When the boat stopped moving, I wondered if I was dead. But the second I caught Jack’s eyes I knew I must be alive. There was no way the afterlife was an eternity of me being stuck with my ex.

“Is it over?” I asked.

Jack quickly stepped away from me as though I were made of burning coals. He peered out of the window.

I saw the flashes of light, but the thunder seemed further away. Maybe we’d actually made it through the storm.

The boat suddenly jerked to an abrupt stop. Jack turned around and looked at the floor.

I hadn’t realized it, but my feet were wet. My eyes connected with his. He tried to hide it, but he was panicking.

Jack pulled me up close to him and started checking over my life vest. Then he checked his own.

“Jack? What’s going on?”

“Something must have happened. We’re taking in water. Too much water,” Jack said, his words practically falling out of his mouth.

“That doesn’t sound good. What does that mean for us exactly?”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the cabin. “I’m not sure yet.”

The water was calming significantly, but neither of us were able to miss the damage to the side of his boat.

“Goddammit!” Jack shouted.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. We must have hit something or some debris hit us. Fuck!”

Jack didn’t let go of my hand as he walked around splashing through the ankle high water. He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair.

“Penny. There’s nothing I can do.”

“What do you mean by that?” I was pretty sure I could guess. I had no idea why I wanted to hear him say it.

“We’re going for a swim.”

I bit down on my fingernail hard hoping the pain would force my tears to retreat. I didn’t want Jack to see me lose it.

“Heidi will report that I’m missing. She knew I was coming,” I said mostly trying to make myself feel better.

“She didn’t know you were with me.”

“No, but she knew I was coming.”

Jack was shaking his head. “When you didn’t arrive on the last boat, she probably just assumed you went home.”

“You are not helping like at all. She’ll call me. Eventually, she’ll send someone right?”

“Let’s hope. Is your phone working yet?”

I pulled it out of my pocket. My cold, wet fingers lost their grip, and my phone slipped out of my hand and into the water filling the boat.

“Shit!” I said, bending down to grab it. Before I could pick it up the water pulled it away from me.

I tried to yank my hand free, but Jack pulled me back. He moved both of us and quickly grabbed my phone.

He pressed the center button, but nothing happened. The screen was black.

There wasn’t anything I could do to stop the tear from leaking out of the corner of my eye. If Jack noticed he didn’t say anything.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Guess we get in.”

“It’s so cold.”

Jack swallowed hard. “My boat is going down… we don’t have a lot of options here.”

He led me to the back of the boat and lowered himself down into the water. My teeth chattered as I followed him into the chilly water.

“I think we’re supposed to move away from the boat?” I said.

“What?”

“When it goes down, it’ll pull us down with it,” I said.

His lip curled up on the end. “Where did you learn that?”

“Titanic? Honestly, I don’t remember,” I said.

“My boat isn’t that big,” Jack said holding on to me as we swam away from the boat.

“Then why are you swimming away?”

“Just in case,” he said. I could tell by the way his words came out just how cold he was.

We swam a while before he turned back and watched his boat go underwater. He bowed his head for a second before looking around in a complete circle.

Jack started swimming, pulling me along with him. I looked around trying to figure out where he was leading us.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked. As far as I could tell we were completely surrounded by water.

“No clue,” he said.

My heart started pounded faster but stopped when it felt like something moved past my leg. I sucked in a quick breath.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Are there sharks around here?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure we’re okay but hard to say for certain because I’m not exactly sure where we are.”

“I wish that comforted me.”

Jack held to me tighter as a big wave gently pushed at us. I wasn’t exactly sure his swimming was doing us any good, the water seemed to be pushing and pulling us in varying directions.

We were both completely out of control. It didn’t matter which way we wanted to go, the ocean was going to decide for us where we’d end up.

“Hopefully they’re out there looking for us,” I said looking up at the sky. There weren’t sounds of boats or helicopters. The only thing in the sky were the flashes of lightning in the distance.

“Yeah. Maybe,” Jack said, but I knew he didn’t believe it.

“How long do you think it’ll be until morning?” I asked, my teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Jack didn’t turn around as he attempted to paddle us in the same direction. “Hours.”

We were silent as the water moved us around. I was tired, and we’d been in the water so long that my bones felt frozen. It was as though the smallest touch could cause me to shatter into a million pieces.

“Jack,” I said taking in a sharp breath. I pointed off toward the left. “What’s that?”

Jack squinted and changed the direction he was trying to paddle us. “Not sure, but it looks like palm trees.”

“Oh, thank God,” I said pushing my wet hair out of my eyes. “We must not have been too far from shore.”

“We were. The storm must have really thrown us around.”

As we made our way closer to the shore, I started to think about Jack. Not just Jack, but how if I would have been with Heidi and the boat would have gone down, I probably wouldn’t have survived. There probably weren’t enough life preservers on the yacht for everyone that was on the boat.

I bit my lip and prayed that Heidi was okay.

Even after everything Jack had cared enough to help me survive. He hadn’t let go of me, not even for a second since the boat sank down to the bottom of the ocean.

If things had been different, maybe Jack and I would have still been together. No, we definitely would be together. We’d been perfect for each other.

But then he had to go and screw everything up. I still couldn’t comprehend why he’d done it. He’d betrayed me. He’d hurt my reputation. Goddammit, they’d almost thrown me in jail.

Not even saving my life made up for it. But the only person I could be mad at for being stuck in the frigid ocean was myself. I shouldn’t have ever asked him to take me out. I should have just gone home.

Heidi would have gotten over it. I should have just dealt with her, but then again hindsight is twenty-twenty. It wasn’t like I knew I was going to end up taking a swim in the ocean in the middle of the night fully clothed.

“I’m sorry,” I said frowning.

“Me too,” he said.

I was about to ask him what for when a big wave pushed us toward the land. It was almost like the waves were pushing us forward, only to sweep us right back. Two steps forward, one step back, eventually we’d get there, and I couldn’t wait to put my feet on the ground.