Page 112 of Take Me Away

Chapter Twenty-Five

KIT

The world moves like it’s underwater. Distant. Muffled. Colours muted, filtered through fog.

I’m sitting staring at a wall I’ve seen ten thousand times but somehow can’t recognise. My body doesn’t feel like mine. Heavy as hell. Everything aches. Inside’s worse. The bruises throb under the dressings, but the real pain? That’s in my gut. Deeper than bone. Doesn’t stop.

Maisie sits cross-legged on the floor, closer to the TV than I’d normally allow. Some cartoon flickers across the screen – bright colours, quick movements, meaningless noise. She’s pretending to watch it, but I catch her glancing back at me every few minutes, her small face tight with worry she shouldn’t have to carry.

Jude’s somewhere behind me, banging mugs, kettle hissing. I can’t track it. Dad’s by the window. Still as stone.

The storm has passed. Radio says it tracked west, out to sea. Reports of damage all along the coast. Boats lost. Roads flooded.

One man missing.

Peter. His name’s a weight I can’t shift. In my chest. My throat. Behind my fucking eyes.

Peter, who went in after me.

Peter, who got the rope around me. Peter, who didn’t come back.

I close my eyes, but it doesn’t help. The sea is still there, playing behind my eyelids like a film reel I can’t shut off. Black water. Blacker sky. The Mary Jane listing, the wave that pulled me off deck. The cold shock when I hit the water. The desperate struggle to stay afloat as waves crashed over my head, again and again and again.

Then the lifeboat. Jude’s voice, shouting through the wind.

Peter, jumping in without hesitation.

His hand, gripping my life jacket. The rope around my chest. His face, close to mine, shouting words I couldn’t hear but understood anyway: I’ve got you. You’re safe.

Then being dragged towards the lifeboat. The wave that separated us. The weight of water crushing down.

And Peter, gone.

Because of me.

‘Dad?’ Maisie’s voice slices right through the noise in my head. I blink. She’s watching me. ‘Dad, you’re doing the thing again.’

‘What thing?’ My voice sounds wrong. Scraped raw.

‘The not-breathing thing.’

I exhale, hadn’t realised I was holding my breath. ‘Sorry, love.’

‘Are you thinking about the storm?’

The simplicity of the question scrapes against my frayed nerves. I nod, not trusting my voice.

She climbs up beside me, fits herself under my arm like she always has. Like muscle memory. ‘I was really scared,’ she says quietly. ‘When they said you were in the water.’

I put my arm around her, automatic, protective. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault the boat broke.’

Isn’t it?

But it is my fault Peter went in after me. My fault he didn’t come back.

My fault Nina’s world has shattered into pieces no one can put back together.