Page 64

Adam

I’m back!

Blackness explodes into a brilliant frosty white. My numbers have run out, but I haven’t disappeared completely. I’m hovering below the storm clouds, watching the people on the beach. Sophie is lying next to my motionless, stricken body. She’s not moving either.

Sophie!

I cry out, but my voice doesn’t travel far enough.

Wren’s head is thrown back, as if she’s searching for me in the sky. Her mouth is open wide into a scream. The sound is a gentle murmur by the time it reaches me, but it cuts like a knife.

I’m here, Wren. Don’t cry!

But she can’t hear me either. I can’t swoop down to comfort her or Sophie.

I watch, helplessly, as figures run towards them.

Mum and the search party. Two police officers.

A woman crouches next to Sophie. Mum throws herself on to her knees and pulls off my bow tie, undoing my top buttons.

A policeman checks the pulse in my neck.

Now he’s compressing the centre of my chest, too hard.

I hear a gentle crack as a rib breaks, but don’t feel a thing.

Sophie’s moving. She’s alive!

Mum’s neighbour eases Sophie into a sitting position. Her hand covers her right eye. Wren falls into her arms for a hug, before attempting to throw herself at me.

‘Daddy! Wake up.’

A policewoman catches her arm, pulling her back, as her colleague continues to pump my chest.

‘Let’s wait for your daddy over here.’

Wren cries as she’s gently led away. Sophie crawls closer to my body and reaches for Mum’s hand. They cling on to each other.

‘How long for the ambulance?’ Mum asks.

‘It was diverted to a three-vehicle crash,’ the policeman replies. ‘It’ll be another fifteen minutes.’

‘That’s too long!’ Mum cries.

The policeman listens to my chest and feels my neck and wrist before glancing at his partner. ‘Radio for help again.’

‘Adam!’ Mum cries.

‘Breathe for us,’ Sophie says, sobbing.

I’m trying! I want to live! I’m still using too many exclamation marks!

I feel the intense pain in Sophie’s right eye, down the side of her face and in her heart, even though I’m no longer inside my skin. I absorb the pain in Wren’s chest and Mum’s.

I’m the first to notice a man running along the beach towards them, clutching a bag. As he draws closer, I recognise him.

Tom!

The group looks up as he shouts and waves.

‘You came!’ Sophie exclaims, clutching her eye.

‘I found a taxi after you left.’ He kneels next to the policeman, who is compressing my empty chest. ‘I’m an off-duty paramedic. Can you tell me his status?’

‘A twenty-eight-year-old male is in cardiac arrest after taking a direct lightning strike. I’ve performed CPR for one minute but there’s no pulse. A female patient also suffered burns to her eye and face.’

Tom glances at Sophie. ‘I’ll check you over after I’ve stabilised Adam.’ He nods at the officer. ‘Keep going while I get this ready.’

He opens his bag and pulls out a black box, sitting back on his heels.

‘You brought a defibrillator to the golf club?’ Sophie gasps.

He rips open my shirt, making a button pop off. ‘I always take my emergency kit to parties, just in case.’

‘Because of the car crash,’ she states. ‘You want to be able to help.’

‘That’s right.’

He pulls two pads out of a packet, placing the electrodes on my bare torso. An electronic voice from the device announces it is evaluating heart rhythm and preparing to shock.

‘Everyone stand clear, please,’ Tom orders.

Mum and the policeman help Sophie scramble to her feet.

Do not touch the patient. Delivering shock.

Red-hot pain rips through my chest, tearing veins and arteries and squeezing and cracking bones corset-like.

My heart flutters.

Oxygen rushes in a flood through my body, extinguishing raging fires, but it trickles away. I’m still floating above them as Tom continues CPR for two minutes.

‘Please don’t stop trying!’ Sophie.

‘Daddy!’

The device issues another command to shock.

‘Stand clear!’ Tom warns.

Pain surges and subsides. Lights flash on and off, burning brightly like a dying star before being smothered by darkness.

I’m drifting higher and higher into the storm clouds, yet it feels as though I’m sinking... I’m surrounded by a mass of whirling whiteness as if I’m back beneath the wave that knocked me off my surfboard as a teenager.

The bubbles transform into numbers, and the tunnel returns. An invisible current drags me towards it. I thought these mathematical sequences were impossible to solve, but I realise the answer is obvious.

It’s 3.

Me, Wren and Sophie.

It’s the only number that ever mattered: the secret formula for my happiness. No other patterns are as important or meaningful as the ones I’ve formed with them. They will be everlasting...

I feel the figures that form my body, the trillions of blood cells, molecules and atoms, split and reduce in size, getting smaller and smaller.

But I refuse to give up on our beautiful patchwork of experiences, our wonderful future life.

I’m battling my way back towards their voices, away from the powerful, piercing light. I won’t quit this life. Not yet. Not ever.

‘Stay with us, Adam,’ Sophie begs. ‘We love you!’

I love both of you. Very much.

‘Please, Daddy, stay!’

I want nothing more than to be with the two of you! You’ve both changed my life for the better! I’ll always be with you! I love you both with all my failing heart!

I hold on to this moment for as long as possible.

The three of us together.

Then I’m forced to let go.