Foaming

The mist hanging on a gust stung her freckled nose as she peered at the island in the distance. Flakes of skin peeled in her peripheral vision, remnants of her sunburn from a few days back. She had stood at this spot each morning, just as the sky turned rosy, and the fog began to peel back from the coast.

Her thumbs kneaded the sides of her stomach, knots had formed again, willing her body away from the lapping waves. The tumbling rocks sounded like rain dripping through the gutters on a summer evening, sounded like Her bedroom in their childhood home.

She inhaled, counted to 10, and willed her exhale to last to 20. Again. Again. Again. Repetition. Just breathe, Alex. She could almost feel fingers gripping her hand, a perfect match. She peeled her eyes open, and took a trembling step forward.

Four hours later, Alex stared at the spider making her cobweb in the corner of the porch ceiling.

“You know, no one tells you that you should get back in the water again,” Alex said. “I bet you are just as afraid of the water as I am.”

“You know, I think that may be the point. A spider has good reason to be scared of the water.” Her brother spoke through the open window, leaning his elbows out to look at her. “You used to go for a swim every morning, there’s no way you could just never set foot back in there.”

“I have a perfectly good reason, and I did step foot in there,” Alex said.

“A toe does not count.”

“Stop being bossy, you aren’t my therapist,” Alex said. “I don’t care about swimming anymore.”

“You can’t just stop living, you know,” Brian said.

“Yeah, well she did, so it seems plausible that I could.”

He slammed the window shut, she watched the spider scramble under an eave. Alone again.

It’s only been a year, Alex. You’ll get back to swimming eventually.

She stood, her knees popping as they stretched from the spot she had sat for hours. She’d go for a run, at least that was exercise, and she had to leave this house, at least for a bit. Her favorite path worked its way around the island, through rooted trees, mucky plants, and across logged bridges. Her lungs burned, she hated this form of exercise. Each step felt so clunky, her knees threatened to give way, her hands burned, and she could feel her feet swelling.

Her therapist had told her that it might ground her, center her with her body. She’d said, “you used to enjoy pushing yourself, testing the limits of your body. Maybe you just need to try to achieve that in a different way than you used to.”

Yeah, this was not the way. This, she decided, might be worse than the company of the spider in the porch swing. But the pain in her knees right now was at least better than the one that found its way into her stomach every morning by the water.

“Alex, wake up c’mon!” Cecilia threw a pillow across the room, smacking Alex’s water bottle to the wooden floor. The trumpeting clangs had Alex peeling an eye open to glare across the room.

“Cecilia, I love you, but the last thing I could ever want to do right now is go for a swim. It is 40 degrees outside. That sounds miserable.”

Cecilia didn’t answer, she merely sat at the foot of her own bed in a swimsuit, bathrobe on, tapping her foot impatiently. Alex closed her eyes, gritted her teeth. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tappity tap. Tap. Tap. Tappity tap. Tap. Tap. Tappity tap. Tap. Tap. Tappity tap. Tap. Tap. Tappity tap.

“Alexxxxxx,” Cecilia sang. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-Tap. Tap.

“You know I heard that Mason might be thereeeeee.” Alex threw her comforter back, and sat up.

“If you are lying to me, Cecilia, I will end you, just so you know,” Alex said.

“I’m just the messenger, you can’t end me.”

She ran into the hall, and Alex scrambled into her bathing suit, grabbed a bathrobe as she ran past the hall bath, and slid into her sandals chasing Cecilia’s giggles onto the beach.

“You are such a liar! I will end you!”

“At least you are swimming with me.” Cecilia dove through an oncoming wave.

“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.” Alex grinned as Cecilia popped back up, hair plastered to her face, shielding her green eyes, a matching grin underneath.

Alex poured herself a glass of orange juice, her sneakers mocked her from the hall as she leaned against the kitchen counter. Her eye burned as sweat rolled into it, her shirt clung to her skin in the humid air that surrounded her. Heavy, the way she felt when she ran, the way the sky looked over the angry sea through the window.

The front door hit the wall, thrown by the wind she guessed, until she heard unmistaken running feet toward her, wet feet.

“Help me!” An ashen girl slid to a stop in front of her, gripping her hands, already leading back to the door.

“What--I can’t--what’s wrong,” Alex tripped over her words. “Brian! Help!”

“It’s my brother, he's caught in a rip, he can’t get in,” the girl pleaded.

“I can’t. I don’t--” Alex spotted the boy, currently backstroking, straight at the shore, he wasn’t moving.

“Stay here, take my phone, call the police, they’ll send someone to help us.” Alex peeled off her soaked tshirt, her running shorts. Barnacles sliced the bottom of her feet as she dove forward, carried by the rip current, directly toward the boy. In. Out. In. Out. She felt her stomach knot. She felt the undertow lurch her away from the shore, away from steadiness. Her legs sunk, her lungs moved too fast.

Breathe Alex. Again. Breathe. Slow it down. It’s just a swim. You know how to do this. Just float, let it carry you. Her shoulders released a tension they’d held for the last year. Only the water could give her this kind of buoyancy.

She turned, and began a breaststroke.

“Hey. Hey! Look at me.” Alex grazed the boy's hand with her own. He turned.

“Mason,” she breathed. “Look, you have to swim sideways. You’ll never get in against the current. Go around it.”

She gripped his hand, steering him across the current. A wave pushed across them, her hair tangling across her eyes. Hair plastered across her face, Cecilia’s grin hidden in the foam. Her breath ragged, her calm filtering back into a panicked paddle. In and out. In and out. “Cecilia! Breathe Cecilia. Please. C’mon, you have to breathe. Swim across the rip Mason, across the rip Cecilia!”

“Alex.” A hand gripped her shoulder. “Alex, open your eyes, it’s a dream.”

The waves came stronger, she felt her body hit the barnacled shore, their shards tracing a path along her shoulder blades. Her hands trembled, gripping Cecilia’s wrist. Her fingers tangled across hair. Their twin red curls floated, Alex stared, her lungs numbed against the chilled water. She heard sirens behind her, foamed water still pounded against their bodies. The water shone red, from her or the lights of the ambulance she heard echoing, she didn’t know.

She let out a breath, her fingers curled into the quilt that covered her, threads between her fingers. Her pillow was damp, her face stinging in salty streams. She opened her eyes to meet his green gaze, green eyes beneath strung hair.

She grabbed Brian’s outstretched hand, letting him pull her to a seated position, and began her journey to her swimsuit, laid out anew, fog pulling her toward the shore.