by M. C. Frank
I can’t, of course. That’s what too late means.
Everything turns to black and I feel myself slipping away from the hold of these strong arms that had grasped me, sinking downwards.
My dad will die when they tell him, is my last thought. Today is not the day. . . Oh, never mind.
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two
“Breathe, dammit, breathe! Don’t die on me, come on!”
A rough voice blasts commands in my ear, but I can’t answer because something is pounding on my chest with so much force that almost all the water I had swallowed comes out in a rush.
“Okay,” the voice sighs loudly. It sounds like someone is panting heavily. “Okay.”
“Is she alive?” another voice asks.
“Shut up,” the first one answers sharply.
I gasp and choke some more, trying to breathe in enough air to stop my lungs from burning.
It takes a while to register that I’m alive. But then again I’m shaking violently and I’m so cold it hurts to breathe and rivulets of water are running from my turquoise swimming suit. So maybe I’m not entirely alive after all.
I open my eyes to blurry shapes all around me and pain hits me with a force that knocks the breath out of me. My head pounds, my leg muscles scream in agony, my armpits hurt as though I was dragged with force.
I am on a hard, uncomfortable surface that hurts my ribs. Strong hands grab my back and lift me to an upright position, and I throw up more water. Fingers brush my dripping hair out of my eyes and I curl into a fetal position trying not to go crazy from the pain in my head.
Then a soft, gentle, slightly mocking voice, whispers in my ear with a really superior English accent:
“Don’t move, you idiot.”
I try to push whoever is talking away, but even that movement is enough to send my migraine over the edge and I black out again.
The next time I come to, someone is yelling into a phone, right above my head.
I am lying in a bed now, which is a great improvement from before, but everything, from my body to the bedclothes, probably to the mattress underneath, is soaked wet.
“Are you kidding me, mate? What the hell do I have to dial around here to get an ambulance? What? You want me to ask you in Greek? How should I know? WHAT are you saying? Come on!”
The voice fades into silence, defeated, and then an infernal tapping begins.
“Please stop,” I try to say, but it comes out all choked and croaky.
“Oh, you’re up,” the voice says again next to my ear.
And then I get it. Oh no. Please don’t let it be true. I turn and look at his face. Sunny blonde curls and green eyes swim into focus. Yep, it’s true. It’s him.
“Are you all right?” he asks, and suddenly my vision field is full of his green eyes.
The tortured look is pretty hot on him.
“Fine,” I croak. Wait. Did I just think that the pirate looks hot? The one who just called me stupid? These headaches are messing with my head.
“What a moron—,” he goes on, mumbling a string of curses.
“Yeah, you said,” I interrupt. He looks surprised, as though he didn’t expect an answer.
“Since you can speak now, can you tell me how to call an ambulance?”
I try to raise myself on one elbow, but my head swims again and I lean back, everything turning black again.
“Hey hey hey,” he says, his voice going gentle. He runs over to place a hand beneath my neck and lifts me up, since I landed in an awkward angle like a stupid infant that can’t hold up its own head. “No more fainting, we’ve had enough for one day. Just hold on a bit longer, they’ll be here in a moment, yeah?”
“Why d’you need an. . . ? Are you hurt?” I ask, slurring my words, and for a moment he doesn’t answer, because a hacking cough shakes me again.
He’s also soaking wet. Which would have been sexy, judging from the photo-spread on the Young People magazine I was reading the other day, except he’s fully dressed, in a white button-down rolled at the elbows, and a fancy pair of dark boat shorts. His shirt has gone transparent, and it’s clinging to his stomach and biceps.
“What?” he asks, watching as my gaze travels all over his waterlogged clothes. Then his expression changes. “What are you, stupid? Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand what’s happening here, you almost—”
“Stop yelling at me!” I protest, before I start coughing some more, and he makes an exasperated gesture with his phone-holding hand.
“It’s for you, you twit.”
