You Can't Hear Her (WATTYS2015)

Six // Rescue

[A/N] Here is where things start to get interesting. To those still reading, I couldn't thank you enough.
.

.

"Sometimes I feel lost inside myself."
.

"Well?" Asked Jelly as soon as I went back into my room. I plopped down on my pink bed and she started smoothing my hair down. She was always touching someone or something. I didn't mind when she rubbed my hair. She liked it's silkiness and I liked feeling like I was a little kid again.

"Same thing as always. I am just too young," I used an irritated voice. A voice that showed the utter ridiculousness of this all. I was getting tired of the secrets and it had barely been four days. Jelly jumped up quickly and almost tossed me off my bed. Instantly, I knew she was on my side. She always was.

"I call bullshit, Stevie!" They need to know you too are old enough, considering you went to second base with Erin Yates." She had her finger pointed in the air. The name of my ex boyfriend still grated my ears. I laughed at Jelly though but, pretended to cover my ears. She is foolish in the best way.

I explained, "I think that will make my parents monitor me more, Jells." She smiled at me, a creepy smile. She got off my bed and reached onto my bottom shelf for a magazine to read. After sifting through half of it she looked up at me. It was like a lightbulb went off in her head. Also something that happened regularly.

"Doesn't Drew take typically short showers?" Jelly asked curiously. I looked harder at her and then down at the clock on my phone. She was right. Drew never passed fifteen minutes in the shower and she was going on thirty-five. Not even when she was having a bad day, did she ever stay longer in the shower. I drew my eyebrows together in worry and stood right up.

"I'll be right back," I told Jelly but we both knew something was wrong. So, I wasn't surprised when I heard her footsteps following lightly behind me. I could almost hear her thoughts that her excuse was she was following for moral support. When you have a best friend that long, certain abilities emerge. We could read each other's thoughts.

The bathroom door was a very light sandy color. It is the first piece that hints to a beach theme hiding right behind the door waiting to be unveiled. I slowly opened the door knowing full well that Drew was not going to respond to a knock. I must have stood there for fifteen seconds in shock at the scene that was before me. Drew had been fully submerged under the water of her bath and water was beginning to spill over the tub.

"Jell, quick, get towels!" I yelled calmly. I wasn't always composed, I mean, I hardly ever was collected. That is what I was known for: the loud and 'go with the flow' sister. I never had a plan and I never took control. At that moment, I knew I had to step in not only for Jelly's and my parents sake but, for Drew's sake. She had kept me out. I still wanted to keep her safe no matter what.

As soon as Jelly darted off into the extra kitchen pantry for towels, I had ran the three steps to the tub and shut off the faucet. Drew still lay underneath the water with her eyes shut closed. Suddenly, she started to have some spasms. Working as a lifeguard taught me what this was and I hated that I knew because it hurt too much.

"Drew!" I yelled instinctively. I remember feeling Jelly come up behind me and setting the towels down, along with deep fear. There was a breeze as she unfolded each one at a quick pace and threw them down to the ground. I had bent down, and slightly slipped, but was able to pull Drew up and out the bathtub. She was naked but at that moment nothing mattered but saving her life. I looked up from Drew's noodle body into Jelly's eyes.

When we were little, Drew and I had perfected the act of "going noodle". Every time we threw a tantrum, or didn't want to do something, we would go noodle for our parents. We basically made all our weight 'dead weight' so it would be hard to pick us up. We gave our dad, a grown man, a run for his money. At that moment with my sister not breathing, and me not being able to certainly save her, all I could think about was our noodle game. I thought about our childhood and I wondered, how did it get to this point? How did I not even know Drew anymore? Obviously, her life away at college wasn't what I had known. I thought she was my best friend but I wasn't even hers.

I laid Drew's body flat down and did all the steps I had been taught for my lifeguard job. Check for breathing. No breath, check. Check for a pulse. No pulse found, Check. Tilt the head and chin back, Check. Do 30 chest compressions, Check. Check for breathing. No breath, Check. Pinch nose and give two short breaths, Check. Check for breathing. No breath, Check.

My jeans were soaked and part of my shirt was too. I hadn't noticed at the time that Jelly covered most of Drew's body with a disgustingly bright orange towel. It was from Drew's Orange phase and when we first went to the beach. Jelly was sobbing somewhere behind me and muttering stuff that I couldn't repeat because at that moment it was just Drew and me. I needed to save her and I needed to repeat the steps. I could never give up. I would never give up. In the end it didn't matter because Drew gave up on herself. There was one last step. Do you love her? Check.

Drew coughed out a good gulp-full of water and she continued coughing until she got her breath back. Jelly and I had sat there stunned with soaked pant legs and wet cheeks. The worst was over, or so we thought. Drew looked between the both of us and then down at herself. I will never forget the way her face twisted up at that moment of realization. It twisted in horror and she began sobbing like a little kid, like when we played our noodle game. She could have been crying because this was an accident. I wasn't that naive, though. She was crying because she did it with me here. She was crying because I stopped her. She was crying because she didn't want to be here, with me, anymore.

Please comment and vote :) thank you.