“David, let’s go!”

The dark clouds were moving towards us quickly, the thunder already booming. My toes curled into the cold, wet sand.

“It’s time! Grab your board - let’s move!” Jay was running through the sand, looking over his shoulder at me as I stood on the dark beach. Sea water dripped down my body as I shivered in the harsh winds. I stood, immobile. He waited a few long seconds for my footsteps to follow. “What are you doing? It’s too far in! We gotta get out!” My feet stayed nestled in the gray sand as he waited another moment, time frozen for the two of us. He cursed, angrily, at me before I could hear him sprint off into the distance.

Jay had been my best friend from the start. He was my drug-dealer in the seventh grade and we’d been inseparable ever since. He was the one who took me in when I was kicked out of the house at sixteen. Every time there was a storm coming, we’d drive down to the beach and surf when the waves were at their peak. We’d leave before it got too dangerous. The thrill was exhilarating – best time of my life. It got our minds off everything else in life that seemed to be falling apart at the seams.

I didn't know what I was doing – why I was unable to run away when danger hung in the air like a balloon losing helium at rapid speed. I remember feeling the sudden urge to dive back into the crashing waves as the storm brewed overhead. I had the strong sense I should not run to the safety of my car. I obeyed the strange instinct as I usually do.

For a moment, I stood in some sort of trance. I let the cool rain erupting from the sky roll down my body. I let my eyes close. When the thunder shook me, I let myself feel the sensations run up and down my spine. For the first time in a while, I was at true peace with myself – something even drugs could never do.

And then I heard a voice.

My eyes shot open, readjusting to the gray light. I scanned the rough waters, straining to identify the source of the cry. I saw nothing and waited to hear another sound.

And then the same distant scream caught my attention. It was faint, but just loud enough for me to know that someone was drowning in the vicious sea.

And finally, far in the distance, I could see arms flailing in the gray water; a head was bobbing up and down. He was a kid, maybe eighteen.

Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach. Somebody was fighting death right before my eyes. Out of nowhere, there was an enormous pressure weighing down on me like the rain-clouds overhead. I was terrified. For the very first time, I had to question myself, my life. Somebody else’s life was in my hands, and I couldn't begin to know what to do with it. Could I survive this stormy water? Could I carry him all the way back to shore safely?

Or would I be washed away with him? Was my watery grave awaiting me down below? Would I risk my life to save a stranger?

But what was my life worth anyway? I had no purpose in this world; no impact. It was strange, but in that moment, I was looking directly inward and I was seeing myself crystal clear. It was like living in a dream where I had stepped outside of my body, and was looking down at myself with the complete ability to assess my life up until that point in time. I was thinking, then, that I was nothing more than a twenty-eight-year-old who would never grow up. A high-school drop-out. An unemployed drug-addict with a knocked-up girlfriend I couldn't support and a family I had no part of. My life revolved around my friends and my cocaine. I’d made this path for myself years ago. I had given up everything that was right in front of me. And there was no changing that now.

But that kid in the water – he was something sweetly familiar. There was a strange, temporary comfort in knowing that he was on the brink of his childhood. What did he have waiting for him? How was his life going to unfold? Where was he going next? He had many decisions left to make. His whole life was stretched out ahead of him like the shore that awaited the promised return of his feet. Nothing had passed him by. It wasn't too late for him, whoever he was.

I knew, then, why I was frozen on this spot on the beach in the middle of a storm. For the first time in my life, I was going to help someone else – I was going to save a life.

A surge of strength pulsed through my veins. I took a leap forward into the cold surf, the wind slapping my wet face.

I dove into the crashing waves like a wild animal. As my body sunk into the gray water, an incredible, sharp, numbness shook through my body. My mind froze, and I could no longer think. My eyes were blinded as they stung with salt. I was surrounded by blackness, and I could no longer tell up from down. It was like being trapped in hollow nothingness with no eyes and no mind. I was running out of air. My lungs were collapsing and I had little control over when they might expand and explode with water.

I forced my legs to move, and then my arms. I pushed them upward, trying to escape this blackness. And then I broke through the water’s surface, and I was gasping to catch my breath. I forced my stinging eyes open to the blurred gray sea. And then my head was smacked back under the water by waves I couldn't see. And I was sunken into the darkness once more with water-filled lungs. They began to collapse as I choked, filling them with more water. I struggled to hold my breath. I was falling through the water. My limbs were hanging limp and I was fighting to find my strength again. The picture that popped into my head as I fell through the water was of my eighteen-year-old self. The kid who could have had anything in the world if he’d stayed in school and sobered up. The kid with chances, the kid with a shot at life.

