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I stand there, completely paralyzed and feeling like I’m going mad from being wet and cold for so long. They can’t keep track of where they’re going in the midst of their desperate attacks on each other, and I’m stuck watching in horror as they move dangerously close to the edge of the drop-off.
“Look out!” I cry, not entirely sure which one of them I’m trying to warn. Maybe it’s both of them at this point.
That’s when I remember that I’m free. With them fighting, no one is stopping me from running away from all of this. I could take off and never look back, completely free from the decision of who I’m supposed to trust. My feet start to run, then stop again. I am stuck in that motion for a while, pivoting back and forth between fleeing or staying behind to see what happens.
If I run away from this, it’s not up to me to decide anything. But both of them could die. If I stay and whoever the bad guy is here lives, I’m in danger. If I run and one of them catches up to me, I could be in danger. If I don’t get out of the rising floodwaters, I die. There is no good option. No right decision. Every path before me is scary, unknown, and dangerous.
I remember how I felt when Bridgett showed up and convinced me to go to prom with her. For a brief m
oment, none of this mattered. The scene playing out in reality before my eyes now was happening in my head then. I was just as torn. Just as conflicted. But I put it all aside and let myself be free to celebrate myself. Can I do that just as easily now with both of their lives at stake?
All I’ve wanted to do from the beginning of this was walk away. And now I’m free to do it, and I can’t. I look out into the darkness as the rain pours down. If I keep running, I can go home. I can tell my parents everything once and for all. Maybe they go to the police. Maybe they leave with me? Does it really matter at this point?
If Emmett or Theo come back with me, I run the risk of them destroying our lives. The only two factors of this equation that did not exist in the life I knew before, when everything was normal and happy, are Theo and Emmett. I didn’t know either of them nine months ago. I can keep running and go back to that, forgetting they ever even existed.
The two continue grunting and thrashing behind me. I close my eyes and focus in on the sounds of my own breath. In and out. Inhale, exhale. What are you going to do, Ophelia? What are you doing to do?
My instincts take over, and I do the only thing I am certain I know how to do. I run. I run like mad in a way I never have before. I slip and slide in the mud every few feet and flail like mad to get back on my feet and run some more. The sounds of the fighting men grow more and more distant behind me.
Steam billows out from my mouth and flaring nostrils against the cold, dark, rainy air. My muscles burn and ache, and I don’t know where I’m going. Everything around me has become unrecognizable, completely changed from how it was when we passed through here before. With each passing second, the rain washes away more. A car here, a tree there. It seems like the entire world is disappearing into this flood, and I know soon Emmett and Theo will be washed away in it.
A tinge of guilt pangs against my heart, but I force myself to keep running. It’s not my fault. I didn’t ask for any of this. I never would have come to Jameson if I had known this is what waited for me here. All I wanted to do was exactly what I’m doing now. To run. That’s still all I want. And once I am really free, I can go to my safe, warm, dry home where my mom and stepdad are waiting for me. Everything can go back to the way it was before.
I’ll get the hell out of Jameson like I have been dreaming about all this time. Maybe somehow, I can even avoid the news long enough so that I never know what happened to Emmett or Theo or Jameson or whatever new Elites pop up. I can forget all of Marissa’s words that I’ve read. I can forget the sound of Emmett’s voice and the features of his face. I can forget that I ever loved him at all.
I keep running and running, but my body starts to lose its strength. It wasn’t that long ago that I was drugged and completely unconscious. Since then I have been under more emotional and mental stress than I thought possible, which is saying a lot considering everything I’ve been through. There was a car crash and all those scrapes against the fence and the surrounding junk. I’m dangerously cold and soaking wet. It’s all catching up to me and I feel my batteries running out.
My run slows to a jog. Then a fast-paced walk. I feel like every step could be my last and I’m so close to just falling over and letting myself drown out here in the flood. But I didn’t come this far to give up. I’m a runner. Pushing myself is muscle memory. It’s in my veins. I take in a deep breath and take off again. But I quickly find myself in an area void of any light. I stop, heaving over in panic before desperately looking around for some sense of where to go. My eyes strain in the darkness. We had Theo’s flashlight to guide us through here before, but now it seems as dark as some deep part of a cave, miles below the earth.
