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When Lockwood was four, his parents took him and his sister on a trip to a place he no longer remembers clearly. He has faint memories of eating sweet fruit with his mother next to him and the sun high in the sky. He remembers standing by the ocean for a long time with his father, letting the waves sweep his feet and cover him in sand.
It’s all flashes, but there’s a part he still retains. It’s his dad telling him he’s too young to jump into the water with his mother and sister. If he closes his eyes, he can remember Jessica’s yelp as she jumped off the cliff, his mother following behind. He remembers the splash like thunderous applause and the ocean embracing their bodies. His father had told him he was too young to do it, but one day they would come back and his mother would teach him.
The memory flashes on his mind when he leaps off the roof with Lucy by his side. His blood freezes as his body plunges into the Thames. It sends his senses into shock, every inch of him dissolving into muddy water.
The cold spreads in from his limbs and reaches his centre, his heart slowing, his lungs overexerting. How many times was he told he would end up at the bottom of the river? How many times did he tell himself he wouldn’t, just to feel the pull from it, the ripples summoning him?
What happens to your spirit when you drown? Do you become a visitor of you’re in running water? He’s sinking further in and his brain is not sending signals. There’s no self-preservation, no wish to swim up. He’s one with the river, he’s a thing made out of water and sorrow.
He sinks further and as he does, the frigid water clears his head of thoughts of his identity. He’s not a boy or a man but a body. He’s sinking further and all he can see is darkness. He closes his eyes and there are flickers of people he will soon not recognize; there’s a memory of a woman holding his hand in the street and a man lifting his small body to reach an apple in a garden; there’s a girl with dark hair soothing his cries; there’s a man riding a horse and laughing; there’s an old man wielding a rapier; there’s a boy adjusting his glasses, and a pretty girl caressing his face with worship in her eyes.
His eyes open and he’s a memory in the water. He’s thawed into it. But there’s blue all around him and he wants to reach it so he tries. His lungs are replacing the air with water slowly. His mouth keeps opening despite his brain forgetting he has a mouth. He needs to reach the blue, but the cold has turned his legs into stone and they sink and sink. He can let go. He can finally let go like he always thought he would. He needs to find the blue. His arms start pushing up, and as he gets closer to the surface, names and faces are clearer. Not his own, never his own, only a surname in a long list of tragedies.
As he approaches the surface the fear increases. There’s something he’s forgetting. There’s someone he needs to save and it’s not himself. Never himself.
His face breaks through the surface and he hears screaming. He finds the blue. She’s alive. He didn’t save her.
Lockwood starts swimming towards her and she leads him to shore. His fingers are made of ice, he’s scared he’ll break them. When he can finally stand, his legs are waterlogged. He sees her stumble and fall on the rocks.
He follows her.
He has memories again. He can’t see the starts out here, the light pollution won’t let him. As he looks up and breathes in, the night air sticks to his skin and reminds him he’s there. Lucy is there. She’s alive, she’s breathing. He almost killed her. His attempts at redemption never land. He’s stuck to the riverbank.
Lucy’s laboured breathes fill his ears as he tries to stand up. He offers his hand and for a second is scared she will push them away, but she accepts him and with weary determination he helps her up. Her eyes are on his and she’s so close. She’s real, she’s breathing. When she pushes him, he wishes she would push him back into the water.
The walk to the street is difficult. Lucy walks ahead and he gives her space. Lockwood doubts any cabbies will let them ride in their condition, but they must look just pathetic enough that someone takes pity on them and picks them up.
Lucy goes in first and puts as much space between them as possible. Lockwood does not blame her.
“Luce,” he begs. “Please tell me you’re fine.”
She does not his acknowledge plea.
Lockwood wonders how long until she joins the list of faceless names that he can’t see anymore. Not long, probably.
He knows he fought fate tonight. A curse that’s been etched under his name since birth. Always a step too close to death. Never too far from oblivion. He’s alive, so is Lucy. Someone else isn’t. The last one is on him.
As the cab stops on their street, Lucy jolts out the door. He follows her, asks her to speak to him. Why does he tell her they won? How would he know what winning feels like?
As he stands on the street, still covered in river water and with a sense of dread overcoming him, he chooses to go inside instead of back into the Thames.
There’s a trail of footprints covering Jack Carver’s death glow. He wishes he could exchange them, keep the footprints there. Create a proof that even for some time, Lucy has been here.
He makes his way up the stairs and he wants to follow the trail to the attic but knows better than that.
It’s the adrenaline of the night that keeps him moving. He goes straight to the bathroom, trying not to get mud on his mother’s rug.
Steam from the shower fills the bathroom as he undresses.
Lockwood looks at himself in the mirror. The dark circles are prominent–they always are–but there’s something else there. It’s the memory of sinking in, the water entering his lungs, and him doing nothing to stop it. He remembers the blue that brought him back. Lockwood wonders if there will be something to beckon him back the next time, if he’ll do anything to stop himself from letting go. His knuckles are white from gripping the sink. A drop of blood drips onto the stark white of the basin. He reaches with his finger and smears it.
He thinks about Lucy up in the loft. He remembers her body falling next to his, careening into the water. He thinks of what he told her earlier in the night. He meant it. He hopes to leave no one behind. Lockwood can only hope he hasn’t destroyed her by then.
The hot water is a welcomed respite juxtaposed with the Thames. He lets it run down his body until his skin turns pink.
He wraps himself in a towel and hopes Lucy is in her room or somewhere else, best not to run into her when he’s half-dressed.
Lockwood needs to apologize, not only because she was right, or because it’s the right thing to do, but because he can’t stand the idea of upsetting her.
In his room, he chooses a suit and a tie, he combs his hair, and wills himself to settle down. No time to examine the memory of his body plunging into water.