She’s gone.
My Jo.
My world.
Gone.
My arms fall to my sides in defeat. My eyelids slam closed to trap the flow of useless tears. And as my agonized yell rends the heavens… another sound reaches my ringing ears. Not the slapping of waves against the hull, not the patter of rain, not the booming of thunder.
But a cough.
Small.
Weak.
Alive.
“Jo!” I gasp out, eyes flying open. I bend over her, cupping her face in my hands. “Can you hear me? Oh god, Jo!Jo!”
It isn’t like the movies. She doesn’t snap back into consciousness, sit straight up and throw her arms around me in a fit of joy. Water gurgles from her mouth like a kinked hose, a feeble trickle. She coughs again, more urgently this time, eyelids fluttering. She’s drowning on the contents of her own lungs. I roll her onto her side so she can clear her airway. For a long moment, I simply hold her there, paralyzed by relief as I listen to her taking ragged breaths. Rubbing her back as she spits and coughs and wheezes her way back to life.
She’s breathing.
Thank fucking god she’s breathing.
Without warning, the boat rocks under a particularly large wave, wooden deck planks creaking ominously as the stern see-saws up and down. I grab hold of Jo before she’s launched back into the water, pulling her into the circle of my arms. I’m afraid to embrace her too tightly, but I’m even more afraid to let go.
“You’re okay,” I whisper against the crown of her head, holding her close. Her hair is slick with water, the strands plastered against her cheeks in a wet curtain. “You’re going to be just fine, Jo.”
Above us, the storm rages on, wild winds stirring the ocean into a fury that’s liable to toss us directly onto the rocks. With no one at the helm to guide her, the Ebenezer spins in dizzying circles, completely untethered amidst the thrashing tides. But I can’t bring myself to move to the wheelhouse. Can’t bring myself to put even an inch of space between myself and the half-conscious girl in my arms.
Not yet, anyway.
For several long moments, I merely press my lips to her hair and listen to her breathe. Reassure myself that the thready pulse I feel at her wrist is not going to stop again. Allow my brain to catch up to my own thudding heart.
Lightning cracks.
Rains plummet.
Waves crash.
And I hold her.
She’s alive.
She’s alive.
She’s alive.
ELEVEN
josephine
I’m alive.
In an unforeseen stroke of fate, I find myself breathing and back on solid ground. Or… not exactlysolid. The first thing that registers in my sodden brain — besides the fact that I am, in fact, still able to use my brain — is that the ground seems to be shifting up and down like a bad carnival ride. I hear the distinctly fluid melody of waves crashing against the hull, and realize I’m still at sea.
Someone must’ve heard my distress call after all.