I laugh.

‘Like that’s ever stopped me

throwing myself into the sea.’

I remember the cold in my bones

from last time and

wonder if it’s such a good idea

after all.

But the wave noises are like a clock

ticking down the minutes I have left with her.

And I don’t want to waste one more second

with questions.

He drops my hand and gets up.

For a moment, he just sits staring at me, panic shortening his breaths until he smiles.

He keeps his dark-stone eyes on mine as he reaches back –

grabs his T-shirt from behind his neck and –

pulls it up and over his head.

And under it I see a chest like a rippled seabed.

Skin smooth like stone.

Hips that curve and disappear under his trousers.

He stands up.

She looks at every centimetre of me.

I bend down to her,

wrapping my arms under her arms and legs

so our faces are centimetres apart.

‘This okay?’ I ask.

I hold his neck, tight.

‘This is okay,’ I say.

He picks me up, holds me to his body and I can feel his bare skin on my skin like we’re both electric.

He walks me over to the sea, where the noise of the waves is louder, and, for a moment, he just holds me over the water.

‘Um – you’re still in your clothes.

Did you want to …?’

But I don’t. I don’t want to pause and stop and think for one more minute.

I look down at the water and back up at him and I smile.

‘Throw me. Throw me in.’

I laugh.

‘What?’

I look at the door.

I lean in close to him, so our noses are almost touching.

‘Throw me.’

She looks at me

like a dare.

She flutters in my hand and

I let her fly.

And suddenly – water.

It isn’t like a bath. The sides are a whole stroke away, and so, for a moment, my head goes under the water and I lose my sense of who I was and who I am and everything.

And there are bubbles and a glug of water pulling at my ankles and wrists as I flap them, and my feet hit the bottom, so I tuck them up and I’m just

floating.

I’m just here. Home. Underwater.

And I open my eyes and see rippling blue on all sides. And I feel the water fluttering as I wave my fingers through it. And I hold my breath and let it bubble out in thick drops and I spin.

Twirl.

Pirouette.

In here, I’m a dancer. I’m a fish.

I’m home.

I gasp up for air and whoop loud, so the anxious look on Rowan’s face disappears.

I haven’t killed her.

She is

Alive.

I take off my trousers

and dive.