First the water reached up to her knees, then it raised to her waist, after that slowly she was submerged in that water up to her chest. But she didn't stop even when the water level crossed her eyes, she just closed her eyes and let the water take her completely.
Samira let the water drag her down and down without struggling even a bit. She didn't want to struggle, she didn't need to, she wanted to go. She wanted to drown peacefully. When she couldn't find any more reasons to go on, that was how she decided to go. When the pain and hate in her heart grew so strong that she started burning, that was how she decided to freeze herself.
She wasn't needed in this world anymore. She was a burden, a problem, and a nuisance that needed to be taken care of. There was something so wrong deep within her that she couldn't fix it no matter how hard she tried. No matter how she tried she couldn't fix herself. Everyone around her berated her for that, betrayed her for that, hated her for that. Not a single person cared or loved.
Dark edges started to appear around Samira's vision, and things started to dim. The darkness was finally ready to claim her.
A sharp pain shot through Samira all of a sudden and for a moment she thought it was because of lack of air in her body but then she felt fingers dragging through her arm and chest. Samira snapped open her eyes and found the owner of the small fingers on her skin.
It was a little girl. A little girl clinging to her with panic in her movements. The girl could barely open her eyes under water and she was struggling to breathe. As an instinct, Samira wrapped her arms around the little girl to calm her struggle and immediately, the little girl wrapped her tiny body around Samira's chest.
Samira started to swim upward with one arm, with the other arm holding the little girl close. It wasn't even a choice, she was there to die but not this little girl. She needed to get this child safely above the water and on the ground. Samira swam as fast as she could with the girl and within a minute she broke through the surface. The little girl and Samira both broke into coughs.
"Breathe, honey, breathe," she mumbled to the little girl as she took a deep breath looking around to find the wooden pier to get to safety. "You will be fine, ok? Just hold on. We are almost there."
To Samira's relief, the little girl wasn't unconscious. She listened to Samira and tightened her arms around her neck so hard that Samira almost couldn't breathe but that was the least of her worries. Samira swam towards the pier as quickly as possible, she had no idea how the little girl got so far from it, she didn't look like she could swim. Maybe she was trying to learn but there wasn't anyone around the lake. As soon as Samira thought about it, she saw a man running on the pier and jumping straight into the water in his shirt and suit pants.
Before Samira knew what was happening, the man was holding both the kid and her in his arms and pulling them towards the pier. The little girl didn't let her go, so the man helped her with the little girl onto the pier first and then hoisted himself up.
"See, honey, we are back. We are not in the water anymore. Are you alright, honey?" Samira spoke hurriedly as soon as she was sitting on that hard wooden pier. She smoothed the girl's wet dark brown hair and patted her back as her little body was shivering and still holding Samira.
"Flower, are you ok?" asked the man trying to pull the child towards him. He had this deep, intimidating voice that could be easily labeled as cold but there was nothing cold in the way he spoke to the little girl.
But the little girl still didn't let go of Samira. She buried her small face in Samira's shoulder as if she were trying to hide in Samira's long dark wet curls. Seeing this the man was surprised, to say the least, but Samira barely paid attention to that. Her motherly instincts kicked in out of nowhere and she stared down the man from head to toe. The man was sitting beside her on the pier, dangling his long legs down. His suit pants and shirt were completely wet and now Samira could see abs and broad chest peeking through the white shirt, which was kind of see-through after getting wet. Then his face. Even though his wet black hair fell over his left eye and obscured a bit of his face, his perfect jawline and sharp eyes were enough for Samira to know that this was a beautiful, somewhat familiar, and most probably a very important man.
But right now a little child was hiding in her arms because of this man, so she needed to be sure exactly who he was before he could take the child away.
"Who are you?" Samira asked still drawing soothing circles on the kid's back. Her hand movements were as soft as possible but her voice held a fierceness to it.
"I am her father," the man replied matching her gaze.
