Page 94 of In Every Lifetime
Fai
Drowning was nothing like I’d imagined. In movies, it looks almost peaceful—the slow descent and the quiet stillness beneath the surface. They never show the fire in your lungs or the sheer, instinctive panic as your body fought against breathing in water.
Every inch of me ached, each breath dragging pain deep through my chest. My skin was marked with scrapes, bruises, and cuts from the riverbed, though somehow I’d escaped without any broken bones from the fall.
They planned to discharge me in the morning. Just one night of monitoring, they said, since my heart had stopped, if only for a moment.
My heart had stopped, my lungs had ceased to draw breath, and the blood in my veins had gone still. Well… my heart had stopped. Sarah, however, did not. She kept my heart going, kept the blood pumping through me, and kept refilling my lungs with her own air until I came back. When I awoke, I was convinced I was in heaven. Sarah looked down at me, the water falling down her cheeks and the light in her eyes.
How could I look at her and not think I was in heaven?
It had taken nearly half an hour to get us off that riverbank and into the back of an ambulance, but once we were there, it had been nonstop. I was bombarded with tests, blood draws, and countless doctor visits. It felt as though I had met every doctor in the hospital.
Sarah was whisked away for her own care and questioning by the police. I had very little to give to the detectives in my own interviews.
It had been less than ten minutes from my arrival at the bridge to Sarah pulling me out of the water. I could barely recount most of it, my head filled with the same water that filled my lungs. Sarah, however, had been with the man I now know as Levi for over an hour.
I hadn’t heard the full story yet, but I knew he had finally explained it all. Well… he explained enough for Sarah to finish putting together the pieces.
Now, they searched. It had been over four hours since we were brought to the hospital, and all I knew was that teams were combing the woods, the riverbanks, and the water itself. It wasn’t impossible that Levi had made it out, but the force of our impact could just as easily have knocked him unconscious.
If he had drowned in that river, it was likely we would never find his body. While that meant Sarah would be technically safe, we wouldn’t know. We would live in constant fear that he was still out there, waiting for his moment to pounce. The need to find him—dead or alive—was all-consuming. It was the only way to know she was safe.
I looked over to her in our small hospital room. She was dressed in a set of scrubs, her braids cascading down her back. She had pulled up a chair and placed it next to the bed, her legs curled up underneath her. Her eyes were half open, the exhaustion of the last day catching up with her.
We were finally entering moments of calm with Sarah ending her police interview and coming to sit with me in my room. I reached for her, slipping my hand into hers. My thumb brushed gently over her knuckles—a quiet, absent motion—and she smiled, soft and warm at the touch.
Neither of us spoke. We let the silence settle between us… quiet but full of love and hope. It still felt unreal that we had both made it off that bridge alive and mostly unharmed. All I wanted was for her to be able to go home, and I was endlessly grateful I got to come with her.
Another fit of coughing tore through me, my throat burning with every breath. Recovering from drowning, it turned out, was anything but easy. I forced myself upright as the coughing continued, each rasping, wet sound scraping painfully through my chest.
“Can I get you anything?” Sarah asked with wide, panicked eyes.
I pointed to the small rolling table by the bed and motioned for her to pull it closer. She listened, and I grabbed the small cup of water on top, taking slow sips to help the burning in my throat.
“Thank you,” I croaked. She took the cup from me when I finished, setting it on the table. Her eyes were drawn to a familiar round chip from the action. The rest of my belongings were in a bag in the corner of the room, but I wanted to keep the chip.
My sobriety was the very reason I had thrown Levi and myself over the bridge. I was willing to die before drinking again. I had worked so hard for my sobriety and had lost so much to my addiction. I couldn’t do it again.
Sarah picked it up, her thumb running over the engravings. “I still have your old ones.”
I lay back in my bed, my body exhausted from the coughing. It was bound to be a long, hard recovery.
“Why in the world did you keep those?”
She shrugged. “It reminded me of just how hard you worked. Plus, they were gifts. It would be rude to throw away a gift.”
I laughed lightly. “They were shit gifts.” I took the coin from her fingers, looking it over. “I’m sorry I ever gave you those.”
She looked at me in confusion.
“Do you remember what I said every time I gave you one?”
She nodded. “You were sober for me.”
I sighed. “I shouldn’t have done that… put my sobriety on you. It wasn’t fair. It was my own responsibility, never yours.”
She smiled sadly, taking my free hand in hers and squeezing softly. “Is it different now?”
