The Art of Not Breathing

by Sarah Alexander

  “Help, someone! I need help,” he cries. “She’s fainted.”

  There’s the overhang. My legs, strong and powerful, propel me through the arch and out into the open water. Then I follow the moon’s reflection to get back to the surface. When I break through, I’m out farther than I thought, at least a hundred meters from the rocks, and the water out here is choppy. Rain stings my face as I swim back to shore, Eddie’s T-shirt clenched tightly in my fist.

  Mum wasn’t wearing her coat when she arrived at the beach. And yet my father had it in his hands. Dillon was right. She must have been there on the beach earlier that day, and she’d left her coat ­behind.

  5

  The wet ground soothes the cuts on my feet as I walk through the deserted high street, toward the harbor. It’s nearly nine p.m. when I get there.

  Inside the boathouse, I find Tay leaning against the wall, his head shrouded in smoke.

  “Shit, what happened?” His eyes are wide, and he holds out a blanket toward me. It’s like he’s moving in slow motion. Or maybe it’s me moving slowly.

  I hold up Eddie’s T-shirt. It takes a few seconds, and then Tay groans.

  “Where did you get this?” he asks, reaching out to touch it.

  I don’t answer, because it’s a rhetorical question.

  “I found your note,” I say. “Who is D? Danny? Dillon?”

  “Your brother. I’m so sorry, El. I wanted to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” My voice is deep and shaky. “Please, I’m so confused.”

  Tay grabs my hand, possibly to stop me reaching out and smacking him. He’s trembling.

  “I wanted to tell you everything, but I couldn’t because I made a pact,” he whispers. “I promised Danny.”

  Danny, Dillon, Tay. They all know something, and I’m completely in the dark. I wrench out of Tay’s grip and slide back toward the corner by the loose panel. I can’t bear to be near him, yet I need to hear the truth. I lay Eddie’s T-shirt over my knees and run my fingers across the lion logo. It’s frayed and bobbled from its years spent in the cave under all those stones.

  “Just talk,” I say. “Tell me what happened to Eddie.”

  Tay’s eyes are pink, from the weed, from the lies.

  “It was an accident,” he starts. “I’d only gone down to the beach to get Danny’s bike because he’d left it there earlier in the day.”

  “What happened earlier?”

  “We followed Uncle Mick down to the Point on our bikes because Danny thought he was up to something. We saw Mick arguing with this woman down by the lighthouse. Then there was all this commotion, people yelling, and Mick and the woman raced to the car and drove off. Danny went crazy about his dad being with someone other than his mom, and kicked his bike to pieces. He had to run home because he was already grounded and wasn’t supposed to be out. I couldn’t carry his bike back while I was riding, so I went back for it later.”

  “What was the commotion?”

  Tay screws up his face up so tight, I can’t even see where his eyes are.

  “I didn’t know anything bad had happened. I swear. I would’ve stayed to help. I thought it was just excitement over the dolphins.”

  “You thought that people screaming was excitement over the dolphins? Are you insane?”

  “No! It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t close enough to see what was going on.” Tay pauses but I keep quiet, waiting for him to tell me what happened.

  “It was dark when I went back,” he continues. “As I was trying to put the chain back on the bike, I saw Danny on the beach. I was pissed off with him for not telling me he was coming, because it was freezing and I would’ve stayed in and finished my computer game if I’d known. I crept up and wrestled him down onto the pebbles. But it wasn’t Danny, just someone who looked like him. It was Dillon. Then he shouted that he could see something in the water. We both waded in up to our waists, and there was definitely something there . . .”

  Tay’s voice cracks. I brace myself for what’s coming next. Blood pulses loudly in my ears. I picture Tay and Dillon on the beach. Tay would’ve been twelve, and Dillon thirteen. Two boys who didn’t know each other, alone in the dark, about to . . .

  “I didn’t know it was a body,” Tay whispers.

  “Stop!” I shout. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  Images flash through my mind of Eddie’s drowned body covered in seaweed and scum, all floppy and gray and blue and swollen. As much as I want the truth, I can’t bear it. I’ll never be ready.

