Chapter Forty #2
“Commiserating.” It’s Collin’s turn to cut me off.
I snap my head back to him. He sighs in exasperation, like I’m the most imperceptive human.
“While you two were sneaking around, making out, I started hanging out with Gavin. I had to drag his ass out of a party after he threatened some dude who kissed a girl he was seeing. And he kinda repaid the favor when my gooey phase became a never wanna see you again phase.”
“You’re friends?!” I yell way too loudly.
They both shrug. “I guess.”
“Who wants what?” Danika asks, bottles clutched to her chest.
When I return from the bathroom, inconveniently located across the street in the visitor center, the girls are dancing with our schoolmates, and the boys are daring each other to jump in the sub-arctic water.
My eyes gravitate to the top cliff and the sign that warns of danger. It’s used mostly for sunbathing, a place to isolate away from the crowd.
The last time I saw someone leap from that height was nearly five years ago.
Remnants from my nightmare resurface. And I need to get away from it. Or maybe it’s time I sit with it. Stop running away when I feel too much. Stop hiding when I don’t want to see what’s right in front of me. I know too much now to look away.
I slip on my dress and navigate the rocks and boulders along the river’s edge, to where the dirt starts filling in the gaps and trees provide shade from the sun.
No one’s down here. Who wants to be in the shade on such a beautiful day?
It’s easily ten degrees cooler here, the breeze sweeping the chill from the water over my skin, eliciting an eruption of goosebumps.
Under a tree rests a solid white granite bench, in sharp contrast with the sand-colored rock beneath it.
“What are you doing down here?” Jonathan asks, the sound of his voice spinning me around.
The memory of this spot leaches away the bliss bubble I’ve been in all day. “You didn’t have to come down here.” I can only imagine how hard it is for him.
“You’re here, so of course I did.” He stands beside me, taking in the bench.
“I’ve refused to remember what happened,” I tell him. “I think so I’d stop feeling so guilty.”
“Guilty? Why would you feel guilty?” His fingers trace along mine. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Neither did you,” I tell him, searching his eyes.
“I know,” he says, his voice quiet. “Took me a while to believe it.” His warm hand presses to my lower back, reminding me we’re experiencing this together, as we did back when it happened. “Do you want to remember?”
I release a breath, trying to loosen the knot in my chest. “The truth’s hard to ignore. I had a nightmare about it this morning. Reminding me.”
“I had those a lot after.”
“Me too.”
“Why didn’t we ever talk about it?”
“Because it’s not our thing.” I give him a small smile of regret.
“Can it be? Can we talk?” His request is gentle and earnest.
“About what?”
“Everything?”
“Everything?” I repeat like he’s asking for the impossible.
“Eventually,” he says with a quirk of his mouth.
He returns his attention to the bench.
I lean into Jonathan, his arm securing me, and address the name engraved on the plaque. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
Jonathan kisses my temple. He pays his own respect. “I’m sorry I was too late.”
We walk back into the sunlight, to the music and laughter, our hearts heavy. Jonathan pauses and pulls me into a hug. “Ready to be back with our friends?” I nod, placing a kiss over his heart.
“What the hell are you two doing over there?” Gavin calls to us.
My mom waves us over as everyone lines up in front of the water for a picture. I take each of them in and remember why I love them. And let the warmth of that love fill me, expanding my heart.
Ibet you can’t do it!”
“Are you afraid, Austin?”
“Yeah, you gonna cry?”
“What are they doing up there?” I ask, shielding my eyes from the sun to get a better look at my tormentors teasing someone else, or maybe each other, to jump from the dangerous height.
“Being stupid,” Collin says, rifling through the cooler. I can’t imagine there’s anything left. He and Jonathan ate just about everything in there.
“We should go soon,” Jonathan says. “I think Sadie’s getting a sunburn.”
“Am not!” I argue without even looking at my pale skin. Jonathan presses a finger to my pink shoulder and leaves a white fingerprint. Well, now I’m red.
“Who’s that with Jonas?” I ask Jonathan, trying to hide the squeak in my voice caused by him touching me.
“Knock it off!” comes from the cliff. “I’m serious.”
“Oooh, he’s serious.”
“I don’t know,” Jonathan says with a sigh. “Should I go check?”
“Hey! I said stop!”
I stand at the urgent plea. But then I see Livvy, lying on a blanket closer to the cliffs, and I sit back down, not wanting to bring attention to myself. Livvy lives on the same street as me, but we’ve never hung out. She seems way older. I feel like a kid around her even though we’re the same age.
No one would know it, looking at her in a bikini. My mom tried to explain that our line of women are late bloomers. I look down at my practically nonexistent chest and beg it to bloom already. I’m starting high school in a couple months, and I’m barely out of a training bra.
Livvy’s by herself. Well, other than her brother. But he doesn’t count. I’m getting up the nerve to ask her if she wants to sit with us when a giant splash makes everyone turn toward the cliff.
“Ooh, that couldn’t have felt good,” Collin comments.
“What did you do?!” a boy screams from atop the cliff.
“Hey! Get back here!”
Jonathan is on his feet. I didn’t see who went in. Several others lean over the water’s edge, including Livvy. The river’s current’s moving faster than usual, especially after all the rain last week.
Hands flail out of the water. A head. A weak cry. Then gone.
Jonathan sprints to the edge of the rock and dives in.
I’m up. So is Collin.
Everyone is silent. On their feet.
“Call 911.”
“Where is he?” I ask, searching for Jonathan.
Someone is running. Maybe more than one.
Jonathan surfaces. The power of his stroke pulls him close to the hand that breaks through the water. He dives under when it disappears again. He resurfaces, searching around him. Swims further out and disappears beneath the rushing river.
He surfaces with the boy under his arm. He sidestrokes to the nearest ledge. I lose sight of him within the trees.
Collin and I scramble down, climb over rocks, cross over blankets. My bare feet can’t get me there fast enough.
“An ambulance is coming!” someone yells.
I climb up another boulder on my hands and knees and slide down the other side. Collin’s nearly to them. Jonathan bends over the boy, breathing into his mouth.
I trip and sprawl on a slab, my foot catching in a crevice, so focused on the still boy. I push myself back onto my feet and leap over the small gap to land where Jonathan and Collin are performing CPR.
Collin breathes, and Jonathan does compressions on the unmoving chest.
“Who is that?” I hear Livvy ask, getting closer. “Sadie, who is it?”
I turn to her.
“Who is that?!” she screams. She stops two boulders away, but doesn’t come closer.
The boy is pale. His sun-bleached hair is plastered to the sides of his face. His lips are purple.
Collin breathes again.
I can’t be here. I can’t watch this.
“I’ll let the EMTs know where you are,” I say and turn away.
When I get to her rock, Livvy clutches my arm.
“Tell me. Is it him? Please, Sadie. Is he okay?” Livvy is crying.
Pleading. She’s looking at me like maybe I can do something.
That I can help her. But I can’t. I peel her fingers from my arm.
She grabs for me again, frantic, scratching my sunburned skin as I pull out of reach.
I climb back over the rocks, leaving bloody smears from the cuts on my hands and knees. I don’t feel them.
The EMTs are at the top by the main path, carrying a red board. I wave my hands in the air. “Here! Down here!” I continue to climb toward them. I point the way when they reach me, but they already see where to go.
They pass me, and I keep climbing, back to our rock. Back to where I don’t have to see. I can hear Livvy screaming. I put on my headphones and hide beneath my towel.