I clench my teeth against the pain and get up slowly and dizzily. He doesn’t move to help me but he doesn’t leave either. He keeps watching me with this faintly mocking, detached stare that makes me want to punch his blond locks right out of his stupid English forehead.
“I don’t need one,” I say.
He shrugs. Shrugs.
“You should probably change.” I have already turned my back on him, and I lean a trembling arm to the wood-paneled wall to steady myself. And now it dawns on me. I am on his boat. His M&M yacht.
The room I’m standing in is an extravagantly luxurious tiny bedroom, with a huge flat screen embedded on the wall and a wide, modern-design bed covered with a white bedspread that right now just lays there limp, wet and wrinkled. I feel my cheeks burn and turn to try to tidy it up.
The next second, five long fingers are wrapped around my wrist and my chilled skin tingles as it comes in contact with his warmth. “What are you doing?” He looks down at me, his eyes turning to ice. “You need to go to the hospital. Or wait. . .is there a hospital in this hole of a place?”
And he’s back to his usual self.
“Did I say thank you?” I ask, suddenly realizing that I didn’t.
“You did not.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Listen, if we’re not going to call an ambulance, would you mind getting out for a sec? I need to change.” He’s already lifting his clinging shirt over lean, well-sculpted back muscles. They would have impressed me much more if he hadn’t just thrown me out of the room. But I can’t even care about his rudeness right now.
I’m terrified.
I don’t think I have ever been more scared in my life.
What happened out there? Was I really dying? I would have died. I almost did. There is of course no question of a hospital, but. . . well, what am I supposed to do? Just wait until the next migraine actually succeeds in killing me?
Am I still slowly dying, even though I was pulled from the water?
Hot tears burn my lids but I refuse to let them fall.
There are six people watching me curiously as I emerge on the upper deck. Five girls—one of them is Elle, the only one I recognize, and she looks like a bikini goddess, a long cigarette resting lightly on her scarlet lips—and a guy are sitting by a hot tub. The guy—it’s Ollie—jumps up as soon as he sees me and rushes to my side, taking my elbow, swearing.
“What are you doing up?” he says, his blue eyes dark with concern. “Hey, get over here. Sit down before you fall over.”
I sit on a wide lounger and lean my head between my knees until the wave of dizziness passes. He swears some more, kneeling next to me, while the girls snicker.
“I’m fine,” I say, “so sorry for. . .everything.”
“Sorry? Wha—Dude, I’m freaking out right now,” he says. “I can’t even begin to think of what might have happened. I mean, we were all facing the other way, we hadn’t even seen you. Next thing I know there’s a splash, and Wes has dived in after you in his clothes and in his shoes.” He says this as though it’s a big deal. And, I suppose, if you’re Spencer the Tristan pirate, it is.
He gazes out to the sea. “He lost
them, too,” he adds incredulously. “Josh, he’s with the crew, he jumped in after him, and helped bring you on deck. But even he wouldn’t have seen you if Wes hadn’t. . .How are you feeling?”
“I think I’m good.”
He turns to look at the fast approaching coastline. “Well, how long do ambulances take around here?” he asks eventually.
“Uh. . .I said not to call one,” I say to Ollie, shivering. He looks at me, surprised, and I have the strange feeling that he, too, thinks that I’m an idiot. Although he’s too well-mannered to say so. “I’m fine, really.”
“Are you cold?” a soft voice to my left asks.
A slim girl gets up walks over to sit down next to me, offering me a cardigan of sugary white fabric that gleams in the sunlight. She is dark-skinned, with rich brown hair and dimples on her cheeks. I like her immediately.
“I’ll get seawater on it,” I hesitate, as another cough shakes me.
“Just put it on,” she says easily and drapes it over my shoulders. “It’s for the cleaners anyway.” She smiles. “I’m Anna.”
And then I recognize her. She’s Anna Dell, the famous British actress of the popular teen vampire TV series, the one who always walks around with a pint of blood smothered all over her plump lips.