Samira felt a bit relieved at the way the man said those words, there was this truthful fatherly protectiveness in his voice but she learned the hard way that she couldn't just go with her feelings anymore. So she coaxed the kid to look at her.
"Honey, please look at me for a moment. Let me see if you are hurt or not," Samira whispered softly making the girl look at her.
The little girl finally did. She pulled back enough to look at Samira with her big sad brown eyes. Before this Samira didn't have a good look at her, so she didn't realize how cute the little girl was. She barely looked 4-5 years old with her round cute face with chubby cheeks. She was so cute that for a second Samira had the urge to just wrap her in a hug again but what surprised Samira the most was apart from looking a bit flustered, she looked like she was breathing fine. Samira thanked the gods that the girl's lungs didn't give out and then leaned down to look at the little girl and smiled at her.
"Sweety, is that your father?" Samira asked pointing toward the man.
The little girl looked at the man, quickly turned back to Samira, and hugged her again. Samira taking it as a response quickly got up holding the girl tight.
"I would need to know your name before I could --" Samira began feeling worried about the kid when another panicked voice came running.
"Miss Huang! Mr. Huang! Oh my God, what happened?" A tall skinny well-dressed blonde woman spoke hurriedly as she looked in between the kid, Samira, and the man. "Why are you all wet? Oh God, Miss Huang, you went to the water alone?"
"I should be asking you what exactly happened here, Cecily," the man stood up, and his even taller figure loomed over the tall blonde woman but she seemed to be shrinking with his every word.
"Miss Huang asked me to bring her favorite plushie from the car," said the Cecily woman, showing the plushie in question, a tiger plushie in her hands. Her hands were shaking in panic as the man's eyes narrowed.
"That's not Flower's favorite plushie," the man said coldly.
"No! I know! I was looking for it all this time but I still couldn't find it! Only this was in the car!" Cecily's eyes looked wild as tried to prove that she was telling the truth. "You can look in the car, sir. I swear! There wasn't --"
"And to find it you left Flower unsupervised near a lake for so long?" the man stared at Cecily and she looked like she wanted to evaporate right there right that moment.
"Sir, Miss Huang was really --"
"You are fired," the man said before Cecily could finish her explanation.
"What? Sir, please, I understand it was my mistake, but --" Cecily began looking with pleading eyes.
"Collect your payment from my secretary and go before I change my mind and decide to take legal action for your ignorance and stupidity," the man ordered and Cecily immediately fell silent.
"I am sorry, sir. I am really sorry," Cecily started backing away and bowing with every sentence before she literally ran away.
Now the man turned to Samira and she blinked. By now Samira had almost understood what happened but she still held onto the little girl and the little girl did the same. The man just sighed looking at them.
"I won't scold you . . . this time," the man muttered looking at the back of the kid's head but when no response came, he continued, "I promise."
"You pinky promise?" The little girl finally mumbled in a soft baby voice near Samira's ear but the man heard it.
"Yes, I pinky promise. Now please come we need to get you checked by a doctor to see if you are alright," the man held out her arms for the kid and she looked up from Samira's shoulder and slowly extended her hand sticking out her little pinky finger.
The man sighed again before crossing his pinky with hers and sealing the promise.
"Now let's go, c'mon," he said again extending his arms.
"I am going if Mom goes!" The little girl said with a big toothy smile.
"Mom?" The man took in a sharp breath and looked genuinely shocked at his daughter's proclamation.
At this point, Samira had no idea what was going on. But before she could say anything, the little girl let out a small tiny sneeze, which alarmed the man.
"Your clothes! Flower, I swear if you catch a cold again --" He angrily trailed off looking in between the girl and Samira and sighed again rubbing his eyes. He finally looked up at Samira. "Miss, please come with us. My daughter needs to be checked by a doctor and changed out of these wet clothes and so do you."
"No, no, I am fine," Samira tried but the little girl hugged her even more tightly.
"Please . . . don't go . . ." the little girl's eyes started to tear up and Samira panicked.
"Ok, ok, I will go with you."
[To be continued]