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should die here.
    My leg is useless. Arm as well. Muscle cramps. Hardly surprising, now that I think of it. The lack of sleep, the fights, the endless practice, the icy night water. My body is rebelling at the most crucial time.
    What’s surprising is how little I care.
    Ever since she died, I’ve wondered what dying was like. Quiet, or loud? Painful, or gentle? It looked painful to me, but I was twelve. I could be wrong.
    It feels painful now.
    My thoughts are coming unhinged, spiraling out. There’s an intense pressure on my chest. Crushing. The cold is overwhelming. I’m floating, endless in the dark. I can’t tell if I’m so far down that I can’t locate the moonlight dancing on the surface of the water, or if it’s just that my eyes are closed.
    I’ll see her again.
    She’ll be disgusted at what her son has become.
    Bright lights flicker somewhere in my vision. My lungs are starving. I know if I breathe in, that’s the moment. I will die. But I have no choice. Numbness creeps over my fingertips. I inhale.
    I was right.
    Dying is painful.
     
    MAY
    When I reach the place I’m pretty sure I saw him last, I stop, my panting deafening. “Sebastian?” I cry, my voice echoing over the surface of the water. No response. It’s the loneliest moment of my life.
    But I can’t give up. I take in an enormous gulp of air and dive, kicking straight down, my chest constricting against the pressure of the water. I open my eyes, the salt water stinging, but of course it’s almost totally dark. I swim dow n and try to feel around with my arms, which are pale in front of me, until my head is bursting and I need air.
    I resurface and gasp for a second. One more time.
    This time, I dive deeper, farther down than I’ve ever swum before. My ears pop. The water is a thick dark shape pressing into all corners of my vision. And then I see a darker shape drifting below me.
    I grab blindly and feel something smooth and limp. My hand closes around his wrist. There are popping lights in my vision and he weighs a thousand pounds, I can’t possibly drag him up, we’re both going to drown here—
    But somehow I manage to bring us both above the surface of the water. I take enormous breaths as we reach air, nearly crying with fatigue and fear. Sebastian’s completely motionless, his eyes closed and his head falling back. It’s all I can do to keep him above water. I have no idea how I’m going to bring us both back to the beach.
    “Don’t you dare be dead,” I choke out and slip my arm around his chest, holding his body against mine as I do my best to butterfly-kick towards shore. Twice I sink beneath the water and resurface coughing, Sebastian weighing me down. I didn’t realize how tall he was—I think even taller than Tanner.
    I really, really don’t want him to be dead.
    It feels like the beach is a million miles away, but the bottoms of my feet hit sand right when I’m sure I can’t swim another inch. Thank God. I loop my arms under Sebastian’s and heave him out of the water, but I’m trembling all over and the best I can do is get him onto the wettest part of the sand.
    I’m terrified when I look at him—he’s defi nitely not breathing, and his skin is white. There’s no trace of the arrogance I saw before in his still face. Sprawled on his back in the sand, he just looks vulnerable. I get control of my shaking fingers and reach for my phone to call 911, but it was in my pocket when I jumped in the water, and the screen won’t light up.
    I feel for his pulse—he has one, but it’s weak. I took a CPR class in high school, and I pray I remember how to do it right as I push down hard on his chest, once, twice, and I few more times before I cover his mouth with mine, breathing into him until his chest rises.
    “Come on,” I gasp as I return to the chest compressions. “Breathe. Please.”
    He’s still not moving. He’s dead. I wasn’t fast enough.
    And then his body jerks.
    I let out a sob of relief as his