Chapter 52
Theo
Even though I’ve never been to Miramar Beach, I don’t have to waste precious seconds searching for Hannah. There’s a crowd of people in bathing suits standing on the shore, pointing at something far off in the water, and I know it has to be her. Always the center of attention.
My heart is in my throat and the back of my T-shirt is soaked with sweat as I throw my rental car into park and race across the sand. I’ve never driven so fast or blown through so many red lights. The entire ride here I thought I would be sick.
By the time I make it to where the crowd’s gathered, I can see her bobbing in the dark waves. She goes under and people gasp. My heart leaps into my throat. But after a few seconds she resurfaces, hacking water, and relief fizzes through me.
It’s short-lived. “Where’s the lifeguard?” I ask the strangers. “Why isn’t someone going after her?”
“They do a roaming patrol,” says a blond guy. “They’re not at every beach.”
“But we called the Coast Guard number on the riptide sign,” says a woman with a kid clinging to her knees. “They’re on their way.”
The small crowd is mostly families, parents with kids too young to be in school, but there are a few men and women my age. They’re all watching me apprehensively.
The blond guy points behind him to two large red flags. “Rip current’s vicious today. Swimming to her could jeopardize our lives.”
I stare at him in disbelief.
“It’s true,” pipes in another guy. “Everyone knows you don’t swim out to someone in a rip current. It’s suicide.”
A voice cries out, and our heads whip back to the ocean. Hannah has been dragged even farther away. The sea is pulling her from me, taking her like it took her sister.
I kick off my shoes and yank my T-shirt over my head. A small mercy that I’m already wearing my bathing suit.
“Hey, no way,” barks the woman with the kid. “Do not go in there. The Coast Guard’s coming. Just wait.”
“That’s not good enough,” I say, and the crowd bursts into protests. Two of the guys even try to hold me back, gripping me by the shoulders, but I shove them away, my whole body tense with panic.
The crowd backs up, giving me a wide berth, mothers stepping in front of children.
I don’t know the Pacific Ocean, or beach rules. I was never a swimmer. All I know is that Hannah is in danger and there’s no way I can stand by and watch her drown. As I move toward the water, one of the women in the crowd lifts her phone to film me.
I almost laugh. “Are you kidding me? You’re going to film this?”
But she doesn’t lower her phone, only lifts her chin defiantly.
Fine. Screw these people for not only standing around and watching a woman die, but turning it into a spectacle. I charge into the icy water, goose bumps lighting up my body, and dive.
The instant I surface and start swimming against the waves, battling the tardark Pacific, I feel the rip current.
I’ve never experienced anything like it.
It drags me from the shore like I weigh nothing.
I know one thing about rip currents—that I’ve got to let it take me—so I simply pray and keep swimming as the water rushes around me.
The water is briny and keeps pushing its way into my mouth and nose, forcing me to spit and choke, but Hannah’s getting closer, and with the power of the rip current supercharging each of my strokes, I quickly close the distance.
“Hannah,” I yell, but the waves swallow my voice. I force myself to keep going. I’m almost to her.
“Hannah,” I repeat, just as I get close enough to seize her shoulder.
It startles her—she jerks around, and a wave crashes over us both. I wrap an arm around her and pull her back to the surface.
“Come on,” I shout. “We’ve got to swim back.” But she looks at me without seeing, lost to some other world. Her breathing is too slow. I wrap my arms around her to keep her afloat.
“It’s me, Theo,” I say. “I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay.”
But I’m barely keeping us above the waves. And she’s so out of it, maybe still drunk like Kenny warned, or too tired from fighting the drag. I need her to focus.
“We have to swim parallel to the beach. Please, Hannah.”
Her eyes flutter. I grip the back of her icy neck to keep it above water, but now I’m sinking.
“Ginny’s gone now,” she murmurs, and closes her eyes. She’s limp. I’m struggling to keep her afloat.
“Fuck—come on, Hannah!” The salty wind whips my face and I squeeze my eyes shut for a single moment, picturing her onstage, smashing a guitar; laughing by a bonfire; the soft look in her eyes before we kissed.
I kick off, pulling Hannah behind me. But I’ve overes-timated my strength.