  Tay crawls across the floor of the boathouse to me. His eyes look glazed in the dim light. Suddenly he launches himself on top of me.

  “I’ve got him,” he says, grabbing my hair.

  “You’re hurting me,” I cry. I put my hands on Tay’s to try to ease him off me, but he grips tighter, his eyes still unfocused.

  “You’re scaring me, Tay. You need to let go.”

  “I’ve got you,” he whimpers, his breath hot in my face. “Just hold on. I’m not letting go this time.”

  God—he’s having some kind of out-of-body experience and thinks I’m Eddie. What if he kills me?

  “Tay, it’s me, it’s Elsie,” I say calmly. “Let me go and tell me what happened.”

  He slides an arm underneath my back and lifts me toward him but then presses our bodies against the wall.

  “Please, Tay. Stop. I can’t breathe.”

  He turns and shouts to the corner of the boathouse.

  “I’ve got him. Help me. No, not the police! They’ll think we did it. They’ll think we killed him.”

  “Tay, let me go.”

  Tay’s arms go floppy, and I fall back on the floor. I lie still, breathing as lightly as I can, even though my lungs feel as small as peas and I can’t get enough oxygen circulating. Tay stumbles around the boathouse shouting incoherently, running into the walls, as though he were blind.

  “Danny, wait,” he cries. “I found your bike.”

  The kayak is Tay’s downfall. He trips and lies half on it, cowering and sobbing.

  After a minute, I go to him.

  “Tay, it’s Elsie,” I say, touching his shoulder lightly. His T-shirt is drenched in sweat, but he feels cold. I expect him to grab me again, but he looks up and asks if he hurt me.

  “I’m okay,” I say, rubbing my arm where he held me so tightly.

  “His eyes were just like yours. Sea green.”

  I let out a sob and sit down next to Tay on the cold concrete floor, leaning back on the kayak.

  “My dad was a cop. The police had my fingerprints from the moped incident, and I’d heard stories about people being in prison for things they hadn’t done because the police had found their DNA. I know it sounds stupid, but I believed the stories. I was holding a dead body, and my hands were covered in what I thought was his blood. I was terrified.”

  “He was bleeding?” I ask, feeling tears forming.

  Tay wipes sweat from his forehead. “I thought it was blood. I realized only later it was oil from Danny’s bike.”

  There is some comfort in the fact that he wasn’t bleeding. But it’s short-lived.

  “I let him go,” Tay says, his voice barely audible. “I don’t think I meant to, but he was heavy and my shoulder felt like it was going to pop out. After he’d slipped from my arms, it was a relief. It was like the clock had just gone back and the whole thing never happened.”

  “Tell me that’s not true,” I whisper. “Tell me you didn’t let go.”

  “I wish I could turn back the clock again and this time bring him home to you.”

  My head throbs as my sinuses become more blocked. I take some deep breaths to help compose myself.

  “What did Dillon do?” I ask. “Wasn’t he helping you?”

  “He was there, right behind me, but he was trembling too much, and the rocks made us unsteady on our feet. When Eddie slipped, Dillon threw himself into the water, but it was too late. I think he hit his head. He staggered about a bit and I
tried to get him, but he just ran off.”

  “Didn’t you go after him?”

  “I tried, but Danny stopped me. He was standing in the long grass behind the beach, just watching us. He came back for his bike after all and saw me with Eddie’s body. He wouldn’t let me go after Dillon—he made me go home.”

  “None of this makes sense! You, Danny, and Dillon all saw Eddie in the water, and none of you said anything? I’ve spent the last five years wondering where Eddie ended up, what happened to him, and you knew all along. You have destroyed my life, Tay. Destroyed it.”

  Tay wraps his arms around himself and rocks back and forth. “You’ve got to believe how sorry I am.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I ask again. “Even later—the next day, the next week.”

  “Danny made me promise.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He was older. I trusted him.”

  “You’re lying, Tay. What aren’t you telling me? Are you protecting him?”

  “No, I swear.”

  “Did you make a pact with Dillon, too?”

