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The shock hits me first. Wading to the board, I’d felt how cold that water is, but now I’m submerged, and it steals the breath from my lungs. Another wave smacks into me, lifting me out of the water and then dragging me under.
I amunderthe water, life vest and all, surrounded by jet black. Then there’s something there. A flash of white. I claw for it with both hands. It turns in the current, and I’m staring into a face haloed with blond hair.
“Sadie!”
I say her name aloud, and water rushes in, choking me. The face disappears. I fight, clawing and writhing, trying to find Sadie again, but the jacket finally does its work, jettisoning me up. I surface, gasping and hacking. Then I thrash, struggling to get back under the water, to find her, to findSadie.
There’s a moment where, in my fear and desperation, I almost undo the life vest. It’s keeping me from getting under the water. Keeping me from getting to Sadie. I get as far as finding the first latch with my numb fingers before my brain kicks in.
I float and catch my breath. There’s a lull in the wind, the waves only nudging me toward shore. I have a moment to look around. I can see into the water, and nothing’s there.
Am I sure I saw something?
If I did, I should still see it.
Should still seeher.
I don’t. I’m not sure what I saw, but I’d been in a panic from going under the water, and I imagined seeing Sadie.
I close my eyes and inhale. Kit’s shouts are frantic now, and I try to lift a hand to tell him I’m okay, but I can’t get it out of the water. My arm feels like lead. I’m cold. So cold that I can’t feel anything.
Swim, damn it. Just swim.
I lift my hand in a doggie paddle, and now my brain is the enemy as it gibbers in terror. I can’t feel my arm. It’s not just cold. It’s not just asleep. I literally cannot feel even the dead weight of it. But it moves. Somehow it moves. I swallow the panic and swim.
Only a hundred feet. Isn’t that what I just thought? The shore is only a hundred feet away. But now it is ahundred feet away,a seemingly endless distance, and each lift of my arms takes incredible effort, and I am not going to make it.
I’m going to die.
No, I’m wearing a life vest.
What difference will that make? I’m going to freeze to death.
No, Kit is there. He sees I’m in trouble. He will not let me die.
He’ll save you? With what? A boat he doesn’t have? Swim out and die trying? Run for a rope to throw that you cannot feel enough to grab?
Earlier we’d joked about life vests only letting you find the bodies afterward. Not a joke. Not a joke at all. When the tears come, I gasp with the sudden heat of them scorching down my face, and they shock me from my gibbering panic.
I am swimming. I did not stop to flip out. I am still moving, and the waves are helping. They threw me from my board, but now they are helping. They’re pushing me along, and all I need to do is stay alive. Keep up my pathetic dog paddle. Movement will help. Don’t surrender to the cold. Just keep going.
I think I have it under control. Then something white surfaces in front of me, and my arms fly up, water filling my mouth as I flail, first in terror—holy shit, Sadie’s body!—and then intention—must get Sadie’s body.
The waves hit harder now, the splash and foam of them obscuring my vision. I can only see something pale. Then I realize my arm is over it. I have it under my arm, even if I can’t feel it.
I have Sadie. Oh, thank God, I have Sadie.
Thank God?
I have Sadie’sbody.The friend I still loved, no matter how muchher betrayal had cut me. I loved her, and I grieved for the loss of her friendship, and I had imagined a day when we would reconcile. Now she is gone, and I am holding her body, and I am damn well going to get it to shore, no matter what.
I keep pushing on, blind and numb, heading in the direction I know is the shore. I can dimly see the blur of it ahead, trees rising in a wall of darkness. I have Sadie by her arm or leg orsomething.I see a scrap of pale shape every time I lift my arm to claw at the water, the other arm needing to do most of the work because I cannot let go of Sadie. I absolutely cannot—
A wave grabs me. It catches me off guard, seeming to come from the front. Have I gotten twisted around? Am I imagining the shore and heading out to sea?
Sea? No, a lake. It’s a lake.
Isn’t it?
