Drowning sucks. It's a paradox of panic. On the one hand, your brain is protesting the idea of continuing to hold your breath, that if you don't let your breath out and take a new breath, you'll asphyxiate. On the other, your brain is fighting against that very same urge because it knows that if you do take a breath, water will rush into your lungs and then that'll be it. No more breathing. No more oxygen. No more thoughts. No more you. Just another body in the water. Maybe someone will recognize me.

  If I could only swim out of this undercurrent, I could easily break the water and take a breath of glorious atmosphere and orient myself to be rescued. I'm pretty sure I'm bleeding too, my forehead hurts like a fucking bitch, but I can't focus on that right now, as I swim with all my strength.

  My arms burn, my legs feel like lead, but I keep kicking, cwing at the water as if I can fight the undercurrent into submission. My lungs scream for air, my vision flickers at the edges, and my thoughts—sharp and desperate—begin to slip into something softer, more distant.

  A memory rises, unbidden, from the depths of my mind.

  I was five years old the first time I understood that my body was different. The other kids would giggle in the changing rooms, comparing their shapes and sizes, asking "Are you a boy or a girl?" because, at that age, things were supposed to be simple. But I didn’t have an answer that made sense to them. It sure didn't make sense to me.

  I was ten when I started getting expnations from my parents, quiet talks at the dinner table when they thought I was old enough to start understanding. I did my best to listen, but nothing they said stopped the stares, the whispers, the way some people’s eyes darted away like they were embarrassed for me.

  I was fifteen when I stopped trying to correct people when they assumed. When I learned that a careful silence was safer than an awkward truth. Mom had left us by then, so my dad was left to care for me, his freak of a daughter.

  I was seventeen when I met her.

  And for a while, it felt like I didn’t have to expin, because she loved me—not just the idea of what I should be. I remember the warmth of her hand in mine, the way she kissed my fingertips absentmindedly when she thought I wasn’t paying attention. The way she had whispered "You’re everything I want." And I believed her.

  Then came the hesitation.

  The unread messages.

  The "I just need time to think."

  Her voice was so small, yet it felt like a punch to the gut.

  "Time to think about what?" I had asked, already knowing the answer. My hands had been balled into fists at my sides, as if holding myself together by force alone.

  "About us. About everything. I didn’t—” She hesitated, looking away. "I didn’t expect this."

  The weight of those words had been suffocating, an invisible hand pressing down on my chest, much like the ocean is now. Cold. Merciless. Indifferent.

  "I’m still me." My voice had cracked then, raw, pleading.

  "I know." But she had already stepped back. Already started to let go.

  The ocean squeezes me tighter. My head is light. I am running out of time.

  Is this what they mean when they say your life fshes before your eyes?

  Because if it is, then this isn't fair. If I'm going to die, I want to see something good. I want to remember the warmth of my mother’s arms, the ughter of my childhood, the taste of fresh mangoes in the summer. Not this. Not the moments where everything fell apart.

  I have to fight.

  I snap back to the present with a jolt of panic. My body convulses in protest, muscles screaming as I kick harder, pushing against the force dragging me down. My forehead pulses with pain, my vision swims, but I don’t care. I refuse to become just another body in the water.

  But the ocean has other pns.

  The current shifts, a force far stronger than me surging forward. Before I can react, I’m caught in its grip, flung like a piece of driftwood. The world twists violently, water filling every space around me, spinning me end over end. My lungs scream, my body pleads for air, but I can’t—I can’t—

  My mouth opens.

  Saltwater rushes in, filling my throat, my lungs, choking me from the inside out. My body seizes, a final, useless protest against the inevitable. My thoughts splinter, vision tunneling, darkness creeping at the edges.

  Then—impact.

  I sm against something hard. Metal. My body scrapes against it before I colpse onto rough, wet wood. The world lurches, the sound of crashing waves filling my ears, but everything feels distant—like I'm drifting away. I try to move, to cough, to force the water out, but nothing happens. My body won’t listen.

  Too much. I’ve used up everything.

  I can’t breathe.

  There are voices. Distant. Urgent. Footsteps pounding against the deck. A hand presses against my chest, firm and searching, and then—pressure.

  Lips against mine. Air forced into my lungs.

  My body barely reacts, a weak spasm as the breath is pushed into me, but the water in my lungs won’t leave. Another breath. The pressure on my chest increases, forcing out a weak trickle of seawater, but not enough. Not enough.

  Another breath.

  Something in me flickers—painful, raw instinct forcing my lungs to react. I cough, feebly at first, then violently, and I turn over onto my side with adrenaline giving a final burst of movement as I vomit seawater from my mouth. I cough and gag and scream as my lungs and stomach eject seawater (and my lunch), before I flop onto my back, breathing raggedly.

  The world pulses, sound returning in jagged fragments. The crash of the waves. The rasp of my own breath. A voice murmuring something—words I can’t quite grasp.

  But I’m not dead.