The Trees Smell Like Lemons

20. My lips have kissed

Bea found Adam sitting in the field by the old willow tree. Their swing was still there. He looked up at she approached. She sat down silently beside him and waited.

"It was my 13th birthday," Adam began, "We had a tradition of going to my grandparents every year in Cornwall. That year my parents bought me a surfboard. I wanted to try it out straight away, so my parents packed a picnic and we took some blankets down to the beach. It was a cloudy day, there weren't many other people out. At the time I thought we were lucky to have the place to ourselves." Adam broke off and looked away.

"Adam you don't have to talk about it," Bea took his hand and ran her thumb across his knuckles. Adam looked down at their intertwines hands, then brought them to his lips, turning Bea's hand over to kiss her palm. She watched in surprise but didn't say anything. Adam continued,

"Jake and I were in the water. He was trying to teach me the basics. I was impatient, I wanted to start surfing on the big waves. I started to paddle out further. Jake yelled at me to come back. He said it was too windy, too dangerous but I didn't listen. I remember looking back at one point and realising how far out I really was. I could see my parents waving at me frantically from the shore and Jake swimming towards me. He was yelling something, but I couldn't hear him. As he got closer I could make out the words. He was screaming at me, "Swim back! Come to me!" He sounded really scared so I tried to swim towards him.

Something felt wrong, it was like the water was resisting me, trying to pull me further away from Jake. I swam harder and my arms ached, but I had nearly reached Jake. He held out his hand to me and then his face changed, and I knew something was wrong. His grip tightened on my hand and he told me, "Don't let go. Whatever happens don't let go."

The wave knocked the breath out of me. It was so high. Somehow the leg rope detached from me and my surfboard was wrenched out of my grip. I was underwater in seconds. All I could see was water everywhere, I didn't know which was up or down. I swam blindly. When I felt like my lungs were about to burst, I surfaced. I could hear Jake yelling my name. I shouted for Jake and then I felt his arms around me. In that moment I'd never felt safer. We were very far out though. The waves were getting rougher, the sky darkening overheard like there was going to be a storm. Jake was struggling to keep us both above water. But he did. He told me over and over, "Keep fighting Adam, keep kicking. Everything's going to be okay just don't give up."

It was me who saw the surfboard. I pointed it out to Jake, and we swam towards it. I don't know how we reached it but when we did Jake tied the leg rope to me securely. We both held on. I couldn't even see the shore, just water everywhere. We stayed like that holding onto the surfboard and each other. The cold had really started to set in. Our wetsuits helped a little, but I knew we wouldn't last much longer. I think Jake knew that too, but he never showed it.

We heard the lifeboat before we saw it. A voice shouting through a megaphone. We looked at each other, then just started screaming and waving. The lifeguard heard us. The next thing I know the boat is there and I see these people reaching down to help us onboard. They got Jake first. Then they tried to pull me up, but I was still attached to the surfboard. Suddenly one of the men on board shouted a warning to the guy helping me up. There was another wave in the distance. If I thought the last one was big, it was nothing compared to this. The man starting scrambling to cut the rope. Before he could, Jake was back in the water with me. He got my leg free and I was hoisted up into the boat. The man shoved me towards the other guy so he could help Jake back in again. Then the wave hit us. I thought the boat was going to capsize but we held on. I looked for Jake and realised he wasn't on the boat. The man who'd helped me up swore and yelled at someone who must have been driving the boat because we started moving. I fought free of the man holding me and ran to the edge of the boat looking for Jake but I couldn't see him. I couldn't stop crying. I yelled Jake's name until my voice was hoarse.