Don’t give up, I tell myself again. I break off into another delirious sprint, not noticing the faintest shadow of something in front of me. I ram straight into the side of a big, broken-down semi. The ground around it is flooded and weak, and I feel the big hunk of metal give way under the force of my body. But it’s still enough to knock me backward off of my feet.
I shake my head and climb back up, feeling even more disoriented and lost now. I take off running again. I carry on like that for a while, but then a frightening sound echoes through the night. Voices. Screaming voices. I keep running harder and faster, and the voices get closer. Finally, I make something out of the panicked yelling.
“Ooooopphhheeelliiiaaa!”
My name is called, over and over again. What have I done? Did I take off running in the wrong direction after I fell? The screaming continues and gets louder as I go until I’m certain I’m headed right back to where I started from. I stop and consider turning around to try again. But more of the surrounding areas of growing unsafe. It’s too late, I think. I don’t know if I can ever get out of here now.
Is this bad luck? Or a sign…the hint that I’ve been waiting for. No matter where I run to, no matter how hard or fast I go, I can’t get away from them. And now I might die out here with them. I keep pushing forward, preparing myself for the possibilities of whatever I am racing towards.
I think I start to recognize some of the things I’m passing. I’m getting closer to where I started from. Or at least I think I am. But as I approach the spot that I am certain I ran off from before, Theo and Emmett are nowhere in sight. I can tell now that the voice calling out to me is Theo’s. He’s yelling my name over and over, and it sounds like it’s right next to me. But I can’t see him anywhere. I look around in the darkness, unsure of what to do next.
The aches and pains burn through my shivering body and I’m growing delirious. My eyes pound with the need for sleep, but I am so hyped up on adrenaline, I wonder if it will ever be possible to sleep again. My body is just as conflicted as my heart is.
Then I notice a strange splashing up ahead, and I realize it’s coming from just beyond the drop-off. I carefully approach it, praying that the current doesn’t overpower me. I get close enough to see that the splashing is coming from a pair of hands. Two pairs of hands. I drop to my hands and knees and crawl forward, finally getting far enough to see both Emmett and Theo have fallen over. But they’re each clinging to their own shard of debris poking out from the ledge that shrinks underneath the flooding waters.
I really am right back to where I started from. I have no choice but to decide. I look down at their desperate faces, both looking half convinced that they’re about to die. Why did it have to be so dark? Why did I have to get lost? Why couldn’t I have escaped this and stumbled back out onto the road? I would’ve kept running all the way home, never looking back again.
But here I am. With no way out and both of them pleading for me to save them. It occurs to me that even if I am able to choose between them, I still may not be able to help. And I might die out here regardless. I hope that being faced with that will give me some sort of clarity. Some sort of nudge to what I should do. But I know now that I am all the way back here, I can’t run away from this again. I can’t leave them both to die like this.
I look around, thinking I have to make a plan for how to do this before I can do anything else. A clinking noise a few feet away catches my attention. A chain is caught on one of the old cars nearby and is rattling against the rushing, rising waters. I race over to it, unwrapping it from the twisted piece of metal it clings to. I return to the edge and look over and they’re both still miraculously dangling there.
“Help me, Ophelia! Please!” Theo cries, nearly falling as he tries to reach for me.
Emmett is oddly quiet, grappling onto what looks like a bumper sticking out of the mud. I wait for him to join Theo in calling out to me. But he says nothing. He just looks up at me in between his attempts to hold on. The waters rise and I know if I’m going to try and save one of them, it has to be fast. A few seconds more and they’ll both fall to their deaths or get swept up in the rushing flood. And the more time I waste in indecision, the more I risk dying out here with them.
What would my mom do? She and Brendan are the only good, honest people I have left in this world
. Who would they want me to save? I think back to what my mom said about something always seeming off about Emmett. She wanted to trust and believe in Theo’s ability to change and give him a second chance. Does that mean that I should too?
