We Are Tidal

Chapter Twenty-Five - Washed Up

**(Today's header is from Brooklyn, which I adore. Mainly because I'm Irish and so much of it is still relevant today, but also because of the romance!)**

Chapter Twenty-Five

Washed Up

POV - Arthur Heaver

When my knees hit the shore, I fall forward onto all fours, coughing violently, choking up saltwater. My throat burns but I keep coughing, needing to feel my lungs clear and full of air. When I eventually find the strength to raise my head, I see Dylan, lying flat on her back, eyes closed. For a horrifying moment, I think that she is dead and that I killed her.

Then I notice the blessed rise and fall of her chest. Slowly, she raises her hands to cover her face and wipe my sobbing hair out of eyes to watch her closely. Though I would rather do anything than explain why I had walked into the ocean without any plan of walking out, I crawl to her, to the girl who had just risked everything to pull me back.

"Dyl," I croak. My voice is parched and scratchy, but still, she hears me. Her hands fall away from her face, back to her sides and for a minute she doesn't do anything but lie completely still. This is when I realise how this is going to go. I begin to count.

Dylan doesn't move again until I reach twenty-one. Pushing herself up onto her elbows and then to her knees, she observes me with a gaze that is nothing short of glacial.

I raise up onto my knees and hold out my hands, ready to apologise, to explain, but before I can so much as open my mouth, Dylan gives me a mighty shove backward and I roll back onto my back. Cursing, I get back up straight away, but Dylan is slumped, her shoulders rounded and curved inward, all fight gone from her as quick as it came.

"How could you?" Her voice is broken, barely audible and though she holds her head in her hands, I can tell that she is crying.

Guilt hits me harder than any wave when I see the first tear fall onto the sand before Dylan. I reach out, taking hold of her arm and squeezing until she looks up at me. Her pale face is even paler now, her silver hair plastered to her head and her eyes are red-rimmed and welling.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." I begin, unsure of how to explain the hopelessness of my mind in the moments before I walked into the water. Especially to someone who has suffered similarly but somehow kept going.

"Today is her anniversary," Dyl says. It is not a question, but I nod anyway. She would know the date, of course she would.

"A year," I say. Dylan's shoulders sink infinitesimally lower. "When is your father's and mother's?"

This is a question I should have asked a long time ago, a question I should have had the decency to face before now. I left town with my brothers after my mother's death, giving Dylan no explanation or goodbye. Whilst that was terrible, what was worse was assuming her life would be perfect in my absence. Now she lives in an empty house.

"In three weeks." She shrugs as if her parents' car accident is no big deal, but anyone would see the truth in the hollowness of her eyes. It feels as though there is a wall between us, a gigantic wall, filled with more grief and guilt than anyone can overcome.

"I want to be there. For you." I say, knowing that I have nothing to lose, having hit rock bottom long ago. "With you."

Dylan looks up at me, a small frown forming between brows, utterly perplexed.

"I came here to tell you the same thing."

My heart bursts with a love that I didn't think was possible just ten minutes ago when life had seemed so hopeless. I scramble, searching for the words to tell her what I need to say.

Instead, I lean forward and tip her chin upward. At first, I give her a feather-light kiss, but Dylan pulls me closer, her hands on my face. Dylan drags me with her and she lies back down on the sand. I'm propped over her, a hand in the sand next to her head, another at her waist.

Our tongues touch and the familiarity of her warmth causes my heart to race. Being with Dylan is home. She is my home. I lower my lips to her neck, kissing her salty skin all the way down to the neckline of her t-shirt. Dylan moans into my ear and I groan in response, forgetting how good it felt to hear her feel good, so close to me, because of me.

As I begin to draw away, knowing that what we have between us is fragile, Dylan draws my lips back to hers. I lie on the sand beside her, my right arm over her chest, holding her close. Dylan takes hold of my right hand in hers, guiding me to her chest.

I hesitate for a split second.

"Are you sure?" I ask, my voice husky and still sore. Though I hate to break away for our first moment of being us again, I need to be sure that she is sure.

"I'm sure," She promises me, her eyes sincere. Nodding, I return my lips to hers and she raises her chest against my palms. It does not take long before I run my fingers under her shirt, meeting the hem of her damp bra.

When Dylan grinds her hips against mine, I don't hesitate any longer.

A/N:

This was hard to write - I'm not typically used to writing more steaming scenes! However, I enjoyed being in Art's head for a while!

Jens x