Bubbles appeared as tiny baubles of captured light. The sun far above lit them up like candles. I reached for them with sluggish movements. Fingers rippled through the water and the bubbles floated between them, twisting away playfully. My body was tired, ready to sleep, but my lungs were awake and they wanted to scream.

Icy fire roared along my ribs. My heart threw itself against it's bony prison. Air was too far above to reach. Darkness was waiting to swallow me in its deep and empty throat.

Suddenly drowning didn't seem as easy as it had sounded.

I opened my mouth to release the scream pent up in my chest. My lips parted and water surged in. I closed my eyes, tears mixing with the lake surrounding me. My body tightened and convulsed. Water filled my throat and my lungs, and my chest and stomach. I was drinking the lake and I couldn't stop. 

My vision blurred sharply, dark edges pulsing in time to my shuddering heartbeat. This was the beginning of the end. I couldn't be saved now. I was beyond rescue and repair.

I relaxed. I let my body loosen. I let my vision fade out. My arms and legs were given to the water, splaying out at odd angles. My spine untangled and my heart slowed its stuttering. I was ready to go.

My body was silent and motionless, turned off and unplugged, but my mind still raced for a few seconds before it too began to die.

I thought of a book opened in the middle with one line scrawled atop the page in black ink.

'She killed herself.'

It was so simple, so self explanatory and so final. It wasn't the first time I had seen the book in my mind, read those words and imagined their meaning.

For the first time, it didn't frighten me.

As my mind started to shut down along with my body, something above entered the water. A shadow, a disturbance, and unwanted visitor in my final moment. I couldn't make them out, this intruder, and I started to wonder if they were an angel. Were they waiting for permission to take me to heaven? 

I wanted to go. I was ready.

I summoned strength into my arm, imagined the muscles filling with warm blood again. They flexed as I stretched out my arm, each splayed finger reaching with its own hope for the angel to grasp them and drag me to the light.

The angel's hand, warm and soft, gripped my wrist tightly...

They pulled...

I rose...

The first thing I felt was the sun's warmth on my cold face. The rays pierced my eyelids, trying to break through to be seen. I couldn't open them. It was too hard. They were too heavy. But the sun felt so wonderful... I could wait.

Something touched my face on either side. Hands? Stroking and touching, a voice begging from far away. I wanted to answer their call, but they were too far... Everything was so far away.

My nose was covered with something small and hard, holding on tightly. Lips on mine. Strange. Was the angel kissing me? Air rushed into me, inflating me, filling every cavity in my chest that wasn't already full of water.

I felt my finger's twitch at my side. I was on the edge of something, but was it life or death?

Then there was pain.

Pressure on my chest came in bursts. My bones bent beneath an unknown force, over and over. My heart lurched in my chest with every painful, measured pump. Someone outside of the dark and stillness called to me again, shouting this time. I could make out words two words. 'Please' and 'breathe.' Sometimes together, sometimes apart. The words were thick with desperation and fury.

Water started to move in my lungs, rushing to my throat. My entire body convulsed. The water wanted to come out and the air wanted to come it. They battled, and I felt my back arch as the water rose from my throat and into my mouth. It tasted foul and I jerked my head aside as I vomited the putrid water out of me. 

Hands moved me, positioning me sideways. I coughed and spluttered again and again, sobbing and whimpering in between. Finger's stroked my long hair, smoothing it from my face. Another hand rubbed my back, restoring warmth and life.

"That's it, let it out. I've got you, Kaye. I've got you."

I knew that voice. I worshipped it once. I wanted to see the speaker, desperately, and opened my eyes a crack. I could only make out a blurred shape, but it was enough for now. She'd come for me. She'd saved me.

I was surprised to find myself thankful beyond belief that I was alive. Instantly, every reason I had to kill myself no longer mattered. If my body could be saved, didn't that mean my mind could be, too?

God, I hoped so.

After a few more moments passed, my lungs finally seemed to empty of water and I could breathe with only some coughing. My chest ached from the chest pumps and my throat was raw, but I was alive.

Who knew that could mean so much?

The blurry person beside me started to come into focus as they hovered over me, still touching and comforting me. She was as beautiful as I remembered her, rugged and strong, all sharp features surrounding such a soft heart. I reached for her hand and she took it, warm finger's entwining with mine.

Cora's sea blue eyes looked deep into mine, searching for answers I couldn't give her yet. She looked so sad, so broken. I felt tears well up in my eyes. Anger at myself choked me. I made her feel like this. I hurt her. I scared her. I broke her.

As I sobbed and shook, she took me into her strong arms and held me so tightly to her body I almost couldn't bare it. I held onto her desperately and she rocked me back and forward.

Into my ear she whispered over and over, "I've got you, Kaye."