Because when I looked back in front of me, I saw the rocks.
I was too close to them, the water rushing too fast. I didn’t feel panicked at first, just kicked off one of them the way I’d seen Tucker do when we’d floated down together, but then my tube spun, water splashing up and over me, shocking the breath from my chest.
I hit another rock and then another, bouncing between them like a pinball, heart racing when I realized I couldn’t stabilize it. I reached my hand out, braced with my feet, but I was rushing too fast and when the rocks hit my hand with brutal force I yelped, pulling it back just as I bounced off another rock. The river dipped, and then I hit one final rock, this one at an angle.
My tube flipped, tossing me into the water with just enough time to take one last deep breath.
I couldn’t move.
My feet were bricks, my legs lead. I was running, but not fast enough. Every sound was muffled, save for the beat of my heart loud in my ears. It drummed harder and harder, echoing my racing thoughts.
Not again. Please, God, no. I have to save her. I can’t lose her—not like this, not ever.
As soon as my legs hit the water, every sense came rushing back. The icy water shocked my system but I dove in anyway, praying I’d catch her before she floated past. Wren kept bobbing up for air before being sucked down again, her hair in a whirlwind around her, arms flailing, tube long gone now.
Flashes of Dani’s face flitted in and out, and I wondered if this was what she’d looked like the day the river took her life—the day I’d pushed her too far.
Guilt and panic surged as high as the water. I was drowning, suffocating from the threat of death’s hands around my neck again. Wren was almost to me now and I wasn’t far enough into the river to stop her from floating past.
The current was strong and I gritted against the pressure of it, boots grasping for friction on the rocks below as I fought through my demons to fight for life. Her head went under as she floated past me and I growled, lunging.
I reached out as far as I could and squinted against the sun, vision blurred from the water and the rays. Just when the river hit the bottom of my chest I caught her by the ankle, ripping her back upstream until I held her in my arms.
She wrapped around me, coughing over my shoulder as I trudged back to the shore.
She held on tight and I did, too—both of us adjusting and readjusting our grips like we were afraid even one inch of separation would lead to our demise. And though I had her and I knew she was safe, I was still shaking, heart thumping so hard against my ribs it nearly knocked my breath away.
When we hit the shore, I tried to calm myself, tried to take a breath, a moment, even a split second to think before I spoke, but I couldn’t. I dropped her gently to her feet, still coughing, and held her small face between my hands.
“Are you okay?” I asked, voice too high-pitched, hands shaking as I held her.
She nodded, eyes wide and lips trembling, and though I wanted to pull her into me and rock her and soothe her, I couldn’t.
I snapped.
“Jesus Christ, Wren, what were you thinking?!”
I dropped my hands from her face and ran them back through my wet hair, pacing away from her as my entire body shook. With what, I wasn’t sure—cold, terror, rage, a mixture of the three, maybe.
“I,” she started, still shivering. She looked so small, dripping wet and crossing her arms over her middle. “I lost control of the tube. The rocks, they—”
“I know! I saw!” My nose flared, fists clenched together at my sides so hard I thought they’d never unfurl again. “Why were you on the river by yourself? It’s dangerous. It’s stupid.”
“I just wanted to float, I didn’t know,” she started and I clamped my mouth shut, jaw clenching as I stormed past her and up to where my shirt was thrown over my toolbox. Her face screwed up in confusion as she followed. “What is your problem? I’m sorry, okay? It’s not like I meant to fall in the river.”
“You shouldn’t have been out there at all, not alone.”
“Okay, well I was, and I’m sorry. Can we drop it now?” She was panting, catching up to me just as I swiped my shirt off the back of my box and threw it on over my head.
“No! We can’t fucking drop it!”
Wren’s mouth popped open, her eyes flicking between mine like she didn’t know who I was. And in that moment I couldn’t blame her. My body had been seized by terror, my mind pirated by the ghosts of my past.
“What’s this really about?” she asked, taking a small step toward me. I took an even bigger one back and she paused again. “Is this about last night?”
“No, it’s about right now. It’s about you putting yourself in danger and not even thinking about what you were doing.”
“Oh my God, Anderson, I said I’m sorry! It’s not like I took Benjamin with me or something, it was just me. I was the only one affected by the choice, okay?”
“Are you really that selfish?!” I screamed, chest heaving, and the way her face dropped pulled me back to reality.
I’d gone too far, and I knew it before I even went there. I just had no idea how to control myself.
I sighed, shaking my head and plopping down on the cutting log I’d been using.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I just...” How did I tell her why I was acting this way? How could I say the words that would show her the monster I really was?
We were silent, me sitting with my head in my hands and her standing just three feet away from me, legs shivering, water still dripping down to the ground.
“What are we doing?” she asked after a moment, voice soft.
My heart stopped and I looked up at her. The dejection I found on her face, the hopelessness, it was enough to make me jump to my feet again.
“I’m sorry—” I tried, but she cut me off before the apology had a chance to be born.
“No, seriously. I mean you’re right,” she said with a laugh. “Everyone is right. I am selfish. I only think about myself. Why do you even want to be around me?”
“Don’t do that,” I said, reaching for her. It was her who pulled away this time. “Don’t make this about us.”
“But isn’t it? I mean look at us.” She gestured between our wet bodies with a pained face, as if the two of us together was an abomination she’d been taking part in. “What did we expect? We never talked about it, about what this was. I’m leaving, Anderson. I just went through a divorce. And you’ve never even had a girlfriend. Not one.”
I swallowed with a closed throat, fighting her truths like pills that would kill me if I let them slide down. “That’s Sarah talking, not you.”