CATHERINE
It didn’t feel like drowning at first. It felt like floating in silence until the silence got too heavy.
One second I was talking to Stacy and the next my lungs were screaming for air under water. The burn in my chest spread up to my throat, and my legs kicked out in a panic. My hands thrashed, splintering the water into useless ripples. I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d never learned how to swim… why in God’s name hadn’t I ever learned how to swim?
The weight in my body kept dragging me down, the pale blue light dimming into a darker shade. In that moment, my mind flashed with one thought… Ellie.
What would happen to her if I didn’t get out? I was all she had.
This couldn’t be it. I forced my arms upward, kicking harder, but the pressure crushed my movements like they we
