Before I Ever Met You

I take in a deep breath and start walking. The rocks are way more slippery, even though I’m crossing in my sneakers now and not my bare feet, and the current isn’t helping. I can literally feel it pulling at my legs, trying to drag me downstream, and every step I take is a struggle to keep going.

I’m going slow. I know I am. I can’t help it. I’m in the middle of the stream and now the water is at my chest and I’m starting to get that cold panic around my heart, the idea that I might not make it. The rope is starting to move away from my fingertips, my arms are tired.

Daniel and Nikki’s faces, as well as the crowd behind them are out of focus, but I’m staring at them with all I have, afraid to look away. Nikki gestures with her hands for me to keep going.

And then someone behind me yells. “Hurry the fuck up, the rest of us have to make it!”

Fuck. That’s all it takes to jar me. I try and hurry but my leg goes to the side, to a hole, and I start falling into the stream, no ground beneath my left foot.

“Veronica!” I hear Logan yell, and then my fingers can’t hold on and I’m slipping.

It happens in a second.

I fall in with a splash. The water holds me, pulls me down, it’s up to my neck, I’m swept away in a dizzying circle, the world around me swirling into a blur as I’m rushed downstream in a cold whirlpool.

I’m going to die.

My back slams against a rock and I try and turn around to grab onto it, but my hands slip and then I’m bounced around again, the water rising over my head. I forget about my phone, forget about looking like a fool, I forget about everything except the fact that I’m going to die, swept out to sea.

I go over the edge of the waterfall and slam into a pool below, my body slapping into the rocks at the bottom before I’m raised above it by the current and pulled away again. I try and keep my head above the water but all I hear is the current in my ears, the pounding of my heart, all I see is brown water and bubbles and blue sky, until I’m turned around again and I see the pounding waves. The ocean is another drop away, waiting for me. Once I go over the edge of this pool and I’m swept out there, I know I won’t have it in me to fight. The waves will obliterate me.

But I have some strength left now.

As my side hits another rock, I reach out and grab it, using my legs to push off through the current until both arms are over the rock and I’m hugging it close to me, holding onto it for dear life as the current tries to rip me away.

“Help,” I try to yell but my voice is so weak, buried by the roaring waves and white water.

But I think I can hear something else above it. A muffled voice. A panicked voice.

Logan’s voice.

“Veronica!” he yells, and at that moment I realize how silly I’ve been to be mad at him for never calling me Ronnie. How dumb and trivial that was, how dumb and trivial everything was, my whole feud with him over Juliet. What was their business was their business, not mine. I’m going to die now and nothing else really mattered all this time.

“Veronica!” he yells again, closer now, and I manage to raise my head and see him scrambling over the rocks near the edge. I want to yell at him, to tell him to stay where he is, that he’ll be swept away too but I can’t. I can barely hold on.

He’s in the water now, the water rushing against his chest, but he’s strong and he’s solid and he’s immovable. His eyes are laced with a fear I’ve never seen before on him, that I’ve never seen on anyone. I feel like we’re both facing death head on.

“Hold on, just a few more seconds,” he says, his voice deep and commanding, yet shaking all the same.

He comes closer. Just feet away. He can almost grab me.

I start to slip. I have no strength left to grip.

“No!” he yells. “I’m not losing you, too! Hold on.”

I can’t.

I can’t.

I let go.

Just as he reaches out for me.

His hand wraps around my elbow, and with a roar of strength he pulls me toward him and out of the whirling pool and into the side stream.

“Hold onto me,” he says as his arm slips around my waist in a vice-like grip. My own arms are weak and shaking but he’s got me. He moves through the water, the stream rushing over my mouth at times until I’m spitting it out and then suddenly the water slackens. It’s at my chest, at my waist, at my thighs, and now Logan is dragging me onto the rocks on the side of the stream where it meets the beach.

He’s breathing hard, leaning over me. The rain falls into my eyes until I blink it away.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, running his hand over my head.

I close my eyes, not sure whether to say yes or no. I don’t know. I just want to breath, want to find my breath again, get that assurance that I’m alive.

There’s a rustling beside us and I’m aware of muffled, panicked voices.

“Someone’s running to get help.”

“Is she alive?”

“Anything broken?”

“Can the helicopters land in this wind?”

“That was a close call, that was such a close call.”

“I’m so sorry I yelled.”

I can’t pick out the voices, I know they all belong to the dozen people stuck here on this side. I know that none of them dared to cross after what happened to me.

“Give us a minute, please,” Logan says to them. I feel his hand on my forehead, touching it gently. “Veronica. Someone is going to get rescue. If the helicopters can make it, they’ll come get you out. They’ll take you the hospital.”

I shake my head softly. “No,” I croak. “I think I’m…I’m fine. Just bruised.”

“Regardless,” Logan says, “you need to be checked out. You could have a concussion.” He pauses, his fingers trailing down my cheek. “Dammit. Dammit, I thought I fucking lost you. I am so sorry.”

His voice sounds so broken, so unlike him, that I open my eyes and peer up at him.

“Don’t be sorry,” I tell him. “I’m the one who wanted to come on the hike. And I did it because I wanted to annoy you. Seems like it worked.”

He’s not smiling. “I shouldn’t have let you cross. I saw the water levels, I saw the current, I should have stopped you.”

“I would have gone anyway,” I tell him. “You like the stubborn girls.”

He frowns at me for a moment, his gaze intensifying. Then he nods, licking his lips. “I do. I do like the stubborn girls.”

I was joking. It was a bad joke. But now he’s answering me seriously.

“Anyway,” I say, unsure how to go on. I’m shaking over what happened, my body torn by the thrill of being alive and the fright of almost dying.

“Anyway,” Logan says. He lets out a soft breath of air. “If the rescue team can’t get us, we’ll be stuck here overnight. Believe it or not, it happens all the time.”