Girl Underwater (17 page)

F
riday. Snow.

Saturday. Snow.

Sunday. Total and utter despair.

We ran out of food yesterday. It's too cold to even think of scavenging the lake for more washed-up snacks. Our only hope is that a benevolent gust of wind will bring them to us. My fingers and toes are changing colors, succumbing to frostbite. My face feels as though it's been whipped with rawhide. And I'm in the best shape of everyone.

When the storm hit Friday night, it drove us inside for thirty-six hours. Cabin fever took many forms, first a restlessness that tanked the collective mood, then a frenetic urge to get outside and breathe. The boys' tantrums became less frequent, slowly transforming into lethargy. Now they sleep through fitful dreams, choking on damp, stale air. I've taken to shaking them awake every thirty minutes—especially Tim, bribing him with melted snow.

“Hey,” I say, giving Colin a nudge. It's more like a shove, which is what it takes now to rouse him. “Hey, wake up.”

Colin's eyes flutter open. A mixture of emotions cast a pall on his drawn features: Panic because he never knows where he is at first, anger at himself for falling asleep. Then, finally, worry. Always worry.

“Is it still snowing?” he asks, his voice like sandpaper. I hand him a mug of melted snow. His fingers are ice-cold, but the rest of him is a wet, sickly warm. This is new.

I lay a hand on his forehead, but it's unnecessary; I can feel his fever from here. “Here, let me see your shoulder—”

“It's okay,” he says. “Doesn't hurt.”

“Of course it hurts.” I start unwrapping his bandages with frantic fingers. The first layer comes away damp. The second, third, and final layers are saturated with a yellowish, pungent liquid. It looks and smells like pus.

Oh god oh god oh god.

He glances at the wound for the first time, as if finally accepting that it exists. Almost pleadingly, he says, “Don't let the boys see it.”

I bunch up the soiled layers and stuff them in a corner—for now. As soon as I get the chance, I'll go out and bury everything.

“I think we should let it air out for a bit.” To appease him, I lay a fresh T-shirt over his shoulder.

“Is it contagious, though? With the air in here—”

“No. It's just a wound infection.”

“Sure it is,” he says, forcing a weak, heartbreaking smile. He must sense the fever raging in his blood, the telltale fire of sepsis. He could die from this.

He
will
die from this.

I turn my head before he can see me cry. Colin—our strong, massive, and seemingly indestructible hero—won't last another day out here. Barely another hour. The boys might make it through another night, but only if the little ones stay healthy. Tim stopped throwing up, but he sleeps all the time now. His fever has morphed into an ominous chill. At night, he shudders in my arms, his breathing rapid and raw. I urge him to drink sips of melted snow, but he barely has the energy to swallow.

As if reading my mind, Colin says, “Focus on Tim. I'll be fine.”

Focus,
in this case, means
watch him die.
I can't wait for that to happen, even though it
will
happen, because there are no planes, no hope.

I scramble toward the door anyway. “I'll be right back.”

“Avery—” Colin says, grasping my arm.

“Five minutes,” I say, and he lets me go.

Under overcast skies, it's impossible to tell what time it is. Midday, maybe, judging by the depth of shadow in the trees. Time in this place seems to alternately race and stand completely still. The hours achieve a certain monotony, the mornings blending into afternoon blending into night. It feels inevitable, this dutiful passing of the hours, this endless cycle of day and night. We're on a runaway train, racing toward the brink.

The winds shifted with the storm, carrying the floating luggage even farther away. The orange duffel bag must have snagged on something because it hasn't moved in days, but it's still at least a mile offshore, which means a two-mile swim. And the cabin . . .

Forget the cabin.

Colin never had any doubt that he could make it there, but then again, he's
Colin.
Bigger, stronger, faster. He doesn't swim so much as glide. He doesn't doubt his abilities because he has no reason to. He saw that cabin and saw hope. I see defeat.

Which reminds me, in some strange, nostalgic way, of the day we met. For the whole of my freshman and sophomore years, I've swum the 200 and 500 freestyle, the standard middle-distance events. I'm not the best on the team, but I'm not the worst. Coach appreciates my ability to “go where I'm needed.” There are no real expectations, no pressure. I swim because I can, and middle distance is my event now, and the team needs me there.

But I miss the 1500, the closest thing swimming has to a mile. A mile to find a rhythm, to become one with the water. I miss everything about it.

The cabin isn't much farther than that, maybe two thousand meters. I tell myself it's too far, too cold, but it isn't.

The truth is, I'm afraid.

