I don’t know how long it’s been. I can’t remember. Long enough for our porch to sink into the sand, the wood bleached like half-buried bones. Long enough for the loneliness to stick to me like a second skin. Long enough for us to rot. I can’t remember anything clearly anymore, except for her.
Tenaya loved the sea. She lived for it. Dragging me out to her family’s remote beach house almost every weekend to bask in the frigid salt of the waves. She said she’d always wanted to bring a girlfriend to her little house by the sea, and the way she said it made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. It almost made up for the long winding drive and spotty cell service. Almost. I didn’t share her love for the ocean. To me it was a distant acquaintance at best. Too cold. Too vast. Too unforgiving. But I loved the way the sun glinted off of the waves and onto her smile. How vibrant she became every-time she entered the surf.
It was dark the night it happened, but clear. We were out on the porch, her with her arms outstretched, the wind making sails of her clothes, me off to the side huddled in layers of woolen blankets. The air was sharp and fresh, peppered with sprays of salt and sand that entered every corner of our beings. She turned toward me then, utterly alive with it all.
“I’m going to go in.” The parts of her voice not blown away by the wind were giddy.
“Are you sure? It’s late and the water is going to be freezing.”
“It always is. Just for a quick dip. And then we can watch that awful movie you’ve been dying to show me.”
My forehead creased as I looked out at the dark shivering ink that made up the waves.
“Be careful. I’ll keep watch.”
“Woo-Hoo!!!!” She turned and lept off of the porch, sprinting towards the line of the water, not bothering to see if I was following. I jogged after her, still wrapped up in wool and stopped about ten feet from the waves. I watched as she ran into them, the warmth seeping out of me like a leak in a glass. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, until I was shivering there, the wet sand making prunes of my feet. Tenaya was a pale blur as she dove into the waves and surfaced again and again, gasping as she broke the surface. Water sluiced off of her, sticking her hair to her face, tangling it in her smile. I looked down and watched the waves play tag with the shore. They flowed in and out and left trails of shivering effervescent foam in their wake. I could hear Tenaya laughing. Her delighted voice blew towards me in torn bursts with the wind.
And then there was another noise, more like a gasp. I wrenched my gaze upward in time to see her being pulled away from shore. In a movement faster than thought, the blanket was on the sand and I too was in the waves. The cold shocked me into panic as I made my way towards her. My every movement felt too slow, like the water was fighting my progress. Ahead of me I could see her struggling. She was being pulled directly into the waiting arms of a rocky outcropping that stuck out from the shore. The rocks shone slick with salt and malice. In an instant I saw her collide with it, her torso slamming into the unforgiving stone with force. The waves pulled her back and forth, pummeling her into the rocks again and again like a cruel puppeteer. I reached her just as she went under. My hands were desperate and my eyes were open. I could see her blurry form through the salt in my eyes, sinking, almost out of reach. I grabbed onto the rock, ignoring the barnacles that cut into my hands like glass. I used them as leverage and launched myself downwards, managing to grab hold of her arm. Pulling her cold body towards me. The waves pushed us down once more and for a second everything was silent. I could feel the burn of saltwater entering my lungs, invading my nostrils and forcing its way down my throat.
The trek back was arduous. She was conscious, and breathing by some miracle, but I could see blood pouring from her head. It rendered her incapable of swimming correctly; her movements were jerky and groans of pain escaped her lips. We reached the shore on our hands and knees. I tried to wrap her in blankets but the wool was soaked through and too heavy to lift. Instead we stumbled up to the house. Tenaya’s movements were growing shorter, more labored. By the time she reached the porch she was collapsing in on herself, falling as she tried to wipe the blood from her eyes. I half-carried her into the house, into our room, onto our bed. I felt delirious. Water had crept into my lungs and it came out of me in sprays when I coughed. My phone, the only one that had been charged, lay inert and waterlogged in the pocket of my shorts.
So I lay there with her. Held her close and wiped saltwater and blood out of her eyes with my hands. I could hear myself saying things I didn’t believe.
“It’ll be okay, you’ll be fine. Tomorrow we’ll wake up together and everything will be good. We still have to watch the movie, remember?”
Tenaya did nothing but gasp. She was so, so cold. Her eyes were bleary, and they moved in slow circles around the room. Her breathing began to slow, becoming shallower with each labored inhale. Her eyelids drooped.
She died at a pace that felt like melting and looked like sleep.
I don’t know how long I lay there. Holding her. Feeling the last of her warmth seep into the bed and mix with the blood soaked sheets. Sobs tore out of me in looping wails, becoming more choked as I lost my breath. Felt the fluid build up around the damaged tissues in my lungs. Call it second-hand drowning or call it grief. The result is the same.
They found our corpses a week later after we failed to come home, wafting flies and the smell of rotting seaweed. They carried them away but I can still see us. Still see my desiccated arms curled around her peaceful, damaged corpse.
They put up telephone lines near our house recently, as new places have begun to spring up. To help prevent future accidents. If I focus, I can travel just far enough to reach the closest wire. I’ve been broadcasting this message for weeks now, hoping somehow, something will pick it up. I want people to know what happened, and how wonderful she was. Maybe if someone out there hears me they can send help. You see, I don’t know where she went when she died, but it isn’t here. I can’t find her. And I don’t know how to leave.