Here is the boy, drowning.
In these last sparse few moments, it's not the water that's finally done for him; its his love. It has bled all the energy from his body and contracted his muscles into a painful uselessness, no matter how much he fights to keep himself above the surface. He is strong and sturdy, nearly seventeen, but the wintry waves keep coming, each one seemingly larger than the last. Her voice ever so endlessly repeating in a vicious cycle. They spin him around, topple him over, force him down, deeper down. Even when he can catch his breath in the few frightening seconds, he is shaking uncontrollably, he can barely get a lungful of air to fill his lungs before he's under again. It isn't enough, grows less each time, and he feels a terrible yearning in his chest as he aches, fruitlessly, for more.
He is in full panic now. He knows he's drifted just slightly too far from shore to make it back, the icy tide pulling him out farther and farther with every wave, pushing him towards the rocks that make this bit of coast so treacherous. He also knows there is no one who'll notice he's gone, not even his love, no one able to raise the alarm before the water defeats him. He won't be saved either. There are no beachcombers nor bystanders to dive in from the shoreline to save him, not this time of year, not in these freezing temperatures.
It is too late for him
He will die.
And he will die alone.
The sudden, gasping horror of knowing this makes him panic more. He tries again to break the surface, not daring to think its his last time.
Please, is all he thinks. Just the one word, echoing through his head.
Please.
The current grips him a final time. It rears back as if to throw him, and it dashes him head first into the rocks. Blood surging from his head, a crack swallowing through his head. He slams into them once more, with the full, furious weight of the angry ocean. behind him.
The impact is just behind his left ear. It fractures his skull, splintering it into his brain, the force of it also crushing his third and fourth vertebrae, severing both his cerebral artery and his spinal cord, an injury from which there is no return, no recovery, no chance.
He dies.