Colin hasn't asked me to attempt it since that night he broached the subject, but I wonder if he's thought about it. I wonder if he remembers that conversation on the golf course; I wonder if he hasn't asked because he doesn't want to hear me say the words:

I can't do it.

The wind swirls around me in lazy gusts, mocking me with its unpredictable power. I thought being outside would restore some hope for rescue, or at least encourage it. Instead, I find myself hating this place we've come to know: the sky, the grizzled peaks, the lake's teasing calm. The awesomeness of nature no longer inspires me; it infuriates me. Fighting back tears, I walk along the shore with my gaze trained on the ground, seeing nothing but a canvas of white, blowing snow.

It's for this reason I almost miss it, a buzzing in my brain that becomes a whir.

A plane.

It looks like a red bird circling the north end of the lake. I gaze at it, too stunned to do anything more than just stand there, admiring the blur of color in colorless skies.

Then, a different thought:
rescue.

I start running, falling on hands and knees in a desperate scramble to be noticed. The pain in my lungs explodes with every breath. I wave my arms, ignoring the ache in my shoulders, the drain of energy on my tired muscles.

Then, like the curtain coming down on a one-act play, the plane crests a peak and disappears. The roar of its engine fades to a low drone, then to silence.

It's gone.

Physical pain surrenders to an acute sense of loss. This was our only chance for rescue, a last-ditch effort by the authorities to find a few lucky souls who
might
have survived a sinking airplane, who
might
have swum to shore, who
might
have lived through five straight days of storms with no real shelter. They saw the debris, took a good look at the lake, and assumed what any logical person would have: No one survived.

Our tiny lean-to stands proud in the distance, its red logo glinting in the grayish light. Impossibly, I see Colin waving his left arm. At me, at the plane—I don't know. He must have heard it, too.

The trek along the shore was difficult before, but now it's torture. Every step reinforces the void I'm walking toward. There is no goal, no purpose. I'm going to lose them. Colin. Tim. Liam. Aayu. I can't do this alone. I can't do it at all. My knees give out along with every urge to keep moving forward.

What would Edward say? Or my father, who has devoted his life to saving people's lives? It wouldn't be so bad if they expected me to die, like any reasonable human would. But the thing is,
I don't know.
And the not knowing means I can't just assume they've stopped fighting for me. The not knowing means my dad may be out there somewhere, hounding the Search and Rescue operators because his daughter knows a thing or two about survival, dammit.

I get up, rubbing my palms to ease the pain of new bruises. My first step is unsteady. The second is better. I look up and see Colin in the distance, still waving. But not up, not at someone or something that streaked across the sky and disappeared.

He's waving at me. Not good-bye. Hello. Come back. We need you.

And that, for now, is enough.

W
hen Lee calls at seven, Colin insists on picking him up and driving us both home. I overhear this conversation from my comfy perch in his bed, which smells so much like Colin it makes me light-headed. Light-headed in a good way. In a confusing way, too.

On my way out of the bathroom, he hands me Lee's cell phone, along with my freshly laundered dress. “It's not perfect,” he says, “but I've learned a thing or two over the years.”

I mumble a thank-you.
Colin knows how to launder a dress?

He looks good—tired, but a healthy tired. He's wearing jeans and an old baseball T-shirt, his last name stitched across the shoulder blades.

“You played baseball?” I ask.

“You look shocked.” He laughs. “Am I that uncoordinated?”

“No, it's just . . .” I sit on the bed and fold the dress across my lap. “I figured you were just a swimmer.”

“In this neighborhood? I'd be laughed off the block.”

He's right, of course, another part of his history I've neither considered nor explored. It's so much easier to slot people into neat little boxes.

The phone buzzes with a new message. It's from Lee:
Where are you?

“I'll get the car warmed up,” Colin says. A few seconds later, he's down the stairs and out the door.

I let the dress flutter past my hips, stunned by its transformation. It looks brand-new—creased in all the right places, the hem restored to its threadless glory. It smells like fabric softener and lilac, like a spring morning.

My throat tightens as I think about his mom, dozing peacefully down the hall.

She would have been proud.

•

When we pull up to the house in Southie, Lee is sitting on Gruder's snow-covered porch. His eyes are bloodshot, betraying a sleepless night. When he sees us pull up, he strolls over and heaves a sigh. “Dammit, Aves. You scared the shit out of me last night.”

“I know.” I try not to look at him. “I'm sorry.”

“Turns out Gruder's brother has a criminal record.” He snorts as he climbs into the backseat. “Asshole.”

“Gruder, or Gruder's brother?”

“Both. They're both assholes.” He nods at Colin. “Thanks for, uh, filling in here.” His voice sounds strained, and I start to wonder if the dinner at Anna's was more about reconciliation than reunion.

