29
I try one last time to break free of the hole.
I twist my shoulders, pump my arms, and kick beneath the water like mad, but the current only yanks me backward harder, pulling as aggressively as I push.
Not enough to kill me, but enough to make me wish it would.
My breath comes out in choked, coughing, pathetic sobs that sound like the end.
Because this is the end.
In a few seconds, he’ll find me like this—a fish in a barrel, waiting for the bullet.
I want to scream, but he’s the only one who will hear me. Even the thought makes me grit my teeth against the urge.
When the recirculating hole allows me to come up for a brief gasp of air, I blink away the glaze of water and search for the encroaching neon green raft, wanting to get eyes on Leo.
But as I turn my head to look, something stops me.
“Play dead,” Parker’s voice prompts. It’s an insistent whisper, the angry edge gone.
I hesitate for just a second, then obey. I draw in a lungful of air then let myself go limp, bobbing face down on the surface. I’m half-dead already at this point, so it’s not difficult to pretend.
The otherworldly, murky sounds of the rushing river fill my ears, merging with the distant drumbeat of oars, drawing closer each time they strike.
My lungs burn with the need for air, but I don’t move a muscle, allowing the river to fling me up and down, back and forth like a rag doll.
The seconds tick past. The light filtering through my closed eyes flashes dark then bright, again and again, the churning hole slowly spinning me. My heartbeat, pounding like a piston in my ears, makes it impossible to hear the sound of the oars in the water after a few seconds.
Is he right beside me, waiting to see if I’m still alive? Watching for a twitch, something to indicate I might still be fun to kill? Or is he moving on, already rowing downriver?
At this point, I can only hope he won’t bother pulling my body into the gear raft to check for a pulse. He knows as well as I do that if I’m not fully gone by now, I’ll drown in seconds. I don’t stand a chance of getting out of this hole on my own, even if I do survive.
I’m already dead, you motherfucker. Just keep moving and leave me here, I beg, and the truth of that statement cuts so deep, I can’t imagine a knife blade would feel any worse.
The shadows shift yet again, dark to light against my eyelids, and I imagine Leo leaning over the side of his boat, that camo-patterned knife in one hand, studying me, making his choice.
He’ll be debating whether I’m worth the time and effort. Especially if he’s still hunting for Allie.
I can’t hold my breath much longer. I have a few more seconds at best, before my lungs seize, forcing me to come up for air. That survival instinct is so deeply embedded in my subconscious that it’s going to override everything else, doggedly trying to save me even when I can’t bear to go on.
Time slows.
I hear Parker’s voice again. “Hang on a little longer.” And despite myself, I listen.
My head feels like it’s going to explode, and my lungs ache, screaming for air. Beneath the water, I open my eyes just a slit to see a blur of neon green within arm’s reach.
Leo is right there, hovering over my limp body. What’s he doing? Why hasn’t he moved on? My head swims toward blackout. I can’t hold my breath any longer.
“You can,” Parker insists.
I squeeze my lips together so tight I feel a blood vessel pop.
As the current swirls me sideways, I keep my blurry eyes fixed on the side of the raft a mere foot from my face.
Then suddenly, just when I’m certain that my time is up, the raft abruptly moves away.
“It’s okay to breathe again,” Parker whispers as the raft disappears from view, but I don’t need to be told. When the churning water rolls my body to the surface, I turn my head toward the light and angle my mouth upward in desperation.
I attempt to grab a stealthy lungful of air, but the breath I’ve been holding comes out in a burst, the next inhale drawing only water into my mouth. The pain in my lungs, my head, reaches a fever pitch, dying for oxygen.
I can’t help it—I sputter loudly, coughing up river water with a violent, barking sound.
The current quickly dunks me back beneath the water, pulling me sideways in time for me to catch a flash of movement from the bright green gear raft. A rotation—a turn.
The guide oars plunge into the water.
He’s coming back.
He heard my gasps, and now he knows I’m still alive—so he’s going to make sure he hears my last breath.
I kick harder than ever, still starved of oxygen, in one last desperate attempt to overcome the hole.
I try to form fists with my numb, useless hands, hoping I’ll at least get a punch in before he ends me, but they’re like unfeeling blocks of clay.
I cough again, gulping at the surface, but I’m still swallowing more water than air.
The rush of the river goes silent, then. Even my own gasps for air sound faraway. A warm, fuzzy tingling spreads from my scalp down my spine. The dark and light flashes stop—it’s only bright, radiant light.
And in that sudden stillness, I’m with Parker.
A memory, one I know well.
We’re lying in a hammock in our backyard, the oak tree shedding rusty yellow leaves onto our hair.
We’re wrapped up in a quilt my grandma made from T-shirts I’d loved to pieces when I was a little girl.
Parker and I have just had brunch at our favorite neighborhood spot, a place famous for their over-the-top Bloody Marys.
The late morning autumn air is chilly, but with Parker and the quilt wrapped around me, the faint buzz from the cocktails, and the creaking of the swaying hammock, I’m warm, sleepy, and safe.
It’s the year before the accident, the year everything felt possible and beautiful.
At brunch, we talked more about starting a family.
“Just imagine,” Parker says, “By this time next year, there could be three of us in this hammock.” When I turn my head to kiss him, his face is washed in dappled, golden light.
“What if it’s a girl, and she has my teeth and your chin,” I murmur. “Oh, and your dad’s hairline.” I laugh, remembering the headgear and dental implants it took to fix my smile back in high school. Then I fit my thumb into the dimple of Parker’s endearing cleft chin.
I wait for him to laugh along with me. Instead, he sighs and lays his cheek against mine. “She’ll be so beautiful. Just the most beautiful little girl.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and lay my head on his chest, his heartbeat beneath my palm while I nuzzle against him, taking in the smell of leaves and the last of the tomatoes unpicked in our little garden behind the oak tree.
We sway for another minute before going back inside. But I don’t want to go inside. I want to stay in the hammock forever, watching the light on his face.
The memory blurs, then veers somewhere it never went that day.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I tell him, stroking the soft skin of his cheek where it meets the stubble. “This past year without you …” I try to continue, but emotion stings the back of my throat.
He holds my gaze and nods, taking my face in his hands like he does after we fight, when it’s finally time to apologize and find each other again. “Oh, baby,” he says solemnly. “You’ve been holding your breath for so long.”
“But I’m drowning,” I tell him, my voice breaking.
He trails his fingers across my cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “No, baby. No. You’re still alive,” he says. “It’s okay to breathe again. It’s okay to want to.”
I cling to those words, even as they give way to reality.
I feel hands on the back of my life jacket, fingers digging into the straps and yanking me from the river.
I close my eyes and wrap myself around Parker’s words as I cough up the water in my lungs, clawing for oxygen again and again, unwilling to waste any of that air on a scream.
Then I hear a sound that makes my eyes fly wide open.