Page 62 of Return to Me Always

The image had haunted me. And here I was. So very alone.

Where was Tyler?

All I could see was water, everywhere, waves pushing me, pulling me, like a limp useless rag doll—rain making fun of my predicament, cruelly dropping more water on my head. Was this it? Was I going to die?

An unexpected peacefulness stole through me, starting with my limbs, creeping toward my core. I gave into it, the calmness that engulfed me. My legs stopped kicking. My body relaxed. My mind went blissfully blank. The numbness reached my heart.

This is it.The end.

But deep in my soul, a small voice shouted,No! Not like this. Not now. A leg kicked out in response. Then both legs, kicking and seething with knife-searing pain.

The numbness ebbed away. The pain rushed in. Pain everywhere, my skin, my muscles, my heart, my lungs, even my sluggish brain.

I flung my arms in some kind of forward motion. I had to find Tyler. This was not the end. I was a swimmer. I would not die from drowning. Not in this lifetime. My years of swim practice, of brutal no-breather drills, flashed through my mind, propelling me in some direction.

And then I saw it, through the still-pounding rain—a light. Tyler's light that he had miraculously seen and I couldn't even glimpse before. It disappeared, obliterated by a huge wave that I rode up.

But soon, there it was again.

Using all my strength, I kicked toward it as it blinked against the sky's downpour. I reached for it, my legs somehow still kicking. And like an unearthly beacon, just when I thought it had disappeared forever, it kept magically reappearing.

Time slipped away. My muscles cramped to the edge of their limits. The light grew closer, then closer still. My foot caught something, and I shouted.

Rocks!

I lunged ahead. Both feet stood, solid, on rocks and sand. Waves shoved me forward, expelling me from the sea, done with me. Collapsing face down on a desolate beach, I coughed out the remains of the water. I felt ecstatic to be alive and free of the ocean.

Tyler's face crashed into my mind, and worry crowded out all other thoughts.

As rain pelted my back, I clawed to all fours, my muscles quivering with the effort like a shaky toddler, until I stood on wobbly legs. I scoured the beach in the darkness, raising my arm to shield my eyes from the rain.

No sign of Tyler. No sign of anybody.

Still struggling, I moved forward, straining against the ungodly wind that whipped my wet hair around.

"Tyler!" I yelled, the wind carrying my voice away. It was useless to shout, but I didn't care. I kept shouting and walking and searching.

The lightning seemed closer now, followed in an instant by the crack of thunder.

"Tyler! Oh, God. Please. Tyler!"

Desperation clawed at my heart. I felt even more alone and scared than when I had been fighting the waves.

"Tyler!"

Lightning flashed against the sea. A hulking shape careened toward me. A boat. I scrambled backwards, out of its way, as it crashed onto the sand. The tide toyed with it, pulling it back before shooting it forward again, this time beyond the waves' reach.

Upside down, with gaping holes in it, I couldn't tell if it was ours. Then, farther down the beach, I saw another boat being pushed back and forth in a struggle between sand and sea.

I rushed toward it, the wind pushing and pulling me.

This boat, on its side, looked like a dying animal gasping its last breaths. Despair threatened to overtake me, and I struggled to stay upright.

More lightning. And then I saw it. Beyond the second boat. A flash of orange. A life vest.

"Tyler! Oh, my God!"

My legs propelled me forward while I prayed that he was alive. But he didn't move. And I had never felt such fear that struck right in the center of my heart like an icy knife.

---