Colin responds with his usual grace. “No problem. I'm just a few blocks from here.”

Lee says nothing, appraising the narrow, snow-dusted streets and tight-knit houses. Older-model cars line the shoulder, parked at haphazard angles to avoid the snow. The occasional bundled-up individual braves the early-morning chill.

“Anyway,” Lee says, “hope Avery didn't kill your New Year's.” Lee's implication settles in the air, hovering like deadweight.

Colin eases to a stop at a red light and cracks the window. “Not at all.”

“No hot date on New Year's?”

The light takes years to turn green. I try to sink down in my seat, but the area between my knees and the dashboard is only marginally bigger than a shoe box.

“No.” The tension in Colin's voice is almost undetectable, but it's there. Probably not enough for Lee to notice, but obvious to me.

“Huh.” Lee meets Colin's gaze through the rearview mirror. “Can't say I'm surprised. You always were evasive.”

“Lee—” I start, but Colin quiets me with a look.

“I was at dinner with my sisters,” Colin says.

“Uh-huh.”

“He
was,
Lee,” I snap. “His mom's sick and has been for a long time. That's
why he missed Fall Qualifiers.” Colin winces. Guilt whirls in my gut, but I keep going. “You need to get over it.”

“Get over it? Avery, that meet was everything I've ever worked for.”

“More important than someone
dying
?”

Lee looks away. Colin's grip tenses on the wheel.

“Sorry about your mom,” Lee says.

Colin glances my way, but I can't bear to look at him. “I'm sorry, too,” he says. I wonder what, exactly, he's sorry for, though I suppose it doesn't matter. The apology is out there, a kind of peace offering.

“So, how did the party end?” I ask, falsely cheerful.

Please answer. Please work. Please let them just get along.
Fortunately, Lee has a blessedly short attention span.

“Eh.” Lee shrugs. “I punched Gruder's brother in the face.”

“What?” I whirl around, meeting Lee's hard stare.

“He deserved it, and you know it.”

“Yeah, but he's Gruder's brother. You'll never race again if Gruder hates you.”

“I don't care what Gruder thinks. Far as I'm concerned, he's a dick, too.”

At this, a tiny smile curls on Colin's lips.

“See?” Lee says. “Shea gets it. You don't let a guy treat your girlfriend like that without repercussions.”

“This isn't the 1800s.”

Lee sweeps away strands of hair that have fallen across my face. His breath smells good—like cinnamon, as always. “I'm not a vigilante, Aves.” He lets the wisps of blond settle on my shoulders. “But I'm not a pussy, either.”

“Yes, but there are consequences.” I look at my hands, embarrassed by how dumb this sounds but knowing it's also true. “Gruder can make life a lot harder for you.”

“Let him.”

“Lee, listen to me. I made a mistake, okay? Why don't you let me talk to Gruder?”

“No.”

Colin turns off the highway near Fenway, putting us within a mile of my house. He's probably only been to Brookline a few times, but Boston is small enough to navigate once you understand the nonsensical arrangements of the streets. Colin drives like a local: confident but a little unpredictable. Avoiding one-way streets where there probably shouldn't be one. Ignoring the intersections where three out of four of the intersecting streets have the same name. Dodging surface trains and random crosswalks.

“Still going the right way?” Colin asks me.

I manage a nod, and five minutes later, we're there. The car hasn't yet come to a complete stop when Lee climbs out of the backseat. He opens my door with semifrozen fingers.

“Come on, babe.” His teeth are chattering. “I need a hot shower ASAP.”

He reaches in to take my hand, but every bone in my body resists him. I shouldn't say anything to Colin—not with Lee scrutinizing me, not with that damning question left unanswered. But then the words are out of my mouth, and it's too late.

“Are you ever coming back to school?” I ask him.

He stares at the empty road ahead. I want him to look at me. I want him to say,
Yes. As soon as I possibly can.

Instead, he murmurs, “No.”

Lee finally manages to pull me out of the car, my heel catching on the curb in a foolish attempt to turn around. I want to say something. I do. I should—

But Colin is already gone, the sounds of a weathered engine fading in his wake.

Lee takes my hand, warming it in his own. We trudge along the shoveled sidewalk toward the porch. I used to count my paces when I was little, used to know where I was going without seeing the world in front of me, savoring the confidence of each step. The knowledge that my two-hundred-year-old house was still there, buried in its foundation, aging slowly enough for me to feel like it would never change, was enough to steady my stride.

But now, every step, even with my eyes wide-open, feels like a blind leap.