Goodbye, I love you, was my last thought.
16. PARIS
AT THAT MOMENT, MY HEAD BROKE THE SURFACE.
How disorienting. I’d been sure I was sinking.
The current wouldn’t let up. It was slamming me against more rocks; they beat against the center of my back sharply, rhythmically, pushing the water from my lungs. It gushed out in amazing volume, absolute torrents pouring from my mouth and nose. The salt burned and my lungs burned and my throat was too full of water to catch a breath and the rocks were hurting my back. Somehow I stayed in one place, though the waves still heaved around me. I couldn’t see anything but water everywhere, reaching for my face.
“Breathe!” a voice, wild with anxiety, ordered, and I felt a cruel stab of pain when I recognized the voice—because it wasn’t Edward’s.
I could not obey. The waterfall pouring from my mouth didn’t stop long enough for me to catch a breath. The black, icy water filled my chest, burning.
The rock smacked into my back again, right between my shoulder blades, and another volley of water choked its way out of my lungs.
“Breathe, Bella! C’mon!” Jacob begged.
Black spots bloomed across my vision, getting wider and wider, blocking out the light.
The rock struck me again.
The rock wasn’t cold like the water; it was hot on my skin. I realized it was Jacob’s hand, trying to beat the water from my lungs. The iron bar that had dragged me from the sea was also...warm...My head whirled, the black spots covered everything....
Was I dying again, then? I didn’t like it—this wasn’t as good as the last time. It was only dark now, nothing worth looking at here. The sound of the crashing waves faded into the black and became a quiet, even whoosh that sounded like it was coming from the inside of my ears....
“Bella?” Jacob asked, his voice still tense, but not as wild as before. “Bells, honey, can you hear me?”
The contents of my head swished and rolled sickeningly, like they’d joined the rough water....
“How long has she been unconscious?” someone else asked.
The voice that was not Jacob’s shocked me, jarred me into a more focused awareness.
I realized that I was still. There was no tug of the current on me—the heaving was inside my head. The surface under me was flat and motionless. It felt grainy against my bare arms.
“I don’t know,” Jacob reported, still frantic. His voice was very close. Hands—so warm they had to be his—brushed wet hair from my cheeks. “A few minutes? It didn’t take long to tow her to the beach.”
The quiet whooshing inside my ears was not the waves—it was the air moving in and out of my lungs again. Each breath burned—the passageways were as raw as if I’d scrubbed them out with steel wool. But I was breathing.
And I was freezing. A thousand sharp, icy beads were striking my face and arms, making the cold worse.
“She’s breathing. She’ll come around. We should get her out of the cold, though. I don’t like the color she’s turning....” I recognized Sam’s voice this time.
“You think it’s okay to move her?”
“She didn’t hurt her back or anything when she fell?”
“I don’t know.”
They hesitated.
I tried to open my eyes. It took me a minute, but then I could see the dark, purple clouds, flinging the freezing rain down at me. “Jake?” I croaked.
Jacob’s face blocked out the sky. “Oh!” he gasped, relief washing over his features. His eyes were wet from the rain. “Oh, Bella! Are you okay? Can you hear me? Do you hurt anywhere?”
“J-Just m-my throat,” I stuttered, my lips quivering from the cold.
“Let’s get you out of here, then,” Jacob said. He slid his arms under me and lifted me without effort—like picking up an empty box. His chest was bare and warm; he hunched his shoulders to keep the rain off of me. My head lolled over his arm. I stared vacantly back toward the furious water, beating the sand behind him.
“You got her?” I heard Sam ask.
“Yeah, I’ll take it from here. Get back to the hospital. I’ll join you later. Thanks, Sam.”
My head was still rolling. None of his words sunk in at first. Sam didn’t answer. There was no sound, and I wondered if he were already gone.
The water licked and writhed up the sand after us as Jacob carried me away, like it was angry that I’d escaped. As I stared wearily, a spark of color caught my unfocused eyes—a small flash of fire was dancing on the black water, far out in the bay. The image made no sense, and I wondered how conscious I really was. My head swirled with the memory of the black, churning water—of being so lost that I couldn’t find up or down. So lost...but somehow Jacob...