Now that senior year was here, life was nothing but parties. It was like my classmates were chasing the sun with how much they were burning out on cheap vodka and low-grade weed.

Me? I'd rather trek out into the darkness and explore the water along the other side of the island in the bay. There was no mystery or braveness in drinking myself silly and flirting with boys who passed these girls around like Jack Daniels shots. I had Carson, I didn't need the attention of anyone else.

So here we were again, at another beach party that Joel insisted on throwing on a Friday night. I was bored to tears already, watching my brother flit around the girls like a liquored up fly.

"Doesn't he realize that these girls are like a walking STD?” I lean into Carson, loving the warm feel of being tucked into his body.

He presses a kiss to the side of my head and takes a sip of beer. “Babe, he doesn’t care even if they do.”

My boyfriend chuckles and I can do nothing but scowl. The music, the bonfire, the girls in their crop tops and done up hair, giggling and making eyes at the boys. The boys who show off, running down the beach in their ATVs or open top trucks.

“You want to go somewhere?” I glance over at him, trying to flash my eyes so he knows what I mean.

We gave each other our virginities back in the fall, and since then, we can’t seem to keep our hands off each other. I don’t know why I made us wait so long, not that Carson was anything but patient and gentlemanly. But sex … it just brought us so much closer together. Something that felt that euphoric? I wanted to do it all of the time.

“Come on, babe, we have to stay for a little. Joel wants us here, and I have been blowing him off all week. It’s one of the last parties before we graduate. I know you don’t like it, but you’re a trooper for doing it for us.”

His midnight eyes matched the sky, mesmerizing me and rooting me to where we sat on top of the hood of his pickup.

“Fine. But only if you promise to sneak in tonight.”

More and more, Carson had been sneaking into my room at night to snuggle. And do other things. We’d be off to college in just three short months; me to North Carolina State and him to Tufts in Boston. It would be very long distance, and while I was worried, this was us we were talking about. I loved this boy more than the moon loved the stars. More than the wild horses that dotted our backyard loved their isolation. There was nothing that could break us apart.

“I love you more than the sand loves the shore.” He bends down, his lips tingling as they parted mine.

There was nothing that was any better than this feeling. I’d remember this during the lonely nights at college.

When he pulls away, he can see that I’m still antsy. He sighs, flicking my nose and laughing.

“Why don’t you just go to the Horse Shack? I’ll meet you there in five after I tell Joel we’ll be back later.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, I hopped off the car. “My shackles are off. Finally!”

Carson laughs at me. “You’re beautiful.”

I blush under his long stare. “So come get me. Soon.”

I peck him on the cheek and skip off in the direction of the dunes, which go up and over and lead to the Horse Shack. By the time I get there, I’m ready for Carson to lay me down and kiss me until the sun comes up.

When I get to the second floor and look out on our view, the place we’ve caught so many milestones in, it still gives me the chills. The music from the beach party wafts softly over the landscape as I sit down on the cracked wood floor and watch for the motion of the horses down below.

Only, when I look at my phone, ten minutes has passed and Carson still isn’t here. I shoot him a text, telling him to hurry his tight ass up.

Another minute or two goes by, and the air is oddly quiet. “Hmm, someone turned the music off.” I say it aloud to myself without realizing that it’s much too early for the party to be over.

And then a shriek pierces the black night, and my body moves without thinking. I’m racing down the creaking stairs and out the unhinged front door before my brain can compute.

Because that shriek sounded like bloody murder, and the two people I love most are down on that beach. As I get closer, I hear more screams, the sound punctuating the silent night, only outdone by the waves crashing on the sand.

“HELP! HELP!” Someone is screaming, a girl’s voice.

My feet won’t carry me fast enough, my sandals flopping in the sand. I run out of them, leaving them wherever they fall on the hill behind me. I crest the dune, and the scene in front of me stops my heart so hard that I fall to my knees.

Because there, in the black rolling water, is a Jeep flipped over and half-submerged in the ocean.

A Jeep that I know all too well. A Jeep that I’ve sat in hundreds of times as my twin brother steered our course.

“Joel?” I whisper his name, a question as to what the hell is going on.

No one sees me up here, on my knees, my nails digging into my palms. There is so much screaming and chaos, people running and some of the boys from our grade trying to flip the car.

“Get under it more! We have to get him out!” one of the boys yells, pushing all of his might into the vehicle, which just won’t move.

And then a figure surfaces from under the water, it’s head and shoulders coming up for air.

“Jesus Christ!” Carson slaps the water, his face illuminated by the cars now turned toward the ocean, all headlights on to try and provide light.

He looks angry, his expression screwed up tight as he drags in breaths before going back under. As soon as his hair sinks below the surface, my eyes dart around the beach. I hope against hope to see Joel, to just spot the person who was as close to me as my own heart.

I think I’m in shock, because I can’t move to help. I just let my eyes scan back and forth, but Joel is nowhere among the throngs of people.

“JOEL!” Carson’s battle cry as he comes up for air once more confirms my worst fear, and brings the night sky crashing down heavily over my skull.

Suddenly, the world shifts sideways and I’m so overcome with nausea that I actually dry heave into the sand. As if the scene in front of me is too much for my weak body to take. Lungful after lungful of sour poison leaves me, but the feeling that one half of me has been hacked off doesn’t go away.

After retching, I can finally stand on wobbly knees and make my way down to the beach.

“What’s … what is happening?” I ask no one in particular.

But then people are all around me, slinging arms around my shoulders and trying to tell me it will be all right. No one directly tells me that Joel is trapped in our Jeep, submerged in three feet of ocean water, but they don’t have to. I have no idea how long he’s been under there.

It seems like years go by as I stand there, helpless, watching other people try to save the person I’ve known since we were in the womb together. People try to hug me, comfort me. But I can’t hear a word they’re saying. It’s like all of my senses have failed.

A pained growl accompanied by the sound of splashing water pierces the air, and Carson emerges with something thrown over his shoulder. His face is grotesque, a picture of exhaustion and pain.

My feet move but it’s as if my body isn’t my own, like I’m watching from above as the scene plays out.

Carson collapses onto his knees, Joel’s lifeless body thudding onto the sand.

My brother. My twin. His clothes are soaked and torn, blood is gushing from a cut in his head and his face is a shade of blue that I never wished to see in my life. I want to throw myself over him, will him to breathe, but someone pushes me out of the way to start compressions on his chest.

My heart is in my throat; I don’t know what I’ll do without Joel. He’s a part of me, the only person who actually experienced my life being created.

“Fuck, fuck …”

My eyes divert from Joel over to Carson, who has now fallen to his back on the ground, clutching at his arm.

“Baby?” My voice wavers and I feel like I might be sick again.

Because as I get closer, I see a huge gash from my boyfriend’s armpit to his elbow on the inside of his arm. He’s gripping it, trying to make the bleeding stop, but it only comes faster. I swear I can feel both of their heartbeats humming inside my head, getting fainter by the minute.

“Joel, stay with me!” Someone is yelling at my brother as they pound on his chest and blow into his mouth.

Another person whips their shirt off, holding Carson down as he grunts and cries out when they press it firmly to his arm.

My world is falling to shambles before my eyes. And I want nothing more than to shut them and wake up from this horrible nightmare.