Coming Back to You ✔

3. May - Two Years Ago

"Help me! Please, help me! He's going to drown, oh my God my son is drowning!"

On the whole, Sophia made it a point to avoid Santa Monica Pier. Too crowded, too many tourists, and quite frankly, nothing all that interesting. Even the rollercoaster was shitty. However, when she got off early in the morning after a particularly challenging shift, sometimes she would come down here before the crowds arrived. There was something immensely peaceful about an empty pier, stretching out into the endless ocean with the sun just barely coming up over the horizon, fresh, salty air washing over her.

Last night had been a rough shift. Four victims—a whole family— of a car accident were brought in around midnight. The parents had survived; the children did not. When she closed her eyes, Sophia could still hear the screams of the mother when she learned that her children hadn't made it.

Those screams were not unlike the screams that shifted Sophia's attention from the open ocean to the end of the pier. A woman not too much older than herself ran forward, waving one hand, a cell phone clasped in the other.

Just as in the E.R. when an ambulance brought a patient in, Sophia felt adrenaline surge and she acted on instinct. "What happened?" she gasped, running to the woman before she gave herself time to think.

"He's down here."

Together, they ran to the end of the pier and down to the lower deck. Sophia slammed into the railing, her eyes briefly but frantically searching the water below her. It was difficult to miss the kid, splashing around and desperately trying to keep himself above water but only serving to exhaust himself further.

"He can't swim?" Sophia asked, turning her attention to the mother.

She jerked her head. "No, neither of us can." Panic pressed in on the edge of her voice. Sophia knew the sound well and figured they had less than a minute before the woman had a total meltdown.

"You called 9-1-1?"

The woman nodded. "Paramedics are five minutes out."

Sophia looked down again. The kid definitely didn't have five minutes before he drowned.

The adrenalin that had surged through Sophia's body seemed to slow everything down, allowing her to efficiently make decisions, just as she did in her job. In a split second, Sophia had weighed all the options and knew exactly what she was going to do.

"Go to the beach, right side of the pier." Sophia pointed so the woman would know exactly where to go. She slipped off her jacket and shoes. "Meet me there."

"What—"

But Sophia didn't wait for the onslaught of questions. Instead, instinct still taking charge of all of her decisions, she swung one leg over the edge of the railing, and then the other, and pushed herself back into the open air over the water.

Plunging into the Pacific Ocean was like suddenly stepping into a cold shower. Sophia kicked to the surface and spit out salt water, gasping for breath as her body adjusted to the shock of the temperature change. Her waterlogged clothes threatened to drag her down, but a decade of swim lessons and another five years of competing kept her afloat.

The kid could barely keep his head above water. Sophia lunged for him, ignoring the fact that he was panicking and might very well push her under the surface because of it, bringing both of them down.

Just as she reached the kid, another splash. Sophia looked up, another bolt of adrenalin moving through her brain. If it was the mother, overcome with panic, then they would really be in trouble. Sophia could keep afloat one child, but two people who couldn't swim? That would be almost impossible for her to handle alone.