And I’m so cold. So, so, so cold.

I find Lex’s lighter in my pocket, but the tiny flame doesn’t do a thing against the dark that’s swallowed me up. I wonder if Cole can see the orange glow of it. I wonder if he’s still looking for me.

He promised me he’d find me.

Thinking about Cole opens up a painful crack somewhere inside my chest. It feels like being split in two.

And then I hear the whispering.

I flick the lighter again. And again. I close my eyes. Hum a tune. Count to ten.

But there’s no way to block out the sound.

So I take just one step toward those voices. Just one.

I’m pulling wet air into my lungs. It’s like breathing water.

Then I register the slap of ice-cold waves against my knees.

I’m standing in the sound again.

My mind can’t make sense of it. It doesn’t know how to bend that far. But I feel the truth of it.

Ice-cold water.

The kiss of seaweed and the squish of thick sand.

I walk backward and backward. One foot. Then the other. One tiny, shuffling step at a time. Until I can’t feel the water slipping over my toes anymore.

Lex’s lighter is still clutched in my hand. I flick it. But nothing happens. It must have gotten wet. I stand at the edge of the ocean, trying to remember how I got here.

And then I hear a sound behind me. A single soft word in the fog.

“Mom?”

And I turn to look into my own eyes.

ACT III: SCENE 3

I back away from myself, and the fog fills up the space between me and her. That other girl with the white-blonde hair. And my face. I can’t see her anymore, and I feel better with that distance between us.

Until I back into someone else.

I spin around to face George, the Whisper Cove caretaker. He’s standing right there. I can smell alcohol on his breath. That’s how close he is to me.

“You’re not supposed to be down here. Late like this.” My voice won’t work. I’ve forgotten how to form words. “Come on,” George says, and he clicks on a huge flashlight before he turns to go. But I can’t make myself follow him. Not George.

Where’s Cole? He’s supposed to be the one who finds me.

When I hesitate, George grabs me by the arm and pulls me along behind him. “Come on,” he grumbles. “I can’t leave you down here.” So this will be the second time in my life that he’s found me on the beach and dragged me up the hill.