Nerve

Paroxysm of Change

...Four years earlier...

Hailie Lahey lay on her board, arms and legs trailing in the cool salt water. Her wetsuit clung to her neck, but not enough to stop the lapse of seawater sending a shiver down her spine. The sun was shrouded in clouds, but she paddled out. This was a new beach, and, despite her father's warnings, Hailie had gone into the unchartered waters to surf. She spotted a wave and folded her arms, balancing on her hands. Three... two... Jump! She was up and riding the curl, knees bent, arms spread. Joy lept from her throat in a laugh, and she turned slightly to see her best friend, Jonathon, riding the same wave. He twisted and mock-saluted as his board sent up sprays of foam.

She straightened her legs just as the wave ended. She dropped to the board and paddled to the left, where a wave was nearing... She did not look at the waters that she entered. Did not see the swift current that would soon carry her away, towards rocks that lay jagged under the surface.. Was unaware of how the board would flip, how she would spiral underwater, the rip rushing at her. Couldn't make out how she was destined to smack into a certain rock, not enough to kill her but definitely capable of ending her life as she knew it...

Now.

The golden sand turned dark as it disappeared into the aqua water. Hailie watched the soft lapping of the tide and tried to imagine how it would feel on her feet. Tried to imagine the sand between her toes, the cold water on her hands. She could not. She had no real recollection of what it felt like to completely submerge in water.

Her dark hair was short now, cut in a bob for convenience. Her hands lay still on her armrests, her back tilted back slightly on the inclined cushy chair. Her brown eyes skimmed the horizon as she searched for any sign of the same rip that had paralysed her. Jonathon sat on the sand beside her, not talking. They sat in silence as her portable ventilator puffed away. Hailie's hand twitched with the rhythm, one of the few muscles she could control now.

Jonathon made a sound, something between a chuckle and a question.

"Mmm?" Hailie murmured. Years of tackling the ventilator allowed her to smoothly hitch onto the ride of air that escaped her lips. She could speak in short bursts, but envied the smooth speech Jonathon had.

"I was just thinking," Jon told her. Back in the old days, the two friends would have bantered easily, but her breath - and her patience - was limited.

"We should go back," Hailie told him. She ironically named the pain in her heart as an ache, but nothing hurt anymore. It was regret in her functional mind that caused the squeeze of pain in her chest.

"Sure, Lee." Jon sighed. He stood up and signalled to the specialist team, who stood beyond Hailie's peripheral vision. They neared, Hailie could hear the sand crunch beneath their nurse's flats, but she closed her green eyes before the bodies of her carers could blot out her view of the ocean. It seemed too symbolic for her, now.