Ever since Jake had pointed out its beauty, I was appreciating it for the first time. Some artists, like Turner, had spent their entire lives painting the sea. Fascinated by it, studying it, capturing its every mood. I watched it closely, paying special attention to the way the light danced on its rippled surface. The way the light became a silvery liquid, riding the surf until it disappeared into the white froth on the shore. And the blue, it was far more complex than I’d previously thought. I could see that it was made up of hundreds of different hues. It was patchy, like an artist’s palette, all the colors blending together perfectly to form this massive thing that seemed alive, living and breathing all on its own.

I also thought about the succulents. For some reason, I hadn’t been able to get them out of my head. How you could pull them apart, break them up, and they would spring back to life. And then I thought about the time I’d been pulled apart, and I wondered if I’d sprung back to life yet since the incident.

Truthfully, it was more a series of incidents carried out over the course of several years. The relentless, schoolyard bullying that had culminated in that moment in the water six years ago. Even now, if I close my eyes, I still feel like I’m underwater again. That moment is never far away and I return to it in my mind more often than I should.

It started out as a normal day, like any other day would. I’ve often wondered why I didn’t get some kind of a feeling about it. Surely, when a day like that comes around that changes your entire life, changes you, there should be some kind of warning. An inkling in your bones that when the sun sets that day, nothing will ever be the same again. But there was nothing. Nothing, that is, until I’d hit the water.

The hard push of a hand on my back that sent me flying through the air. The feeling of panic as I fell into the pool unexpectedly, smashing into the surface, which felt as if it was made of concrete. Pain. The cold rush of water shooting up my nose and into my mouth. Instant headache. My arms desperately trying to grab something, anything . . . but nothing. And then sinking. Going deeper. The world above me blurring and distorting behind a wall of rippling water.

The silence was the most frightening part. The absence of sound, like I was no longer a part of the world above me. Like I was somewhere else entirely. A new world, where there was no air, no gravity, no noise, and no hope of ever breathing again.