Dad’s voice is the loudest behind me, maybe No! or Stop! or my name, but it doesn’t really matter, because by now I’m flying through the air, and I am not Mona when I’m flying through the air for an impossibly long moment. I might be Mona when I hit the arching fronds of the ocean, the stinging contact, the cold, the sinking, the being whipped underneath and held there that threatens this choice to be the last choice I ever make. Maybe nothing tells one who one is like the threat of imminent death, of the girl you stand to lose, and if that’s true, then I’m a cougher, I’m a thrasher, I’m a not-yet-spent thing.

Float, I realize. Float, like Ellis taught you.

I’m underwater for what feels like too long, the cold seeping into my very sinews and heaving me further into the dark. But I push and push and then my mouth is up and out, searching for life, for a tomorrow where everyone is home and warm and safe and none of this sick shit ever happened to any of us: that’s what the first gulp of air tastes like. The salt slashes my throat but now I’ve at least got air and, flexing my shoulders, I’m moving against the angry rhythm of the waves towards the pier. I am intentional. I gag and cough a little and then I settle, moving in time, finally, with the ocean, with the brine. I’m breathing. That’s all there is. Breathe. But I can’t stay in here for long, I realize, or else I’ll lock up.

I twist my head to the ferry, moving further away with every oceanic lick. Dad leans over the railing, is making a commotion behind me, but as far as I can tell, nobody chases. The boat doesn’t turn round. Of course it doesn’t. It can’t. There’s no time.

There’s a hurricane coming.

Nothing can stop me now.

Ellis is something special and I have never been so sure of anything in my life.

I don’t care about Roxy any more. I’m throwing away everything, all my notes, everything I came here for. No Celeste. Nothing else matters now. I have to make this right.

I’m going to find my Ellis.

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 33