Left Drowning

I can see again. I feel like me again.

I almost manage a smile. “And then he saved my life.”

“A firefighter showed up,” Chris says. He tips my head back and rinses the shampoo.

“No,” I say. “He wasn’t a firefighter. From what I understand, because we were in the middle of nowhere, and the roads there were such a nightmare, it took forever for the trucks to get to us. They had to park at the top of the dirt road and send a water truck of some sort down to the house. And James and I had left the car blocking the road, and the EMTs had to get James out of the way before they could move the car. I remember hearing a huge crash. I didn’t know it at the time, but they drove the water truck into the car and pushed it the rest of the way down the road. It would have saved time if I hadn’t let James drive that day. The car wouldn’t have blocked their way. Maybe something would have been different.”

“No,” Chris tells me. “The fire was moving too fast, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Yes, you are. Think, Blythe. You said it yourself. The house was basically a pre-made bonfire waiting for a spark. The house was virtually gone when you woke up.”

I nod cautiously.

“There was nothing you could have done that would have made them get to you faster.”

I nod again.

“Do you believe that?” he asks.

I’m not sure, so I tell the one part of this story that I cling to and that I have always remembered well. “I was on the ladder when I felt this huge arm fly around my waist. He lifted me so effortlessly … and then threw us both onto the ground. I landed hard on top of him, and I saw the ladder fall forward into the fire as the side of the house collapsed.” I can breathe freely now as I recount the only moment of salvation in the otherwise unrelenting tragedy. “He’s the only reason that I’m alive. He wasn’t a firefighter. Just some guy in regular clothes. Probably renting one of the houses near ours.”

I don’t tell Chris about how that man’s face is embedded in my memory. The small scar above his eyebrow, the gray around his hairline, and the sharp jawline that added to his overwhelming aura of fortitude. Nor how this man scooped me up from the ground and ran with me in his powerful arms, taking me away from hell. About how I didn’t take my eyes off him while I continued to cough and reach for air as he got me to the ambulance. And how he stopped me from kicking and fighting the medics when I became wild to know if James was dead or alive and helped me to calm down and breathe into the oxygen mask after telling me that James was on his way to the hospital. That I’d see James there.

These are details that I keep to myself.

“Someone came to help me,” I say. “I wasn’t alone. Even in the chaos of the sirens and shouting, I could easily hear my savior as he told me that I was safe. He said to me, You are safe, sweet girl. Over and over he said that. You are safe, you are safe, you are safe, sweet girl. Twenty times he told me that. I counted. Finally, I wasn’t alone anymore. Ironic, though, because after that night, I became lonelier than I could have imagined. Everybody left me. All my friends, my parents’ friends, nobody knew what to do or how to act around me, and so they left. But I never wanted to die. Not that night, not even after. That one man, that heroic man, saved me.”

Chris smoothes his hands over my shoulders and down my arms. Then puts a finger under my chin and lifts my face to his. “And so he saved me, too.”

For just a moment, he brushes his lips against mine. I stand on my tiptoes and throw my arms around his neck, surprised that I have the strength left to hold him this tightly. I don’t know how to thank him for what he just did for me, for what he let me unleash, so I just hold him.

I think he knows what this means to me.

“You were very brave,” Chris says. “That day and today. And you are safe, sweet girl.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Illusory Power of Black Friday My dorm room is perfectly quiet when I slip back in after the shower. Sabin is flat on his stomach with his arms and legs spread out, hogging more than his share of my futon. Estelle, Zach, and Eric are also still asleep. I am still u

I settle in next to Sabin, and when he lets out a loud morning yawn, I clamp a hand down over his mouth. “Shhh!”

“What time is it?” he whispers.

I lean down and put my mouth by his ear. “Still early.” He starts to snore, and I have to stifle a giggle. “Sabin, Sabin, Sabin!” I pat his shoulders.

He rouses slightly. “What is it, baby?”

“It’s Black Friday.”

“Oh.”

“Wa

“Totally.” He rolls over and beckons, so I crawl onto him and pin him down by putting my knees on either side of his belly. Sabin rubs his eyes and then blinks up at me. His voice is scratchy and raw, but he once again sounds like the boy I know and love. “Can we get one of those breakfast station thingies, too?”

“I don’t know what a breakfast station thingy is.”

“You know. It’s a combo toaster, coffeemaker whatchamahoozey with a teeny fold-down skillet.” He yawns again. “For half a strip of bacon and one small fried egg. A quail egg or somethin’.”

“Yes, we can get one of those.”

“And maybe a pair of roller skates?”

“If it’s a good bargain, yes.”

“Awesome. Let’s go.”

He sits up, pulls me closer so I’m grabbing onto him like a koala baby, and scoots us to the end of the futon.

“Chris’s room,” I direct him. “He’s making coffee to go.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He carries me easily, opening the door with one hand and holding me with the other.

He takes us down the hall, with me plastered to his chest and my arms and legs wrapped around him. I rub my nose against his. “It’s go

He rubs my back. “Obscenely so.”

We get to Chris’s door and Sabin pauses before he turns the knob. “I’m so sorry. Last night was fucked up. Really fucked up. I love you, B.”

I am not going to cry again today. I’m not. “I love you, too,” I tell him.

***

An hour or so later, after stopping at a diner for breakfast, Chris, Sabin, and I pile back into the truck. I feel more than ready to shop. After what I just went through, and what I put Chris through, something more mindless seems direly necessary.

Sabin throws himself into the small back cab and lies down, giving me the front passenger seat.

“Which mall are we going to?” I ask. Chris pulls out of the parking lot and drives for a minute. “I was thinking the one in Reinhardt.”

I look at him. “Isn’t that, like, two hours away?”

“Yeah.” He takes a right turn and heads toward the highway. “It is.”

“Why that one?”

He shrugs. “Do you have anything else to do today?”

I smile. “No.”

“Good. I thought we could just drive.”

Sabin, who I’m guessing is horribly hungover, falls asleep the minute we hit the highway. I suppose that I should be exhausted, too, but I don’t feel it. All I feel is such a shocking level of tranquility that I can’t imagine sleeping right now because I want to enjoy this new feeling.

Chris turns up the radio and then takes my hand as he settles in for the drive. We say nothing for the first hour. Occasionally he drops my hand to change the music, but then immediately takes it back in his. Perhaps I should find this confusing, given that we are not anything other than friends. Friends don’t go around holding hands all the time. I mean, it’s not like Estelle and I sit around our room holding hands while we do homework. I wonder whether I was wrong to think that we are meant to be more. Then I decide to focus on what I know for sure: that I have found a friend, this spectacular boy, who has saved me from drowning.