You dragged me under the ship. For once, that's not just a figure of speech. I should have seen it coming. I should have realized where that trip was headed. But I didn't. Not until the barnacles scrapped my back, tearing flesh. Not until I trailed blood like a comet's tail in the clear water of the Caribbean.
"We're fine," you said. "I forgive you."
And, like an idiot, I believed you. Like an idiot, I stepped onto that boat. Excuse me. Ship.
Maybe you couldn't recognize your own fury, simmering under the surface, but I should have. I know you. I know the way your eyebrow twitches when you lie. I know the way your hands curl into fists when you're beyond frustrated. And I should have known.
The three minutes or so under the water feels inevitable. Painful. Terrifying. Inevitable. I'd envisioned storms. Getting stranded. Making the self-sacrificing decision to die so you could live. Not this. Not being hauled ass over teakettle into the water and dragged under like a sailor from the 1500s.
Not you desperately dragging me back onto the boat. Not the burning, choking sensation of re-learning to breathe.
"It was an accident," you said. "Forgive me."
"We're fine," I said.
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