  “No. I never saw him again. Not until a few months ago.”

  “Then why didn’t he say anything?”

  “I don’t know. Danny was supposed to find Dillon and persuade him not to go to the police. He told me he’d sorted it—that he and Dillon had burned the T-shirt, that Dillon wasn’t going to say anything. But he lied, Elsie. Danny never spoke to him because he’s a coward. I swear I didn’t know that he’d hidden the T-shirt in the cave until a few days ago. When I told him about Dillon being in the hospital, he went crazy—saying he’d warned me all along not to get involved with you. That’s when he told me where the T-shirt was. I didn’t think you’d find it—I was still trying to work out what to do.”

  I walk back to the top of the boathouse where the T-shirt lies, and Tay follows.

  “How did you even end up with it?”

  I hold Eddie’s T-shirt up for Tay to see, like a criminal investigator on CSI, only this is real, and the evidence belongs to my twin brother. I feel hollow and heavy at the same time.

  “It all happened so fast,” he cries. “My hands were slippery. As I let him go, my finger somehow got caught—there must have been a tear—but I heard a rip, and the next thing I knew, he was gone and I had his T-shirt in my hands.”

  It all comes flooding back. My father telling Eddie that he couldn’t wear the red one because it had a hole in it. The phone ringing, Eddie disappearing upstairs. Then we were in the car and Eddie was grinning, wearing his favorite red T-shirt with the lion logo on it.

  My throat tightens.

  “So when did you write the note to Dillon?”

  “After the party on the Point. I knew straightaway he was the boy from the beach, and then he said you were his sister. I felt sick. He came to meet me but didn’t even give me a chance to talk. He asked me for the T-shirt, and when I said I didn’t have it, he smashed his fist straight into my nose and told me to stay away from you. When I talked to Danny about it, he said if I stayed around, the truth would eventually come out and we’d all be in serious trouble.”

  I piece it all together. Dillon’s bloody knuckles that I thought were the result of dehydration, Tay’s bruised and bloodied nose that he claimed had happened in his sleep, the argument between Tay and Danny, Tay disappearing. There were so many signs that I just hadn’t seen.

  “Maybe you just weren’t looking,” Danny had said the day I jumped off the harbor wall.

  He was right.

  I think about that day at the party and how badly I wanted to kiss Tay. How embarrassed I felt when he ran off, how angry I was with Dillon for ruining our moment. All three of them were hiding the most awful secret from me.

  “You let him go,” I say.

  This is where Dillon’s nightmares come from. The boy I love was the one who let Eddie go. I can never forgive Tay. Never.

  “Take your things,” I whisper. “And don’t come back.”

  “No, please,” he begs. “I want to make it up to you. I love you.”

  “Go. Now.”

  Tay wipes his eyes as he forces his diving gear into a rucksack. He stumbles through the panel, and I listen to his footsteps on the pebbles fade away. Every part of me feels broken. The only thing that’s left is a tiny part of Eddie.

  “Eddie,” I whisper into the darkness. “Are you there?”

  “Down here,” Eddie says. But I can’t see him anywhere.

  6

  A memory. A very old one. Eddie and me lying on the sofa together after one of his hospital visits. He has a bandage on his arm where they took blood.

  “They put magic cream on it,” he says, holding his arm out for me to kiss it.

  I kiss it.

  I’m jealous that I didn’t have magic cream, or any blood taken.

  Dillon lies on the floor by our feet.

  “Do you want to watch a DVD?” he asks.

  We say yes. Eddie wants Ice Princess.

  “Mum,” Dillon shouts, “the twins want to watch a DVD. Can I put one on?”

  Mum brings us hot chocolate and a blanket. She covers us.

  “Yes. Then it’s an early night for all of you.”

  Dillon joins us on the sofa, and Eddie snuggles into me.

  “Ellie, if they take more of my blood, will I die?”

  “I don’t think so. If they take more, you can have some of mine, because we’re the same.”

  “Ellie, if I die, will you come with me?”

  “Okay. And Dillon. You’ll come with us, won’t you?”

