Page 27 of Vitamin Sea
A medic. Hmm,she thought through a fuzzy haze.I must not be dead.
Which should have come as a relief and probably would have if she didn’t feel so awful. How had her morning of enjoying the sea, sand, and sun, and centering herself in the here and now turned into bruises, bangs, cuts, a near-death experience, and an apparent savior?
She didn’t know, but she thanked her lucky stars that someone had intervened.
“I . . . can’t . . . eyes,” she gasped hoarsely. “Salt.”
“Oh!” said the man. “Of course, yes!”
Seconds later she jolted as cold-water splashed over her eyes and rinsed out some of the salt. There was a plastic clicking sound as, Chloe surmised, the man unscrewed the cap off another bottle of water before pouring it over the top of her eyes. She squeezed them shut and then felt a rough fabric gently rub against them.
A towel, she mentally placed the fabric. She wasn’t sure if in the near drowning she had lost a few neurons or if the shock of it was just taking her brain a bit to process.
Finally, the burning ebbed and she slowly opened her eyes.
“Hey!” the man said, his voice sounding much happier at seeing progress with his patient.
Her body was not cooperating—she tried to move her limbs and fingers, but it didn’t seem like they wanted to cooperate with her brain. She wasn’t sure if it was due to shock or if being smashed into the rocks had done some permanent—read: spinal—damage.
She tried to lift her right arm and it trembled.
The man noticed and placed a reassuring hand on her arm.
“Try not to move too much,” he said coaxingly. “We want to make sure the medic gets you checked out.”
Chloe obliged and gave up the body-mind struggle and tried to get a better look at her surroundings without moving her head. Her tongue darted out and licked her lower lip—it was dry and cracked from to the salt water.
The man took it as a cue to offer her more water, which he trickled into her mouth, and she drank gratefully.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice still hoarse. She cleared her throat and then asked him what had happened.
“I was out here with my friend, we were taking a walk on the beach, and we saw you get caught up on the rocks. You slipped and the waves smashed you into the rocks. We got to you as fast as we could. We were yelling at you, but you probably couldn’t hear us because of the water. It looked like you were trying to feel your way closer to the shore, but then a big wave swept you off a rock and dragged you under.”
Chloe’s brain tried to process this.
She remembered climbing on the rocks in an attempt to see what was on the other side of the beach. And she had a vague memory of being in the water. But she didn’t remember being tossed around and pulled into the ocean.
Her body, on the other hand, definitely remembered; the stinging and throbbing of her bumps, bruises, and cuts made itvery apparent that what he was telling her was true. Her brain was probably just traumatized.
“I didn’t think we were going to get to you in time,” the man said, somewhere between relief and concern. It occurred to her that he might still have adrenaline coursing through his system.
Not that she could blame him. She didn’t remember what had happened to her, but it was terrifying to hear about. It must have been more terrifying to watch it happen.
“Thank you,” she mumbled. The gratitude she sincerely felt didn’t translate into her tone because of the sorry state she was in, but she had a feeling the man would understand.
He patted her arm reassuringly.
“I’m just glad we reached you in time.”
Chloe had been squinting due to the bright light of the sun, but it was suddenly blocked out and she opened her eyes a little wider.
And holy hell was she glad she had.
The man positioned his head so he was blocking out the sun; he was looking at her with marked concern.
Her eyes focused on his handsome face. Skin tanned to a golden perfection? Check. Cheekbones that looked like they belonged on a Roman God? Check. Deep, soulful eyes that were framed by haughty dark-brown brows and a head full of beach-tousled softly curled brown locks? Check.
On second thought, maybe shehaddied and gone to heaven.
