Girl Across the Water
Page 18
no Jasper. Probably they were inside.
I was about three-quarters of the way back when my
stomach gave a sharp twinge. Hunger again, no doubt. I
continued to swim, but after a few strokes, a lightning-bolt
of pain shot through my abdomen. My limbs sprang into
retraction, and my whole body curled up before I even had
time to even think about it. The pain was so intense that I
couldn’t uncurl, so I let myself roll onto my side. This way,
I could still stay afloat. Stupid, I realized, going for a swim
without having eaten for so long. Although to be fair, adults
were always telling us not to swim after eating; no one had
ever said anything about making sure you had eaten.
The pain was still sharp in my stomach, and so
severe that it wouldn’t allow me to straighten my body. I
tried to paddle with my hands, but it was all I could do to
stay buoyant; I couldn’t get any closer to the shore until
my muscles unclenched a bit.
Gnashing my teeth against the pain, I tried to
straighten out enough to lie on my back and give short
forearm-paddles to move me through the water. But then
another bolt of pain slammed into me, making my body curl
even more tightly, and time I went under the water. I came
up spluttering, bobbing around as I tried to find some kind
of equilibrium, but my position forced me to roll over like a
log, and I took a gulp of water as I spun.
I was clenched up, coughing, and trying to fight the
worst cramp I’d ever experienced. I’d never had a
swimming cramp before, and always thought it was some
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kind of low-level tension, not something that takes over
your whole body and makes you want to scream in pain.
Gasping, trying to use my forearms as stabilizers
and uncurl enough that I didn’t sink like a rock, I looked
towards the cabin. “Help,” I gasped, barely loudly enough
to be heard ten feet away. “Help!” I tried again. But even if
my voice had carried to the cabin… there was no one there.
It was as quiet as the lake.
“Help!” I tried again. It came out like a short bark
this time, the desperation in my voice obvious even to me.
This scared me even more. I was going down, and there
was no one around!
I’d never imagined I could be twenty meters from a
lake shore and unable to get there. There was no current
pulling at me, no undertow snatching my body and tossing
into churning waves… everything was calm and still, just
waiting, waiting. And the water, before so calming as it
leached my anger away, now seemed vengeful, sucking my
strength away. It seemed dark and angry, like I’d done
something to offend it and it wanted revenge.
In a desperate surge of panic, I flailed around,
hoping to propel myself towards the shore. I knew my
flailing would only get me a few feet, but if I did it hard
enough, maybe the momentum would send me bobbing the
rest of the way.
“Help!” I tried again. I floated a few feet before my
momentum was quietly strangled by the dark water.
I was going to die, I realized. A mere twenty meters
from shore, in a calm, sunlit lake, within easy sight of the
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cabin, and I was going to drown. “No,” I whispered. Surely
it wasn’t possible! And all of a sudden, I wanted to cry. This
was so stupid! I hadn’t been anywhere near death when
the motorboat had capsized us and I’d been caught in dark,
choppy water, disoriented and trying to find Dad — and
now I was going to die for doing the simple things you’re
told not to do: going swimming without letting anyone
know, without making sure there’s someone around to keep
an eye on you, and going too far from shore by yourself.
I felt my strength ebbing, slowly but surely, into the
water. “No,” I whispered, rolling onto my back, the most
buoyant position I’d found so far. Only twenty meters…
surely I could stay afloat long enough to steadily paddle
myself there! It couldn’t be that hard. But then another
cramp hit me — smaller, this time, but right in the side of
my gut, crumpling me like a piece of paper. I heard
splashing as I swallowed more water. I spun, but coughed
at the wrong time, sucking down more water. This time I
made sure my eyes were open when I found air and
gasped.
I thought I heard a voice say, “Paul!” as I coughed
and splashed, fighting to stay face-up. But there was water
in my ears, and besides, I knew there was no one around.
“I’m coming!” the voice seemed to say, and I figured I was
either imagining it, or truly dying: if it was my guardian
angel, then unless they were carrying a lifebelt, they were
coming to take me away rather than save me.
“Hang on! I’m almost there!”
Still writhing like a snake, I was too occupied with
my twisting, with the water, with trying to breathe when
my face was up, to look towards the sound. But then I did,
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and I thought I must be dreaming. Jasper seemed to be
heading towards me in the canoe.
“Paul!” he called, paddling badly, bouncing all over
the place as he tried to guide the canoe.
I wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating! — At least, I
didn’t think so, because in a dream Jasper wouldn’t have
been so intent on getting straight to me that he was about
to run me down rather than save me.
All I could manage to rasp was, “Jasper!”, hoping to
communicate by my tone ‘ you’re about to hit me!’ He must
have thought I was still calling for help, because he paddled
harder, the bow of the canoe aimed straight at my head. I
put my hand up to catch it, managing to move my head out
of the way just in time. The side of the canoe pushed
against me and I rolled with it, swinging my other hand up
to catch the gunwale as I rotated to face Jasper.
He tried to stand up and reach for me, but wobbled
and almost fell over. The paddle slipped from his grasp as
he tried to maneuver it into the canoe, and it slid towards
me, the sharp end of it almost taking my head off. Still
clinging to the side of the canoe with my left hand, I caught
the paddle with my right and heaved it back towards
Jasper.
“I’ve got you!” he said, trying to find his balance. He
didn’t have me; in fact, he was about to fall on top of me.
“S’okay,” I gasped, slapping my right hand back
onto the gunwale again. “I’m okay.” As long as I had the
canoe to cling to, I could wait a few minutes while I
gathered enough strength to heave myself in. I coughed
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heavily a few times, trying to rid myself of the water
rattling around in my throat. Now that I knew I was safe,
my st
rength seemed to be returning, my panic abating. In
fact, the feeling of my heart pounding so heavily in my
chest reassured me that I was not only alive, but strong. I
closed my eyes, listening to nothing but the beating sound.