“Thanks,” I tell her as I furrow into the warmth of the sweater.
“No prob,” she answers. “You’re the stunt girl, right? Ared. . . ”
“Ariadne,” I say, smiling back. “But everyone calls me Ari.”
“Right, Ari,” she gives me her manicured hand, laughing, and then she leans close. She’s petite, shorter than me, and a light, fruity perfume wafts from her skin with her every movement. “I have to tell you, I’m so excited to work so close to a stunt actor! I haven’t ever before, so I might fangirl a little.”
“But I thought. . .with the vampires. . .” I say lamely, thrown by her enthusiasm.
She shakes her head. “That was TV, doing a film is completely different, you’ll see.”
“Well, judging by today,” I say dryly, “maybe Tim should have picked a different stunt person.”
She laughs, her dimples twinkling, and slides her palm in mine, as though we’re best friends already. “Hey, accidents happen,” she says, turning serious. “Thank God Wes spotted you before you went down again. Oh, that’s him now.”
He’s changed into a striped V-neck sweater and a pair of long white shorts, which are showing off his long, tan legs.
His still damp hair sends droplets all over the wooden floor as he walks, but he strides forward carelessly, ignoring the seven pairs of eyes that are fixed on him. He flops onto a chaise-longue, crossing said legs at the knee and puts on his headphones, gazing coolly into the distance while sipping from a bottle he’s holding in his left hand.
“Dude,” Ollie says to him under his breath, “where’s the ambulance?”
Wes shrugs. “She said she didn’t want one.” He still doesn’t turn to look at me—nor at anyone else for that matter.
“She did?” Ollie asks a bit uncertainly, glancing at me. “Still, I think we should call one. What if she. . . ?”
Wes cuts him off impatiently. “What can I do.”
His head sways with the rhythm of the music slightly.
“Look,” I interrupt, feeling my temples begin to throb again. “We are a lot closer to the shore than we were. Do you think there’s a way I could get out? I’ve my car parked on the beach.”
“Why don’t you swim to the shore?” Wes says, with a glance to Elle and the other bikini girls, who start laughing as though he said the most amazing thing in the world. “You seem to be so good at that.”
That’s it, I’ve had enough of this.
I get up, but a hand on my arm stops me. I turn and meet Anna’s warm brown eyes. She shoots me a warning look beneath her bangs. “Come on, we’re dropping anchor. Do you mind if I come with? I want to go to town today.”
“I’ll come too,” Ollie says, looking at me, “just to make sure you’re all right.”
Wes lets out a snort and Ollie shoots him a murderous stare.
I get up on sore legs. “Thank you,” I say again, although Wes is looking the other way. “Although I think you should be the one to thank me,” I mutter under my breath and his eyes snap at me behind his sunglasses.
“You think what?”
“I think you should thank me,” I repeat. “I clearly saved you from the most boring morning of your life.”
His lazy pose doesn’t change. He bothers to answer me, but he isn’t even looking at me. “You think you did me a favor by almost drowning next to my yacht? You know, you really are st—”
“Stupid?” I interrupt, tired of hearing it. “Yeah, I am the stupid one, not you, sitting here in your college sweater in the scorching sun, chugging your whiskey in the middle of the morning, just killing time in your M&M boat”—here a loud snort interrupts me, but I’m on a roll, can’t stop now—“missing all the beauty of one of the most gorgeous islands of the Mediterranean. . .Yeah, that’s not stupid.”
He gets up.
That’s new.
“M&M?” is all he says.
“Whatever,” I answer, and the coolness of this answer is completely destroyed by a hacking cough that doubles me in two. I’m not sure, but I think a bit of seawater may have come out as well. I stumble and Ollie catches me.
“That’s it,” he says, “let’s go.” Then he turns to Wes and his blue eyes darken. “And you, Darce, please dude, no more diving until you’re sober.”
