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My brain seems to stall, thoughts evaporating. Where am I? Why is it so cold? I must be dreaming. I’m so tired, and I just want to keep sleeping, but this silly dream won’t stop. I’m floating on the waves, and then I’m flying. I’m in the air and flying, and there’s a voice. Is that Kit? I’m definitely dreaming. Kit is at home, wherever home is these days for him.
A hoarse cry, and then I’m falling. I hit the ground and it’s like startling awake, reality slamming back.
“Laney!” Kit’s voice. “Oh God, Laney. I couldn’t feel my legs. I fell.”
Lake. Paddleboard.
Sadie.
I convulse, and I can sense something below me, even if I can’t feel it. Then Kit is there, rubbing my arms.
“Laney? I need to get you to the house. Just give me a second. My legs. Myfuckinglegs.”
Kit never uses that word. I do, more than any English teacher should. I totally blame Jayla’s influence.
And that is not what I should be thinking, but my brain keeps threatening to slide back into shock. No, hypothermia.Shit!This is hypothermia.
I close my eyes and struggle to focus.
“Laney!” Kit shakes my shoulders, or I presume he does from the motion. “Don’t go to sleep.”
“Not,” I mumble.
Focus. Concentrate. I’m on the beach. Kit came in after me. That’s the “wave” that carried me to shore. He can’t walk because his legs are numb. That means I’m not the only one in trouble here.
“Okay, okay,” he says. “I can do this.”
His arm goes around me.
“I can do this,” he says through gritted teeth. “Need to get you someplace warm.”
He manages to get onto his knees. Then I feel the faintest tug at my arm and realize it’s clenched tight.
“You need to let this go,” he says.
I convulse again, the memory hitting. “No! It’s…”
I look down at my arm. It is not holding Sadie. It’s holding some piece of… I don’t even know what. Is it the damn trash bag?
In my half-blind state, I’d bumped into something white and grabbed it, thinking I had Sadie’s body, and now I could almost laugh. My arm has a death grip on a chunk of debris, maybe a foot long.
I drop it. As it falls to the ground, I blink. It’s a piece of beige leather. The top part of a boat seat. And there’s something on it. Black permanent marker scrubbed and sanded in an attempt to erase it from the leather. Only part is left, the rest ripped away, but I know what it said.
Dean Peters, 2022!
I know what it said because I’m the person who scrubbed and sanded, cursing the entire time. I’d contacted the renters and told them what I’d found and they’d laughed it off.
Kids, huh?
Kid, my ass. Thatkidhad been their seventeen-year-old son, who’d thought it was just fine to write his name on a leather seat—his full name, because what the hell was I going to do about it? Call the cops?
This is from my boat.
It’s a piece of the captain’s seat. The entire leather top of the captain’s seat,rippedoff.
“Kit?” I whisper.
His arms go around me, the pressure telling me he’s holding tight, even if I can’t feel his touch.
