that couldn’t do a single thing.
And through all that pain, even though it would’ve meant she had risked her life for nothing, I rolled off the door and let myself fall into the sea, my numb hand slipping away last.
But once again, Oliver caught it.
He pulled me onto the orange raft.
It wasn’t even a meter and a half long, barely big enough for two people, yet he still made room for me.
Him.
Out of everyone in the world, I was stranded with him.
“Why?” I cried as he held my wrists against his chest. “Do you hate me that much that you had to save me?”
He stayed silent, his expression empty. His jaw was clenched, his pupils dilated.
“Why?” I shouted, struggling against his grip. “Why, Oliver?”
He didn’t answer. He just pulled me closer.
One hand still held both of my wrists while the other wrapped around me so tightly it felt as though he was afraid I’d slip away. There was barely enough room to breathe, and I used every shallow breath to cry. To let go of every scream I’d kept trapped inside for far too long.
He let me scream.
He listened.
No one ever had.
But he did.
Everyone else talked. Everyone needed something from me. I was always there for them, but no one had ever stood there for me like this. Maybe this was what I’d needed all along. Someone to hold me without saying a word while I came apart again and again until I could finally breathe.
With every sob, his muscles tightened. His heartbeat pounded against my cheek. His shirt was already soaked with seawater, and now my tears disappeared into it too.
He finally released my wrists.
This time, instead of shoving him away or trying to hit him, I wrapped my arms around him.
His hand slid across my back, holding me even closer. I hadn’t thought it was possible, but somehow he pulled me nearer still.
Never in a million years did I think Oliver Sinclair would be the person I’d let myself fall apart with.
I’d spent so long trying to stay strong in front of him, terrified he’d use my weakness against me. But now I didn’t need to pretend.
It was just us against the deep blue sea.
“I’ll stay,” he finally whispered. “I’m here now, Blue.”
The words settled over me like a warm tide. It was as if he knew exactly what I needed to hear, like he’d reached into my mind and found the one thing that could quiet the storm.
“Blue?”
I lifted my face just enough to meet his eyes.
His thumb brushed across my cheek, wiping away my tears.
“Your eyes,” he said with a chuckle before his expression turned serious again. “I’ve sailed through oceans my whole life… never seen anything that could pull me under the way they do.”
My heart pounded.
“I hate the color,” I whispered.
“Good.” His jaw tightened. “I do too.”
I tried to pull away, tears still spilling down my cheeks, but every inch I put between us, he closed again, drawing me back against him.
“It’s cold,” he murmured. “This way we can keep each other warm until the storm passes.”
I stopped fighting him.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe, for now, I could hate him a little less.
I could always hate him more tomorrow.
I closed my eyes. But the moment I did, I saw Isabella. I opened them again and buried my face against his chest, crying into his soaked shirt.
The Oliver I knew would’ve pushed me away, told me to shut the fuck up and suck it up. But this version of him let me fall apart without a single complaint.
I wasn’t even sure how I felt about that.
Rain still hammered down around us, and the raft drifted farther from the yacht, now half swallowed by the sea. Keeping one arm around me, he reached for a small oar and pushed us through the water, searching the wreckage for anything that might help us survive.
I had never felt more useless.
Still, he didn’t say a word.
Deep down, part of me still believed I’d died. And that he had too. And this was some twisted version of the afterlife where Oliver Sinclair was actually a nice guy. Where he was actually nice to me.
Maybe Isabella had a plan for us. Maybe she’d seen what we needed before we ever could.
1. Shark