Chapter 35
Rhett
It was just Bailey and me hanging out by the water that afternoon. Our parents had taken the boat across the lake to have an early dinner at the lodge.
She was lying on a towel on the old separate floating dock while I was swimming laps around it.
We had a little game going.
Each time I circled the floating dock, I’d kick the water harder, creating a bigger splash as I passed. I could hear her yelping and scolding me each time I turned my head to the side to breathe. Loving it, of course.
Bailey had a choice.
She could continue sunbathing where she was and get splashed each time I passed, or she could jump completely in the water and swim back to shore.
She was choosing the shriek and yelp option, which was more than fine with me.
It gave me a reason to keep swimming laps, even though my lungs were burning and my arms were mush.
I needed to be a strong swimmer by the time I went into training. But even more, I needed to learn not to panic when I thought my lungs might burst. So that summer, I was swimming laps until I could barely breathe, and then I’d dunk under water and hold my breath until I thought I might pass out.
The goal was two minutes, with three being even better. It wasn’t a requirement, but more something I knew I wanted to have the capacity for, to evoke less panic when the real training set in.
My next time around the floating dock marked thirty-seven laps.
I could hear Bailey yelping as I passed and rounded the wooden slats to make a beeline for the longer dock attached to the shoreline ahead.
When I neared it, I took one final gulp of air, then swam down to a rock I kept at the bottom, clicking the timer on my watch.
My lungs stretched in my chest. Like a balloon being inflated for too long.
When I hit two minutes, I reached somewhat of a trance, pushing myself to make it just ten more seconds, but already feeling the weight of the lake sitting on top of my airway.
But I didn’t make it to another three seconds.
Let alone ten.
Someone was tugging on my elbow. Grasping my arm and yanking it up. I reared back and opened my eyes.
Bailey.
She was frantically pulling on my arm as if her life depended on it.
As if my life depended on it.
I shoved my feet off the floor of the lakebed, and we both shot to the surface.
“Are you okay?” she’d sputtered, still attempting to pull my very not-lifeless body toward the dock. “Talk, Rhett! Talk to me!”
I flipped the maneuver on her, and instead of her dragging me back toward the shore, I pulled her to the dock.
We both held on to the side, her gasping for air right along with me.
“What happened?” she yelled, panting. There were already tears in her eyes. “One minute you’re kicking up water and the next you . . . you disappeared! I thought you were drowning!”
“I was timing how long I could hold my breath,” I said, holding up the watch.
The look that came over her face . . .
It went from tearful concern to pure rage.
“Bailey, I’m not going to get hurt—” I’d started to say, hanging off the edge of the dock beside her.
“That’s not true!” she yelled, her eyes still full of anger. “You can’t predict anything about the future.”
It’s wild how life can take a complete one-eighty.
How one moment, she’s pulling me up out of that lake outside by one arm, panicking that something has happened to me, and a few years down the road, I’m racing up these very stairs, hearing her scream my name, already terrified of what I’m about to find.
I’d told her then that I wasn’t going to get hurt. But I was wrong. And I’d never imagined her being the one I’d have to save next.