I pushed my arms through the thick water, I kicked my legs. Up, up! I broke through the surface once again and choked out all the water in my body. I took in a deep breath before I spotted him again. He was drifting farther away, the undertow pulling him out to sea. His blurry face was terrified, but I knew he saw me. The strangling winds were howling in my ears. The storm had begun. I punched my head back underwater before the waves had another chance at defeating me.

I was determined now more than I had ever been in my entire life. I pushed through the thick sea with my arms and legs, swimming faster and faster. I was far enough underwater to stay undisturbed by the waves, and close enough to the surface to break for air and spot the kid. I was fighting against the currents. My entire body had lost feeling. It was completely numbed by the excruciatingly cold sea.

I came up for air and ducked back under to let a six-foot wave pass under me. It lifted me high in the air and rolled beneath my body before sliding me back down just below surface. And then I had a chance to rise from the water. And there he was. Twenty-feet away from me. With huge, terrified eyes and icy-pale skin, he was splashing around in the water as best he could. He was trying to stay above the surface, but his head was bobbing under as he struggled for breath. Waves were splashing his face, knocking him below the surface before he could push back through.

I power-kicked my way under the water until our faces met below the surface. He was choking for air, but filling with water. I grabbed for both of his hands to pull him above the surface, but I needed my arms to help swim up. I used the force of my legs to propel my weight until my face was above the water and I had successfully pulled him up with me. There was a short single second where we were staring into each other’s pale blue eyes. The sound of our breath drowned out the roaring sea, in that moment. But then the waves came to attack. We were crushed under the water again, and I pulled his body onto my back and grabbed his arms and swung them around my neck. I propelled my legs as fast as they could go. I bobbed up for us to fill with air, and back down again like a dolphin. Soon, he began kicking his legs, too. It was a weak force, but we were moving through the water as one body. He’d squeeze my neck when he needed to breathe. And every time we’d breathe, he’d choke out the water accumulating in his lungs.

It’s hard to say how much time had passed, how long it took to get back to shore. It felt like a lifetime. The only thing on my mind was saving the kid on my back. It was just something I had to do. At some point in time, we came up for air and found ourselves just a few yards from shore, and I remember feeling nothing but relief. Some ancient weight had been released from my conscience as I pushed my legs to their limits and kicked us to shore. The waves were crashing on us then, and he was struggling for air. I could feel his rib cage bursting, his heart racing faster than the howling winds swirling around us. Finally, my stomach hit sand, and I rolled him off my back, setting him beside me before I swooped him up into my arms and carried him farther into the cold surf. He lay there, choking water out of his lungs. I knelt beside him and pumped his chest until he could inhale steadily. His heart slowed as his breath began to calm.

He opened his wild eyes and stared at me in some sort of amazement. He sat up and just stared right at me with big, watery eyes as the rain danced on his skin. But there were no words, nothing he could possibly say.

I felt like I’d known the kid forever, when I didn't even know his name. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing myself ten years ago when everything could've been so different. And all I could do was hope that maybe things would be different for him.

My mind was spinning with hundreds of things I wanted to say. But I’d never been given the gift of words. So I stood up and held my hand out for him. He looked up at me, still shocked. When his hand touched mine, his skin felt the same temperature as my own. It was almost shocking how the contact seemed nonexistent. I pulled him to his shaky feet. The thunder rumbled the sand beneath us. I nodded at him once, and took off. I sprinted to my car and got inside, slamming the door. And then I broke out into sobs, burying my face between my two dry hands.

I looked up, through my foggy windshield, to see him climbing into his car. He inched out of his parking spot, and stopped for a few long seconds at the edge of the lot before choosing which path to take. I wondered if maybe he had nowhere to go. But then his engine roared to life and he took a right turn. I watched his rattling car drive down the unpaved road before his tail lights disappeared into the fog and out of sight. All he left behind was a trail of wet sand, which was quickly swept away in the ferocious winds.

I sat there, hysterical, for some time. The world seemed frozen yet again. After much thought, I started my car and took a left turn, driving further and further down the windy road as God’s tears fell all around me, drowning my already-cloudy world.