  “Okay,” Dillon says. “Shhh, it’s starting.”

  7

  The day after Tay’s revelations, I decide to go ahead with my plan and then leave the Black Isle for good. I have nothing to stay for. Dillon’s asleep when I go to say goodbye at the hospital. I tuck a note under his pillow saying “Sorry,” and leave my parents in the waiting room arguing about how often my mum stays at my father’s flat.

  There’s no money for a taxi, so I have to take the bus back home. It’s gone midnight when I finally get back to the harbor. My legs ache from all the running around, but at least I have Eddie’s memorial cross from the Point. Another ribbon has disappeared, but I remove a shoelace from one of my trainers and tie it on tight. I have everything I need, except my headlamp because the battery has gone. Instead, I found an old flashlight in the kitchen drawer. I just hope it’s okay in the water.

  The Black Fin is closed, but I want to take one last look at Mick and Danny. I peer through the window. My heart jumps.

  My mother is sitting on a barstool drinking a glass of wine.

  Thoughts race. Is she looking for me? Does she know everything?

  Then it all becomes clear.

  She slides off the barstool and walks to the end of the bar. Her curly hair is sprayed and set, and she’s wearing my Ruby Red. Mick reaches out, she reaches out, and then they are in each other’s arms. He bends his neck.

  Uncle Mick. Affair. My father picking up a piece of clothing from the beach. Mum arriving without her jacket.

  Mum was there that day, before we called her, before Eddie went missing. Dillon knew, and so did my father.

  I run down the steps, across the pebbles, along the jetty.

  I loop the slimy rope around my arm as I unmoor the Half Way.

  The motor starts the first time.

  The boat swings out in a sharp right when I move the throttle, pitching me to the floor. I scramble back up and adjust the tiller, keeping the boat steady until I’m clear out of the harbor. Then it’s full speed ahead with the lights off—my destination awaits. I don’t dare look back.

  At the end of the Point I slow down so I can find the spot. I turn on the front headlights and see the buoy immediately, fluorescent in the lights, white foam spraying up around it. I sit for a moment, taking in my surroundings, soaking up the Black Isle horizon for the last time. There are streaky clouds high up in the indigo sky
. Guillemots cluster around the top of the lighthouse, crying out for mates. In the distance an oil tanker chugs slowly out to the North Sea, into the darkness.

  It takes me ages to tug on my wetsuit. The rubber feels tougher than usual, my hands clumsier, and I’m not able to grip it hard enough to pull the excess material up my thighs. The weight belt feels lighter than it should. I count the weights. There are three, but I can’t remember whether there should be four—my brain is foggy, but I’m sure I worked out that I needed fifteen pounds in total. I add an extra weight and fasten it around my waist. The zip on the wetsuit jacket gets caught halfway up. I yank it but it’s stuck fast. Everything feels wrong: lopsided, unbalanced. I shove Eddie’s T-shirt into the jacket pocket, then loop the flashlight around my wrist and turn it on. It flickers, then stabilizes. The light slices straight through the surface and makes the water underneath look green. It looks serene down there. Finally, I grab the cross and Jasper the frog and tuck them into my weight belt, then lower myself into the water. My body temperature instantly drops. I kick toward the buoy, aware that I’m using energy just to get to the start point. I take three deep breaths, and on the fourth suck in as much air as I can hold, making sure it gets into every inch of me, and then I go down.

  The flashlight lights up all the tiny particles that you don’t usually see: translucent blobs that could be plankton, and all the disturbed sand from burrowing rays. The water swishes about my body as I guide myself down the wire headfirst, against Danny’s advice, but it’s the quickest way. The current tries to sweep me away. I keep going, feeling the water pass around me as I fall deeper and deeper.

  I stop for a rest and to check the time, and my stomach lurches. I have forgotten to put my diving watch on. It doesn’t matter. All I have to do is get to the bottom.

  Something rumbles above and the wire shudders. Boat waves must have knocked it. My jacket billows out where water has seeped inside. Cold water swills around my middle, chilling my core. I slip farther down, pointing the flashlight toward the bottom.