She’s too heavy without help, and the rip current doesn’t want to release us.
Hannah’s eyes flutter again. She needs a doctor. I’ve fucked it all up swimming out here, with my self-destructive savior complex, and won’t Bryan be surprised—
A giant wave crashes, pushing me underwater, and it’s pitch-black out here so deep. The current tumbles me. I can’t breathe, I don’t know where the surface is—
Hands seize my shoulders and pull. Suddenly there’s air again, and a man atop a Jet Ski, his face blurry at first because there’s so much salt water clouding my eyes.
I want to shout with relief, the sound of his motor the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard.
He yells, pointing at the water, and I see Hannah drifting.
I don’t think twice, using the last of my strength to kick back to her and push her toward the Coast Guard officer.
Together, we manage to get her prone body out of the water, draping her over the Jet Ski, and then the officer extends a hand and helps me climb atop.
“Hold on,” he yells. “Keep her secure.”
I throw myself over Hannah as the Jet Ski kicks into high gear, pitching us backward, and then we’re racing over the waves, hitting the choppy water so fast it takes all my power not to fly off.
“You’re going to be okay,” I whisper into Hannah’s cold skin. My throat is raw.
It’s only when the Jet Ski approaches the shallow water that I realize what a circus the beach has become.
There’s an ambulance in the sand, red and blue lights flashing, and EMTs in dark uniforms pacing near the water.
The crowd has almost doubled in size, and now there are so many lifted cameras recording, so many spectators, that I want to scream.
The Jet Ski hits the sand and the engine cuts. EMTs and Coast Guard officers rush toward us, lifting Hannah’s limp body, yelling “Out of the way! Clear a path!”
“I’m fine,” I yell, as an EMT wrenches me off the Jet Ski. “It’s her. Focus on her.”
“We’ve got an unresponsive female in her late twenties,” says a Coast Guard officer into his radio. “EMS is on-site and administering services.”
They’ve laid Hannah in the sand. It’s a terrible sight with her eyes closed, skin pale, wet hair fanning around her.
“She’s breathing,” barks one of the EMTs, crouched near her mouth.
I choke down a sob as an EMT presses a freezing stethoscope to my chest.
“Is that Hannah Cortland?” someone asks. An excited murmur ripples through the crowd.
“It’s her,” someone else shouts, and the circle of spectators tightens. The people filming lift their phones higher.
“Leave her alone,” I yell, struggling to my feet, but the EMT beside me keeps a tight grip on my wrist.
“Don’t,” he warns, shaking his head.
My whole life, I’ve obeyed commands. Been good-natured Theo, the Fixer, taking everyone’s shit, trying to please everybody.
I’m so tired of it.
“Is she dead?” The blond man from before, the one who warned me not to go in the water, who just stood there watching Hannah slowly drown, kneels with his phone, trying to get a close-up.
“Sir, step back,” orders an EMT, but the man turns to his friend, says something, and laughs.
Laughs. The inhumanity of it. Everywhere she goes, people are hungry for Hannah’s pain.
Months of watching it unfold helplessly, of hoarding love and fear, collide into a tidal wave of feeling, and I snap, launching at the guy and tackling him into the sand.
There are screams as the crowd jumps away.
“What the fuck?” he yells, swinging at me, but I dodge and punch him square in the face, connecting with a loud crack that sends seismic pain through us both.
Coast Guard officers are shouting at me to stand down, but I’m beyond reason.
The blond guy’s friend shoves me off and I take a swing at him too. Instantly, two more men are on me. One pulls my arms behind my back and the other cracks me across the face, the pain sharp, blood blooming on my tongue, filling my mouth with the taste of iron.
A Coast Guard officer grabs me but I wrestle out of his hold and swing wildly.
I connect with someone’s nose, and suddenly there’s a wall of men.
I’m trying to defend myself but someone’s fist catches my teeth and blood spills down my chin into the sand.
I follow it, dropping to all fours, battered on all sides.
The world narrows to the pain of the blows.
Distantly I know how bad this is, what could happen to me, but underneath the agony is the strangest satisfaction.
All I’ve ever wanted to do is take care of the people I love, show up for them, and now no matter what happens, I regret nothing, I would do it all over again.