Breathing Underwater

by Sarah Allen

  “Heck,” I say, “I’m the one who just, like, volcanoed at you.”

  She gives me her wide-eyed look, but she’s grinning. “You did, didn’t you? That was … unexpected. Honestly kind of impressive. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Oof, I didn’t either,” I say, guilt splashed across my face. “And, Ruth?” I pull her close until I’m holding her forearm tight against me, carefully letting the IV cords flow out from between us. “You never, ever, ever, need to apologize for being sick.”

  I think of the whole pile of things we’ve done together, been together, and while we sit on the bed, I feel the truth of those words settling in me like an anchor on the ocean floor.

  “Olivia?” Ruth says. Her throat bobs again. “You do matter, you know.”

  “I know. I’m sorry for what I said. I—”

  “No, listen. You’re my … my no-filter person.” She sniffs and wipes a strand of plastered hair from her forehead. “My free person.”

  It takes a moment, but her words breeze in and fill me, like oxygen filling empty lungs. At least in this moment, the constant, anxious buzzing at the back of my mind is still.

  I say, “Because I’m your barnacle little sister and you know you’re stuck with me for life no matter how much I bug you.”

  She leans back into the bed and sighs like her whole body is exhaling. “Something like that, yeah,” she says. The grin she gives me is exhausted but utterly real.

  It’s strange how normal it feels talking to Ruth right now. Like some wide, deep river was between us before and we tried shouting across to each other but couldn’t really hear. And now we’re in the middle of the river, both of us.

  I watch her lying there, her eyes closed, and I think, If humans weren’t so drownable, we’d never have invented sailing ships and submarines.

  “Actually, I changed my mind,” Ruth says. “I could use some water.”

  I fill a plastic cup at the tap and hand it to her before sitting in the bedside chair. She takes a sip, gives another exhale, and gives the cup to me.

  “Thanks,” she says.

  I hold her cup in both hands and lean back in the chair. “Anytime.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  My favorite picture from the trip is one someone else took. Ellie took it the night we were at the hospital. In the picture, my arms are draped across Ruth’s legs. We each have an earbud in one ear. We must have fallen asleep listening to Pink Floyd or Philip Glass. The light from the lamp illuminates half of each of our faces. Running between the fingers of my right hand is a tube from Ruth’s IV.

  I called it Treasure Hunters.

  Mom and Dad spent a good long time talking with Ruth in the hospital. And then in the hotel where we rested and slept and watched The Twilight Zone for a few days. Ruth took long, restful naps, ate spoonfuls of peanut butter and handfuls of popcorn while we watched TV, and even had a couple phone calls with her therapist.

  Ellie and Eddie went between checking in on us, driving around southern California in the RV, and sneaking extra time at the beach. Ellie said that when we get home, we’ll have a party with lots of treats and I can put on a slideshow of my best pictures. I showed them the picture I took of Ned the sea turtle, and every time they came to visit at the hotel, they brought me a new sea turtle figurine or key chain or necklace. I’m super excited about the new turtle collection that will definitely take the spot on the top of my dresser once we get home.

  During our hotel R&R days, Mom bought these big one-hundred-milliliter water bottles and boxes of Crystal Light mix and Dad ordered up a big platter of shrimp cocktail, Ruth’s favorite. She ate half the platter all on her own and Mom watched her and was smiling at her the whole time.

  I also got to order up French toast from room service. My favorite. In the middle of our Twilight Zone marathon, we rented Babe, and Ruth even smiled at the singing mice.

  That first night in the hospital, when Mom and Dad arrived just before the sun was about to wake up, they talked to the nurse and the doctor and Ruth and made sure she was okay. Then they both wrapped me in a hug sandwich and asked me if I was okay. I knew if I ever needed anything, if I ever wasn’t okay, they would keep me wrapped up like that until I felt better. Right then, though, I hugged them back and told them yes, I was okay. It was the truth.

  And now we’re all diving pirate ships.

  We went to the beach a week after the hospital. After a week of sleep and food and water. After my parents had conversations with the doctors and Ruth’s therapist, making sure this trip, this dive, was still going to be all right. At the beach, all the adults sat with the towels and treats while Ruth and I walked along the sand to our cave. We both walked slowly.

  “You okay?” Ruth said.

  My face must have been putting on quite the anxious show considering she was the one asking that question.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. I’m glad we’re finally here.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  Then we were at the cave. We stepped inside. The space still felt huge. There were boulders big enough for climbing piled up in the middle, just like before, and a big circle in the ceiling opening up to the sky. This place had always seemed like a cathedral to me.

  We didn’t immediately walk over to the far corner where we’d buried our box. Instead, I ran my hands along the yellow rock walls. Ruth followed behind me, until slowly I touched my way into the shadows.

