I lose sight of Lex as soon as he steps off the porch, but I hear the crunch of his feet on the gravel path, heading toward the bathroom. I listen to his footsteps until they fade away.

And then I’m all alone.

But I don’t go inside. I’m too tired to get up, and I keep thinking about those new almost memories. Those flashes. Or whatever they are.

The one on the beach with Val. A cold hand tight around my wrist.

And the sea porch. How I knew what it was called. That green-striped awning.

Then the moment on the steps with Lex. Blinding light in my eyes.

I’ve never been able to remember the night my mother died. Or anything before that, either. It’s like the sea washed everything away. It stole all my memories and spit me out clean. Oxygen deprivation, the doctors said.

I drowned, after all.

But what if being here is opening up some kind of locked drawer inside my head?

I know that’s what Dad was worried about. And I swore to him that I could handle it. Because if I could find just one real memory of her—of my mother—it would make all the difference in the world.

Suddenly I’m overwhelmed by a familiar ache. It’s such a deep, constant part of me, that longing for my mother, but it still takes me by surprise when it strikes fast and hard like this. It feels like being hit in the stomach with a baseball bat.

It sucks the air out of my lungs and leaves me gasping.

I reach for the cigarette lighter Lex left on the steps. I flick it with my thumb, and the flame comes to life in my hands. It’s a familiar feeling, and just holding it makes me feel more in control.

I touch the lighter to a string hanging from the edge of my towel, and the flame eats it alive. Gobbles it up in a rush of light. A bright flash. And then it’s gone. I burn another string. And then another. And another. Until there are none left. Then I take my other hand and hold my palm just above the lighter’s flame. I like the heat it gives off. And the brightness. The pain of it. Like the catch in my lungs and the ache of my muscles after that long swim back to the beach.

The burn proves that I’m alive.

I slip Lex’s lighter into my pocket, and I sit there listening to the low moan of the foghorn.

And then maybe there’s another sound—a barely there sound that drifts into my ears like cigarette smoke—and at first I think Lex has come back from the bathroom. I stand up. Say his name into the darkness.

And that’s when the whispering starts.

ACT I: SCENE 4