Holding My Breath [Wattys 2016]

5 8 ~ A n n a

                 

Flashback ~ December 30, 2010

As the car sinks, it gets darker, quieter. This is the day that time stops for me. All of that worrying about my hourglass running out vanishes. In that moment, for the first time in a long time, I don't keep track of each second ticking in my head.

Not because I can't, but because I've lost count. The darkness settling around me, the cold serenity of the water, is a wake-up call.

The tranquility that comes with sinking to your death is a warning.

So I break it. I stir up the silence, let the calm blur into the background.

I had the option to give up. I felt it calling to me from somewhere else, deep in the lake, asking me if I'd rather just let go. No one would ever know. And there for a second, I considered it.

No.

I move my fingers first, but the winter's icy water feels like it has frozen me. It takes everything I have in me not to just close my eyes and let the rest of me freeze with it.

I can't see anything in the blackness around me, and it's like my senses are all shutting down too.

I try to whirl around, try to make my fingers feel around for Toby, but my fingertips aren't registering anything but the ice. Then suddenly I feel his light curls around my fingers.

I reach down instinctively to his seatbelt. It takes me a few tries to get it unlocked, and a few more to get it around his little body.

All I can think about is the cold. It rushes through me and takes over my body, slowing me down. I've never felt anything like it, and soon it's like I can hardly feel it at all.

I grab him up, briefly noticing how light he is in the water, like when he was just a baby and I held him in my arms at the hospital. But as soon as I've gotten a tight hold on him, I pull him with me towards my open window.

In seconds, we are out.

But not completely. A part of us, a part of me, is still lost in the car. My mom and dad were all I could think about as I pulled myself through the window, but I know they would want me to save Toby before them.

I'm crying, I think, but the dark water covers it for me. There isn't anything to hold onto anymore now that we are out of the car, except for Toby.

I can't tell which way is up. I can't find anything to ground me, to tell me which way to go. No matter how much I kick, I can't even tell if we are moving.

I'm lost. So hopelessly, terrifyingly, lost. I don't know what to do next.

Everything around me is a blur of dark shapes, the occasional beam of sunlight pulling through to light up my hand or some distant object in the water.

I'm holding my breath. I'm trying not to let go, trying to keep everything together long enough for me to find air again. I'm frozen in time with Toby in my arms.

It's getting brighter... Up ahead the black water is slowly turning to gray. To white. Maybe I'm almost at the top. Maybe that's the light.

But as I look around, I let go of my breath. I can't hold it any longer. I can't breathe. Instinctively, I suck in a gulp of liquid, then scream at the frigid burning in my chest.

I can't bring myself to close my eyes, to shut out the light as I fight the pain. If I keep my eyes open maybe, I can find my way home.

That doesn't happen.

The suffocating water is twisting around me. The silence is so loud that I can't hear my own screams.

The last thing I remember before I pass out is the spots against the light. It's pretty, I think to myself. It's a nice way to die, with those bright lights dancing around me and the dark spots gliding through it. It's peaceful, and although I try to fight it, I try to refuse its guiding hand, it catches up to me anyway.

The spots grow bigger, the light fading into the background. I feel something grab me, and I'm being pulled. Jerked backward. That's when the pain goes away when suddenly I realize that I'm not feeling anything anymore.

I feel my body start to go limp, even when I try to fight it.  And he slips from my grasp... Toby's gone, just like that.

The surge of panic in my chest isn't enough to get him back. I search blindly through the water but he's nowhere. I'm clawing at the spots in front of my face. Instead, the hands that find me pull me further away. The darkness closing in on my vision starts to take over.

I kick back at the person pulling me out I scream, even though nothing comes out.

Don't save me. Don't save me without him.

But then I feel everything shutting down again, growing quiet and blurry. I keep trying to fight but my kicks slow down. The keep slowing down. That's when I finally close my eyes. That's when I let it take over.

Until I'm slipping peacefully into the silence.

Until everything has turned black.