Tides of the Heart (Crestwood Chronicles #1)

Chapter 2

When I was five years old, my mom enrolled me in swim lessons at the local pool. Unfortunately, the swim teacher was madly in love with the lifeguard, so when I strayed too far from the wall in the deep end they were both too distracted by each other to notice. I started drowning, and if a helicopter parent who'd stayed at the lesson to watch her own kid hadn't seen me, I probably would have finished drowning, too.

I've been afraid of deep water ever since, and thus never properly learned to swim—a skill which would have come in quite handy at the moment.

Reflexively, I hold my breath as the rush of surf tumbles me like a load of clothes in the wash. My leg and shoulder scrape on the rocks and something hot touches my brow. Breaking the surface, I see the back-flow of the wave has sucked me further down the channel and into the surf. I try to get my feet under me, but I can't touch the bottom and go under again.

Panic explodes in my chest. I thrash clumsily, weighed down by my clothes, and when my head breaks through the waves again, I inhale some seawater and choke. I make a desperate grab for the rocks, but they're at once slippery and sharp, covered in slimy algae and encrusted with mussels and barnacles. They elude my grasp and cut me at the same time.

The cold bites, pain eats at my strength, and I go under again, likely for the last time. I read about how easy it is to drown, how even the best swimmers can succumb in the right—or wrong—circumstances, and I can barely dog paddle on a good day.

This is it. I'm drowning, and some unfortunate beach-goer will find my crab-eaten corpse in a few days, washed up on shore like a dead whale. My greatest contribution to the world will be a statistic: one more idiot who underestimated the sea. Good job, Charlie.

If that seems like a lot to think about while drowning, it feels like I have time. I've stopped struggling and, having surrendered to my fate, find myself carried almost gently by the waves. I've gone numb, pain fading to a memory, and let myself drift where the current takes me. It's almost peaceful, except I'm vaguely aware that I'm in shock.

Then, abruptly, I break the surface again and—much to my surprise—find myself lifted clear of the churning brine, dragged up and over the slimy rocks by a pair of wet-suit clad arms, and deposited on dry land.

I cough and retch, vomiting seawater, of which I'd swallowed several mouthfuls in my attempts not to breathe it in. My ears ring, my eyes sting, and the pain returns with a vengeance, the cold biting to my bones. A different pain—hot like fire—burns the scrapes on my arm and leg, while the side of my face feels like someone scrubbed it with sandpaper.

I roll onto my back, sand and salt blurring my vision, and struggled to catch my breath as my throat and lungs burn. A human-shaped shadow blocks my hazy view of the over-bright sky, and I stare up into a pair of blue eyes in a handsome face. In my half-stunned state, I absorb a handful of random details: chapped lips, wind-tousled hair, the kind of jawline modeling agencies fight over. If not for the pain telling me I'm very much alive, I'd think I drowned after all, and an angel plucked my soul from the waves.

Angel-boy's lips move, but I can't hear past the ringing in my ears. Then my senses clear a little and sound returns.

"Come on, bro. That's it. Keep breathing. Nice and steady. That's it. Whoa!"

Thoroughly mortified, I sit up, then instantly regret it as a throb of pain goes through my head. As if things could get worse, I double over and retch again, spewing a bit more seawater and half-digested granola bar over my lap. All the irritation has triggered my asthma, too, and my next breath is more of a strained wheeze.

"I need... my stuff." I wave vaguely towards the cliffs where I'd left my pack. "Inhaler."

I make an attempt to rise, but angel-boy, who I now recognize as one of the surfer dudes, holds me back.