“Eff off, Binge,” Wes says without turning around, and downs the entire bottle in one swoop.
◊◊◊
I spend the afternoon in bed, hiding from my dad and dozing off with my earplugs in. This groggy feeling is far from unfamiliar to me; I’ve swallowed too much water while training so many times, it’s nothing new to me. I usually know what to expect: there will be coughing up water and a clogged nose for two days, tops. But this time, it’s different. There’s a dark feeling at the pit of my stomach that says this is way worse than a stunt gone wrong. Every few minutes I wake up to cough up a bit more saltwater—which is also coming out of my nose and ears, nice—while piling up the painkillers.
At about eight I call Coach.
“Yo there, Ars,” he says around a mouthful of chips—these days he’s binge-watching the 1994 FIFA World Cup USA, from the qualifying rounds to the Final. “How’s it hangin’?”
His name is Ben, but I’ve called him Coach since I’ve known him—he insisted on it. He lived in Pasadena before he started working with me, but these past two years he’s kind of relocated in Corfu, on account of her hiring him as my coach. At first I was dead-set on refusing her, because it was her, but as soon as I saw him, I knew he would change my life.
And he has.
Kids at school didn’t take me seriously when I said I was training to become a stunt actor, but as soon as they saw this huge black dude following me around, forbidding me to stay up later than ten at night and forcing me to the gym straight after school, they began to get it.
Coach is pretty intimidating. He looks like one of those really ripped athletes you see on the TV during the Olympics, with his fierce stare, his buzz cut and a deep voice that can scare the hell out of you.
“Not good,” I croak.
I hear a sudden movement as though he is sitting up, and I know I have his full attention. “What’s up, honey?” He goes all protective-dad on me.
The fact that he already suspected that there was something going on with me drives me nuts right now. I clear my throat, which hurts like there are razors being dragged across my skin on account of all the coughing.
“It’s the dive from the Rubble, I don’t think I can do it.”
“Oh, dude, is that all?” Coach asks, relieved. “I’ll take you out there and we’ll knock it out of the park.”
“Well, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I went there today and yesterday with dad, and
I can tell you my performance left a lot to be desired.”
“Don’t get all technical, judge-y on me, Ars, you can do it, I know you can.”
“Maybe it’s because the pressure is on, you know; after all I got this job because of. . .”
“No, Ars, don’t give me any of that.” His voice gets fierce. “You auditioned for this part fair and square. You don’t owe anyone anything, all right?”
“I know.”
“Besides, I saw you owning that dive last week.”
“I did own it then, but I don’t anymore. I just. . .I know that this will be one of the scenes they’re gonna film me in, maybe I’m just not. . .”
“Ari, Ari, stop honey, breathe. Listen to me.” I hear him sigh, and then a crinkling sound, as though he’d putting down the bag of chips. I imagine him leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his eyebrows drawing together like they do whenever he’s concentrating. “You got this, okay? I haven’t seen anyone with more passion and energy at this job. Believe me, I know. You have the technique, you have the talent, you’ve got the determination. I’m proud of you, Ars. And I don’t say that easily.”
“No, you don’t,” I agree quietly. “Thanks, Coach.”
“Anytime. Now go get some sleep, yeah? I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I turn my phone off and sleep like the dead. Which wasn’t such a great idea after all—the shutting off of my phone, I mean—because the next morning when I wake up and turn it back on, I have a mini stroke.
◊◊◊
So, of course, I call Katia.
Katia has been my best friend ever since I can remember myself. My grandma used to work as a seamstress back then, working in a small alterations shop in a tiny street just behind the busy tourist market. Katia’s mom came in one day wanting to let out a skirt, and I was playing soccer in the street, just outside. Naturally, just as Katia—five years old then, same as me—appeared, sucking on her thumb, I sent my ball flying in an ambitious assist. It landed on her head. We have been best friends ever since.