Chapter 20: THE LESSONS
Charlie sat alone on a rock near the tide pools, throwing stones into the water with the mechanical rhythm of someone trying not to think.
"You almost drowned in that jungle stream."
He jumped, nearly falling off his perch. "Jesus, Sawyer. Make some noise, would you?"
"I'm told I walk too quietly." I sat beside him, maintaining casual distance. "Ethan had you underwater. If the rescue party had been thirty seconds slower—"
"I know what would have happened." His voice went sharp, defensive. "I was there."
"You were helpless. Because you can't swim."
The words landed hard. Charlie's jaw tightened, the familiar British stubbornness rising to meet the accusation.
"Lots of people can't swim. It's not—"
"It's a problem. On an island. Surrounded by water." I let the logic sit before continuing. "I can teach you."
"You?"
"Me."
"Why?"
Because in three years you're going to swim into an underwater station and drown warning everyone about a boat. Because your sacrifice saves everyone, but it doesn't have to be a sacrifice if you know what you're doing. Because I can't save Shannon, can't save anyone I've already failed, but maybe I can save you.
"Because I'm not sleeping anyway," I said. "Might as well be useful."
Charlie stared at the ocean like it was a personal enemy. "I've tried before. Lessons when I was a kid. Never took."
"Bad teachers."
"What makes you think you're any better?"
"I'm highly motivated."
The response earned a snort—almost a laugh, almost genuine. Charlie's relationship with humor was complicated since the hanging, since Claire, since everything the Island had thrown at him. But the instinct remained.
"Fine," he said finally. "But not where anyone can see. I've got a reputation to maintain."
"Dawn tomorrow. There's a cove past the southern rocks—private, shallow, good for beginners."
"How do you know about—" He stopped himself. "Never mind. You know everything, apparently."
Not everything. Not enough.
"Tomorrow," I said, and walked away before he could change his mind.
---
The cove was perfect.
Sheltered from the main beach by a ridge of volcanic rock, shallow enough that Charlie could stand anywhere within the swimming zone, warm from the morning sun hitting still water. I'd scouted it two days after the crash—one of the many locations I'd filed away against future need.
Charlie stood at the water's edge, looking at the gentle waves like they were planning his murder.
"This is a bad idea."
"Get in the water."
"You're not even going to warm me up first? Stretches? Deep breathing?"
"The water's warm. Get in."
He waded in slowly, flinching at every ripple against his skin. By the time he reached waist-deep, his face had gone pale beneath the stubble.
"I can feel the bottom pulling at me."
"That's called sand. It's not pulling."
"It feels like pulling."
I moved to stand beside him, close enough to support if needed, far enough to let him find his own balance. "First thing—breathing. You panic because you think the water wants to kill you. It doesn't. It wants to hold you up. You just have to let it."
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one about to drown."
"No one's drowning. Take a breath. Hold it. Count to three."
He complied, chest expanding, eyes squeezed shut like prayer.
"Now bend your knees. Let your feet leave the bottom."
"That's the drowning part."
"That's the floating part. The water holds you up—you just have to trust it."
The first attempt lasted maybe two seconds before Charlie's feet scrambled for the sand, his arms windmilling, his breath exploding out in gasps of pure terror.
"I can't—I can't do this—"
"You can. Again."
"Sawyer—"
"Again."
Thirty minutes of failure. Forty attempts at floating, forty panicked returns to standing, forty small defeats that would have broken anyone without Charlie's particular brand of stubborn endurance.
And then—
"I'm floating. Holy shit, I'm floating!"
His body had finally relaxed enough to trust the water. Arms spread, face toward the sky, toes pointed up like he'd seen in movies. Ten seconds of genuine, honest-to-god floating before the surprise broke his concentration and he splashed back to standing.
But he was laughing. Actually laughing—the bright, childlike sound of someone discovering they could do something they'd believed impossible.
"I did it!"
"You did ten seconds. We need ten minutes before this is useful."
"Let me enjoy the victory, would you?"
I almost smiled. The expression felt strange on Sawyer's face—too genuine, too unguarded. But Charlie's joy was contagious in a way I hadn't expected.
"Same time tomorrow?"
"Same time tomorrow."
---
Claire watched from the ridge.
I spotted her on the walk back—a flash of blonde hair against the volcanic rock, quickly withdrawn. She'd been curious about me since the rescue, since the gratitude that came with unwanted memory absorption. Now she was curious in a different way.
She sees the contradictions. The con man who teaches swimming with infinite patience. The killer who saves children and pregnant women. The liar who occasionally tells the truth.
I didn't wave. Didn't acknowledge her presence. Some observations were better left uncommented, especially when they involved women carrying secrets I'd stolen without permission.
The camp was waking as I returned—morning fires, breakfast preparations, the sounds of a community that kept functioning despite everything trying to break it. Boone was nowhere visible, probably already at the caves. Jack passed without speaking, his suspicion a wall between us.
But Charlie jogged up behind me before I reached my tent, still dripping from the lesson.
"Hey—Sawyer."
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. For the lesson. For..." He gestured vaguely at the ocean. "For not laughing at me."
"Nothing to laugh at. You're learning."
"Still. Thanks."
He headed toward Claire's shelter, energy in his step that hadn't been there since the hanging. I watched him go, calculating timelines and probabilities.
Looking Glass. Three years from now. A sacrifice that saves everyone.
But maybe not a sacrifice. Maybe just a really good swim.
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