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The gardener’s lungs are on fire. Ironic, really, given the depth to which she’s pushed herself into the water. Her screams fly in useless bubbles, the woman beneath her lying stock still and motionless. Her heart pounds in whisper, in protest: not Dani. Not yet. It couldn’t possibly be fair for Jamie’s whole life to lie dead and motionless in a lake at fucking Bly Manor.
Not Dani. Not yet.
“It’s you!” screams Jamie. “It’s me! It’s us!” She doesn’t know what the words mean, not exactly, but she knows what happens when you say them. She knows about possession and tears and overflowing bathtubs. Her fists pound uselessly against the avalanche in front of her.
But the Lady in the Lake is not Viola; who wants nothing more than revenge and despair. The Lady in the Lake is Dani now. And Dani wouldn’t. Dani would never. Jamie knows this, she does, even as she pleads for it not to be true. She sends up prayer after prayer until she is forced to leave the water, to breathe.
What an intricate sort of torment it is to be the one left behind. How painful to know that the love of your life has died before you and that was how it was always going to happen. Jamie stands in the water, bracing herself on her soaked thighs, gasping in oxygen like so much detritus.
She can’t tell how much of the water on her face is from tears and how much is from the pathetic lake. The lake where Dani will lie forever, while her features ebb away and her memory fades with time. Jamie can’t breathe. She chokes and coughs on lake water, all the while wishing she had fallen to the bottom as well. Exhaustion cripples her lungs and legs until she stumbles to the ground.
“Dani,” she whispers, but it is lost in the wind. Jamie has always known that their relationship was going to end this way. She has just always bargained for a little more time. One more day to wake up to Dani’s sleepy smile and soft skin. One more hour to sit by the screen with her and watch an Audrey Hepburn movie, complaining all the while about how old the men are. One more minute to say I love you, to watch the kettle boil and not worry about what Dani might see in her tea.
Just another second to have her wife back. She stumbles out of the lake as if drunk, even though she’s never felt so terribly clear sighted. Blood is rushing to her head in pathetic bursts and her limbs hang uselessly by her sides.
“I love you,” she whispers to the lady in the lake, all the while knowing that Dani cannot hear her.