Under the wave, I found out what I was made of. Realized no one is going to save me but me, that there is sometimes a choice—to stay or go—and that you might not know what you’ll choose until the breath has left your lungs and somewhere, past the blood pounding in your ears and the goodbye, world of a poppy high, you suddenly come face-to-face with the voice in your head, the hidden you, that spark of light that has been singing you out of the darkness for as long as you can remember. And she is wise and beautiful—maiden and mother and crone—and she says, she says, You are enough. And now you have a choice: to float or drown, and if you are enough, then drowning isn’t an option.

And just when you’re not sure how to keep your head above water, you see your mother doing boat pose on top of the ocean. Making herself a lifeboat. Looking at you like you can be your own lifeboat, too.

And then, far away on the shore, you hear a voice you love say, “Come back.”

So I did. I pulled my face out of that dark water, arched my back, reached behind me for my feet, and rode that wave that was trying to drown me, rode it all the way to the shore. One boat against the ocean. With the ocean.

But I didn’t come back for Drew. Or Mae. Or even for Mom and Dad. I came back for me.

Because this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb. That’s what the poem Jaipriya gave me was about. Rebirth. That poet was right: This darkness is the womb. One more chance to do right by the miracle.

I press my palms against the rough hospital sheets and think, We did it. I birthed myself, and it was a long and hard and painful labor, but I am alive and I am here. For good. Somewhere deep down inside me I knew—I know—that I won’t get another chance. Use it or lose it.

“Well, Blue, you look like shit.”

I open my eyes, and there’s Jo standing in the doorway of my hospital room, arms crossed, a phoenix tat hissing at me from its perch near her elbow. She looks like she’s just come from a goth biker meeting, all leather and ass-kicking boots and dark purple lipstick.

“I’m counting my fingers,” I say.

Mae stands from where she’d been sitting in the chair next to the bed and yawns. Her short hair is sticking up in all sorts of angles, her clothes rumpled, and there are dark rings under her eyes, but she smiles when she sees me, and I smile back.