Page 84 of That Last Summer

I find him talking calmly with my brother and give him a push to tip him over the rail, but at the last second he grabs my arm and we both fall helplessly.

Since I’m already in the water, my goggles around my neck, I decide to stay. I put them on and, when I’m about to dive, I feel someone approaching me: Alex. Once he’s close enough, he ducks me, and we sink in the water together. But before I free myself from his grip, something catches my attention on the sea floor.

It looks like a rope. At the town’s main beach, there’s a rope. We don’t know where it begins or where it ends; we only know some stretches of it. Alex and I have spent years searching for its origin and end, but we’ve never found them.

The second I emerge, I ask him, “Have you seen that?”

“No, what?”

Carefully, he removes my goggles. He puts them on and dives, and when he comes back up, he stares directly into my eyes.

“You’ve seen it.” I don’t ask. I assert.

“I’ve seen it,” he says, unable to hide his enthusiasm. “Marc!” he yells, handing back my diving goggles.

“What?” asks my brother, leaning over the rail of the yacht.

“Throw me some flippers.”

Marcos walks away and comes back with two pairs—one for Alex and one for me. He throws them our way gently, and winks at me before turning around.

We manage as best as we can with the flippers and Alex turns his back to me as he puts his goggles on. I wait, not knowing what to do, until I see him turn his head to look at me. “Are you coming up or what?”

Yessss!

I climb onto his back, like I’ve done so many times in the past, and we dive to the bottom together. We’ve always done it this way—I can’t hold my breath for as long as he can, and I’m not that fast either.

Like an image from the past, we dive together, reach the bottom, touch the rope and go back up.

“It gets this far!” I exclaim as I break the surface.

We’d never explored this area before; we couldn’t imagine the rope reaching as far as this. We’re about five miles from the town’s main beach.

“I knew that already,” Alex tells me. But he’s lying. I can tell by the brightness in his eyes, full of emotion from our discovery. I see it in his gleam, even though his wet bangs are almost completely covering his eyes.

“Liar.”

I’m about to turn around when Alex ducks me again, sinking with me into the water. And without planning, talking, or even thinking about it, we’re diving together. We swim away from the boat and every time something on the sea floor catches our attention, I climb onto Alex’s back and we go down as if we were one. We dive together as if time had never passed; we dive under truce. Because we do have a truce. Finally. And the only thought in my mind is I want this to last forever.

Much later, when we grow cold after so many hours in the water, we return to the yacht. My dad has brought forth the fishing rods and taken up his position. I take refuge in the cabin to shed my wet bikini and search for dry clothes in the small backpack I brought with me. I put on a fresh bikini, a T-shirt and some shorts, then go to join Dad. I like fishing with him; I like the silence that surrounds us; the waiting time; the expectation; being alone, just the two of us, sharing those quiet moments.

Alex joins us almost immediately; I didn’t know he liked fishing but I’m not complaining, and the three of us—with my dad in the middle—spend an hour in silence until Papá Cabana leaves us with a smile on his lips, even though we didn’t catch a single fish.

Alex, me, and the sound of the sea in the background.

Even if water has no taste and no color, it certainly does have a sound. I can hear the gentle breeze coming from one side, rippling my hair and shirt. I look at Alex, and the air is ruffling his hair too, clearing his forehead as he breathes and enjoys the moment. The only thing I feel sorry about is not being able to see the gleam in his eyes, since he’s wearing sunglasses.

Alex moves to my dad’s place and we sit side by side. He puts his feet up on the edge of the yacht with his legs crossed at the ankles, mimicking my posture. We sit there in silence, looking at the fishing rods and glancing at each other from the corners of our eyes. He looks at me first, and when I catch him doing it, he quickly looks away to focus on the sea as if nothing had happened; then I look at him until I do the same, averting my eyes, looking away. We keep this up for... I don’t know, minutes, until his gaze goes down to my T-shirt, to the giant embossed pink heart that adorns it.

“You do it on purpose.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, hiding a smile.

“Put on the biggest bows.”

“No, I don’t. Maybe it’s you; you pay way too much attention. And it’s not a bow. It’s a heart.”

“Come on, Priscila. I know you.”