Chapter 2
His fingers slipped.
That was the moment I understood he wasn't going to pull me back. His grip loosened on my arm, not all at once, but in that slow, deliberate way that told me he'd made a decision and was letting physics do the rest. The wind tore at my dress and my hair, and my knuckles burned where I clung to the upper frame of the door. My palm was sweating against the metal. I could feel the helicopter shuddering around me.
I looked at him. He was so close I could see the small line of stubble he'd missed that morning, the tight set of his jaw. His eyes were on my hand, not my face.
Then he let go.
The air dropped out from under me. There was no push, no cinematic shove. Just a release. My hand scraped off the frame and I went backward through the open doorway, and the sky and the water flipped. For half a second I was falling and still looking up at him, and he was leaning forward in the doorway, one hand braced on the frame, his mouth open like he'd just remembered to breathe. The pilot didn't turn around.
The wind hit me hard and loud and then it was gone, replaced by cold.
The water hit cold under my pink dress. It knocked the air out of me in a single hard slap across my back and shoulders. I went under, and the sound changed completely. The rotor was muffled, distant, and all I could hear was bubbles and the roar in my ears. Dark water closed over my face. My dress billowed around my legs. I kicked without thinking, my arms windmilling, and tasted lake water, cold and metallic.
I came up gasping. The helicopter was already higher, the open door a black square against the bright overcast sky. I couldn't tell if he was still looking down. The wind and the chop pushed at me, turning me in a slow circle. My hair was plastered to my cheeks. I tried to call out and only got another mouthful of water.
Then something jerked tight around my chest and neck.
The vest. I hadn't even felt it inflate. One second my dress was soaked and heavy and pulling at me, and the next there was this hard, bright orange ring holding me up, hissing faintly. It pushed my chin up and rolled me onto my back whether I wanted it or not. I stared up at the sky. My arms went out to the sides without me telling them to. The water was choppy and dark blue, cold seeping through the thin fabric of my dress to my skin. I was breathing in quick, shallow pulls, and each breath made a small cloud in the cool air.
I could hear the helicopter moving away. Not gone, but not hovering over me anymore. The sound of the rotor thinned as it slid sideways along the shoreline, and for a second I felt more alone than when I was falling.
I tried to turn my head. The treed shoreline looked impossibly far away, a green-brown smudge under the pale sky. The water kept slapping against the orange vest, against my cheeks.
A different sound cut through. Lower, steadier. An engine.
I blinked water out of my eyes and saw it. A white motorboat, far off near the point where the shore curved. It was small at first, just a white shape with a dark hull, but it was moving fast enough to throw a white wake behind it. Someone was standing on the bow. Then two people. One of them lifted an arm and pointed in my direction.
I didn't wave. I didn't have the strength to lift my arm out of the water and keep my balance. I just floated there, eyes closed and then open again, supine in the chop, the orange vest bright against the dark water and my pink dress. My chest rose and fell. The cold was making my legs go numb.
The boat grew larger. I could make out the cabin now, the rail on the bow, the figures moving. One of them bent down and came up with something red. A ring. He held it up, leaning out over the water as the boat kept coming, engine louder, wake spreading white behind it.
May you like
I kept my eyes on it and tried to keep breathing. The helicopter was a small shape now, still over the water but distant. The boat was closer. Close enough that I could hear someone shouting, though the wind took the words.
I floated and waited to see if they would reach me in time.