  Both of us remembered right where to dig. We hadn’t brought shovels, but dug in wrist deep into the sand. We sped up our digging, flinging sand like dog-paddlers. We dug until the shadows shifted. We dug until our hole was a foot wider and two feet deeper than we both knew it needed to be. I flung one last plum-size rock out of the empty hole and sat back against the cave wall. Then Ruth sat back too, next to me. We didn’t say anything, just felt our sand-raw fingertips and listened to the seagulls caterwauling above us.

  “Well,” Ruth said finally. “I know it’s not what you hoped. I’m sorry.”

  The tide slept low outside the cave, but inside my own skin it rose and rose and rose. A tide of all the things I couldn’t change and couldn’t control. Good days, bad days. Sisters, music in other people’s ears, thoughts in their brain. Treasure buried in the sand. Even photographs, like the photographic subjects themselves, could shock me. Take me off guard. Could be full of surprises. New, old, magic, gold surprises.

  The tide spilled; not a storm, but a release. And Ruth knew just how to scoot over closer and how to put her arm around my shoulders. Just how, after a moment of letting tears streak down the dirt on my face, to gently lift both my feet and set them into our hole, next to her own feet, and then push sand over them again and again until I managed to sniff myself together and start shoving sand in too. Until both our feet and legs were buried calf-deep. Until I started laughing, laughing from that fresh, deep part of me, until Ruth caught it too and we laid our heads back in the sand and looked up at the hole to the sky and laughed wildly until even the seagulls were outdone.

  We can’t control the waves and the tides.

  But we can swim in them.

  I am breathing underwater. It’s been over a week since the night at the hospital. We are floating around coral and sunken ships with thick goggles and flippers, and oxygen tanks on our backs. It always surprises me how light the burden of those tanks is when you’re submerged.

  My camera is doing well in its special case. Ruth and I swim around the stern side of the ship. The professional divers, our guides, keep an eye on things from above us. Mom, Dad, Ellie, and Eddie are all around here somewhere too, looking at fish and sea turtles. Eddie’s biggest goal is to see an octopus.

  The water is tinted a misty green. There’s rough, scaly coral plastered over almost every surface, and little tubes and ropy things and pricklys sticking up out of the sand. There are pops of yellow and purple through the green water, and starfish clinging to the sides of the ships. Peering in through rusted-out holes
and broken beams makes me feel like a true Treasure Hunter, a true explorer. We swim in and out of the remains of the ships like squeezing in and out of rib cages. Bits of seaweed hula all around us like they’re listening to a song.

  With just the pictures I’ve got in front of me right this moment, I’ve got more than enough for a lifetime. More than enough to keep going.

  I snap picture after picture of Ruth running her hands along the hull, swimming down face-to-face with the coral.

  Ruth takes a turn with the camera too. A clown fish darts like a bullet from his anemone, right in front of my goggles, and scares me so bad I nearly lose my oxygen. I’m pretty sure Ruth caught the moment on camera because even through her goggles and breathing mask I think, right now, she’s laughing.

  Another picture for the “Sisters” folder. There’s a lot to add.

  People, I think, are not so much like oceans or puddles or rivers. I think they’re more like planets, whole planets, with all kinds of oceans and puddles and rivers of their own. Some people splash easy, some people dive deep fast, but we’re all sinking and swimming together.

  I dive to the ocean floor and dig my fingers into the sand. I swim around the ship’s side and put my nose inches from the old, mossy wood. The world here is green. Every snapped beam, every crooked mast, is a story. Multicolored fish swim in and out of the cracks and gaps and holes.

  A hand on my shoulder pulls me from my glazed-over daydreaming. It’s Ruth, of course. She taps her head, like she’s had an idea. I nod. She puts her hands in circles and holds them up to her goggles, looking through them like binoculars. I must look confused, because she holds her hands out, thinks for a second, then starts signing. The letters come slowly to her hands; it’s been a long time.

  She signs: T-R-E-A-S-U-R-E.

  Treasure. Treasure Hunt.

  I nod again, this time so hard I nearly bang my head on my tank. If it were possible to bounce underwater, I would be.

  We give each other the okay sign. Then I shrug to say, What’s our word? She gets it, and pauses to think. She signs again:

  B-R-E-A-T-H-I-N-G.

  Breathing. Our Treasure Hunt word today is breathing. I wish I could take a picture of the entire planet. O-K-A-Y, I sign.

  Something Breathing.

  Maybe I’ll find rocks that look like lungs. Maybe I’ll take a picture of the way waves go in and out like a sigh. Maybe I’ll manage a close-up of a fish’s gills.

  Something Breathing.

  I watch Ruth swim away, looking for treasure. As Ruth swims, she glides into a sunbeam from the surface. It catches her and she looks up, her flippers sashaying below her. Bubbles from her mask pop on their way upward.

