He gives her hand one shake and acknowledges her with a nod, but doesn’t say anything. His expression says it all, though. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. It makes me wonder why he’s here at all.
I take a nervous breath, notice the familiar pinch in my ribs. And then the air goes right out of me, because in this moment I realize that the pain that I still feel is connected to Walker, who is standing right in front of me, and to what he did that night to save my life. I flash on the image of him, above my body on the boat deck, and my hands feel the tiniest bit shaky.
“Please, sit down,” Dana is saying. She motions to the couch, and I realize the only place for him to sit is on the other side of me.
Walker’s eyes flick to the empty space, and I scoot closer to Matt to make room. Matt stands so he can pass, and they shake hands, nodding at each other like guys do. And then it’s my turn to greet him. I stand, not quite sure what to do. He looks like he doesn’t know either, and our eyes catch, and I see the green of his. It’s a moment that stretches out, tense, until Walker breaks it by extending his hand. I take it with my own, we shake, and meeting the person who saved my life is over in just a few seconds, too fast for me to even begin to process, and I want to slow it down because it’s a moment I thought would be bigger somehow.
We all sit back down, and I swear the air feels different with Walker there. Charged. I can even see it in the deep breath Dana takes and the extra-wide smile she plasters on. She didn’t mention this when we arrived, and I wonder if it was a surprise even to her. Either that or she intentionally didn’t tell us he’d be here. I glance at Matt, wondering if he would’ve agreed to come on had he thought there was a chance Walker actually would show up.
He reaches for my hand again, and it brings me back to us, here and now. I take it and lean into him the tiniest bit, because all of a sudden I feel incredibly self-conscious sitting there in the middle of the couch between him and Walker, who has put himself as far away from me as possible.
Dana, who is watching us all very carefully, seems to take this as her cue.
“Walker, thank you so much for being with us today.” She looks at me. “Olivia, there must be so much going through your mind right now. This is the first time since the accident that you’ve come face-to-face with the person who saved your life. What does that feel like?”
“I . . .” I look at Walker, then at Matt, then back at Dana. I have no idea how to answer this—not just because I can’t pin down what I’m feeling, but because Matt’s hand squeezes tighter around mine.
Walker clears his throat and speaks for the first time. “We both pulled her in.”
Dana nods, but it’s dismissive. “Yes, but I think it’s safe to say that she wouldn’t be here today if not for you. So let’s go back to that night, back to the moment you knew something was wrong. You were coming in from a fishing run just after the accident, correct?”
Walker glances at me, then looks back at Dana. “Sure.”
“What did you see?”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a puff. Sits back against the couch and avoids making eye contact with any of us. “I saw the truck on the bridge. People all lined up, looking over. And then the lights underwater.” He glances across me, at Matt. “I heard him yelling.”
Dana turns to Matt. “At that point, you’d seen his boat coming in?”
“Yeah,” Matt answers. His tone is curt. Tense. He knows what’s coming next. We all do.
Dana turns back to Walker. “So you heard him yelling, and headed in that direction?”
“Yeah, I took the boat over and was trying to get him up on it, but he didn’t want to go.”
Dana nods, looking at Matt sympathetically. When she speaks, her voice is more serious. “Because Olivia was still stuck inside the car.”
It’s not a question, but Walker and Matt say yes from both sides of me.
“And that’s when you jumped in?”
Walker nods.
“I don’t think most people would’ve done that,” Dana says. “Do you have any formal rescue training? Is that a part of working on a fishing crew?”
Walker looks irritated. “No.”
“How did you know you’d be able to get to her? I mean, what about the depth of the water?”
Walker shrugs. “I didn’t know. But the lights weren’t that far from the shore, so I thought there was a chance.”
“And there was, wasn’t there? You were able to get to her,” Dana says, like she’s building up to a big moment.
“Yeah,” Walker says, clearly not interested in giving it to her.
“What was that like?” she presses.
He takes another impatient deep breath, like he doesn’t want to tell the story, or like he’s had to tell it too many times, I can’t tell which.
“Cold. Dark. But I could see her arms and her hair, floating in the light.”
A chill runs through me at the image.
“I tried to get her out through the window, but her seat belt was stuck.”
“Is that how you injured your arm?” Dana asks, motioning at him.
I look over at him and notice the bandage on one of his forearms.
“Yeah,” he says with a shrug.
My chest squeezes. This happened to him too.
“So what happened next?” Dana asks.
“I had to come up for air. And I grabbed the knife out of my belt.” He pauses. “Then I dove down again and cut the seat belt.”
“And we all know what happened after that,” Dana says, moving the story along. “We’ve all seen the chilling footage of this heroic rescue.”
Perfectly on cue, the shaky footage unfreezes, and I brace myself, keenly aware of the studio cameras on me. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, it still puts a knot in my stomach. I try to keep my expression neutral as we watch Walker, swimming with my body to the boat, where he and Matt drag me up onto the deck, and then Matt paces frantically.
I feel Matt’s hand tighten around mine again. I squeeze back and try to keep my breathing even.
On the other side of me, Walker shifts again and looks away from the screen, and for a second I have the impulse to reach my other hand out to him because it seems like it’s hard for him to watch too.
But then on the screen, he rips my shirt open and starts compressions, and Matt crumbles to his knees, both hands in his hair.
We all flinch.
“That’s enough,” Walker says, but the video doesn’t stop playing, and not one of us seems to be able to stop watching.
Walker’s hair falls over his eyes as he leans over my body, using all his weight to pump my chest. And then Matt yells something and charges him. They both fall to the deck of the boat, roll, and then in one swift movement, Walker’s fist cocks back and swings forward at Matt, landing square on his cheek.
I glance at Matt, at the remains of the bruise there in that spot.
On the screen, Walker gets back up and scrambles over to me, puts an ear to my chest, then blows two breaths of air into my mouth. He goes back to the compressions while Matt lies crumpled on the boat deck.