  I lift my camera.

  I take a picture.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For all my treasures—

  SOMETHING NEW

  When I wrote the earliest drafts of this story back in 2013, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t know how much digging and exploring and soul-searching and revising were ahead of me. I’ve rewritten this story so many times I’ve lost count, but what I do know is that at each step, I’ve had people helping and supporting me, and each of those people has added something new and helped me bring this story bit by bit closer to its true form.

  To Kim, Jessica, Jen, Bridey, Tiffany, and Roommate. Thank you for being there from the beginning of this story, when Johnson was still a thing. Thank you for helping me learn, mature, and grow in empathy, and for forgiving me and putting up with me when that learning and growth was slow. I couldn’t have written this without you.

  Thank you to Ellie Terry, Cindy Baldwin, and Amanda Rawson Hill for taking a chance on this story in Pitch Wars ’16. Dear reader, if these women and their books are new to you, get thee to a bookstore, because their books are treasures indeed. Thank you to all my Pitch Wars friends for supporting and believing in me when I was well and truly new.

  Thank you to Ellie and Madeleine for your invaluable sensitivity reads and wisdom about mental health representation. You are both incredible, and any errors are mine.

  To John Bennion, Dawan Coombs, Chris Crowe, Martine Leavitt, and the other amazing English department faculty at BYU. Thank you for letting me write a children’s novel for my graduate thesis, and for the encouragement and supportive environment you fostered. I hope you know how precious that was to me.

  To my new #roaring20sdebut friends. You’ve already helped me more than you know.

  SOMETHING OLD

  My oldest treasure, my parents. Thank you, Mom, for bringing me to the library whenever I wanted, for reading to me, and for having the most passionate and empathetic view of people and the world of anyone I know. Thank you, Dad, for your endless wisdom and passing on your book addiction. When I was little, you said you thought we were friends before we were born. I think you were right.

  Oh, my siblings. I love you so much, and I could not have written this without you. Thank you for always supporting me in my crazy schemes and dreams. If I die first, I’ll save our spot for the heavenly Fantasmic!, right in the back center by that trash can. I’ve got the blankets. Bring funnel cake.

  Thank you to my grandparents. You four are like the corners of a tent protecting me against a storm. Thank you for providing such a solid foundation. Thank you to all my aunts and uncles and cousins, and I know there are a lot of you (a lot), but I hope you know how much I’ve learned from watching you over the years and how much each of you means to me.

  SOMETHING MAGIC

  With all the carving and chiseling and adding of new things with each draft, ultimately I needed someone truly magical who could fix all the unwieldiness and bring this story to life. That person was Melissa Warten, editor extraordinaire and true magician. I had such high hopes for this story from the beginning, and you’ve absolutely taken it above and beyond. If this story is whole, if it breathes, it’s because of your sparkling wizardry. Thank you, thank you, and to the entire FSG team for making this story happen.

  (And thanks to my magic feather. You know who you are.)

  Thank you, also, to Brianne Johnson, Allie Levick, and the other fabulous magicians at Writers House. You brought this story to its perfect home and have always had my back. I would be stumbling through a magicless desert without you.

  A wide-eyed, awestruck thank you to cover artist Alisa Coburn for somehow taking these two characters I’ve had in my head for so long and putting them so perfectly and magically in color. You are nothing less than an art alchemist.

  SOMETHING GOLD

  Which brings me to you, dear reader. You are my gold at the end of this Treasure Hunt. You might feel most like Ruth, or you might feel like Olivia. Either way, you are worth more than all the gold in the universe. The maker of this universe filled it mind-bogglingly full of treasures of all kinds, everywhere you look, and He treasures you, you specifically and individually, above it all. I do, too.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sarah Allen has been published in The Evansville Review, Allegory, and on WritersDigest. She has an MFA from Brigham Young University. Like Libby in her novel What Stars are Made Of, Allen was born with Turner Syndrome. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapte
r Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

  An imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC

  120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271

  Text copyright © 2021 by Sarah Allen

  All rights reserved

  First hardcover edition, 2021

  eBook edition, 2021

  mackids.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Allen, Sarah Elisabeth, author.

  Title: Breathing underwater / Sarah Allen.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, 2021. | Audience: Ages 10–14. | Audience: Grades 7–9. | Summary: During a road trip, thirteen-year-old Olivia, a budding photographer, tries to recreate a Treasure Hunt she once shared with her sixteen-year-old sister, Ruth, while watching for signs that Ruth’s depression is back.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020015760 | ISBN 9780374313258 (hardcover)

  Subjects: CYAC: Sisters—Fiction. | Photography—Fiction. | Depression, Mental—Fiction. | Treasure hunt (Game)—Fiction. | Automobile travel—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.A4394 Bre 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015760

  Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  eISBN 9780374313265