That was, until a stumble and a yelp made me open my
eyes ― Jasper was grabbing for the paddle he’d almost
dropped again.
“Take hold of this,” he said, waving it dangerously
near my head.
Rather than stepping into the Laurel and Hardy
routine Jasper was in danger of creating — visions of me
falling back into the water with a bruise on my head from
the paddle, or worse, Jasper trying to help me, then falling
in himself — I resolutely strengthened my grip on the side
of the canoe and, hand over hand, shuffled my way back to
the bow, the safest place to climb in.
The trip back was painfully slow. The canoe wove
uncertainly towards shore, its bow now and then drifting
around to point down the lake, then bobbing up and down
as Jasper tried to guide it back on course. I’d tried half-
heartedly to convince him that I should paddle, but Jasper
had been resolute on this point: he was going to take me
back. Truthfully, I hadn’t had the strength to argue, and
was grateful to sit and let someone else do the work. Until,
that was, I saw how slowly this was going to go, and my
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impatience to be on dry land began to overtake my
tiredness.
I turned to look at Jasper, who was sitting in the
stern and sweating, his lifejacket preventing him from
paddling easily. “Maybe we should switch,” I said weakly,
but he shook his head, not looking at me, whether from
concentration or not wanting to talk, I couldn’t tell.
When the bow finally touched the ground, I jumped
out, my knees almost buckling beneath me as my legs took
the unexpected weight of my body ― I must have been in
the water longer than I’d thought. As soon as I found my
balance, I began to heave the canoe up onto shore,
staggering back and almost falling as, mid-heave, Jasper
decided this was a good time to step out. The movement of
the canoe acted like a rug pulled from under his back foot,
and he went face-down into the water. It was only up to his
knees, and after his hands went down to catch him, he
stood up again and dragged the canoe by its side as he
stumbled towards shore.
I sat down heavily. Jasper took his lifejacket off, set
it in the canoe, and, head-down, not meeting my eyes,
began to walk back to the cabin.
“Jasper,” I said.
He glanced up and met my eyes for only a brief
second, instantly darting his gaze away again.
I’d assumed the reason he’d insisted on paddling me
back was so he would be fully the rescuer, rather than
having to be taken back by the rescuee. I also assumed he
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wanted my gratitude. And yet here he was, leaving before I
could say anything.
“Jasper,” I repeated, but then wasn’t sure what to
say. If he wanted my gratitude, he’d earned it by saving
me from a horrible drowning; yet the situation was, he’d
almost got me and Dad drowned a short time ago, and I
wouldn’t have gone swimming alone today if it weren’t for
him.
As if reading my thoughts, he turned and began to
walk towards the cabin again. He walked slowly, as if I
might call him back again. But I couldn’t think what to say.
And so he continued on.
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Chapter 18
I tore another bite from my pizza like a wild animal
pulling flesh from a carcass, this time finally slowing my
chewing and letting myself breathe between bites. My eyes
wanted to droop shut as the feeling of fullness expanded in
my stomach. I had demolished almost an entire pizza by
myself, and even though the stuffed feeling was now
turning to discomfort, I still had the urge to cram more
food into my mouth.
Dad finished his piece and reached for another. He
hadn’t eaten as fast, and still had two-thirds of his pizza
left. He’d come back to the cabin with three whole pizzas,
not because we didn’t like the same kind, but because he
knew how hungry we all were. Although I don’t think he’d
realized that I was half-starved.
The reason he hadn’t been around when I’d almost
drowned was that he’d driven into town to get pizzas,
thinking I’d gone for a walk. He hadn’t checked by the lake
before leaving; I knew this, because if Dad had seen my
clothes lying there, there was no way he’d have gone. He
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would have been straight out in that canoe, looking for me.
I hadn’t told him about any of it, so as far as he knew, I
had gone for a walk.
Jasper was upstairs in the bedroom. When Dad had
come through the door with the pizzas, Jasper had quietly
appeared, taken one of the boxes, and shuffled off upstairs.
Dad, to my surprise, didn’t go after him. Instead, he sat
with me at the kitchen table, and we silently tore into the
pizzas.
As soon as I finished eating, he’d probably want to
talk, which was another reason to keep trying to eat. But
my eyes drooped again, my hand fell to my plate, and I
stopped. I was exhausted. Maybe he’d let me go sleep, and
we could talk later.
“So, I was thinking,” he said.
Drat.
“We probably won’t want to stay here any more.”
I looked at him in surprise. My mouthful of pizza
prevented me from talking, but I wouldn’t have been able
to do much more than blink, anyway. I hadn’t thought
about what we were going to do in the immediate future;
all my thoughts had been of later things. Revo, Jasper, jail,
juvenile detention.
“I figure we won’t want to stick around here what
with everything that’s happened. It’s probably best we just
get away, get some distance from it all. Literally and
figuratively. Plus,” he said, tapping his piece of pizza
against his plate, “I phoned Vanessa, and she needs to be
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with Jasper. And Jasper needs to be with her. But if for any
reason you did want to stay here, Paul, we do have the
cabin for a month, so I could drop Jasper off with Vanessa
and come back here to spend the rest of the time with you.
It depends how you feel about being here.”
I chewed my food and tried to swallow, but it
seemed to get stuck in my throat. “Um,” I finally said,
clearing my throat. “I don’t know.”
He was right, though: there was nothing left for us
here but bad memories. I was impressed that he’d already
decided to make time for me, and I hated to
pass up the
one chance that might not come again. But the only things
to do here were hike, swim, and canoe, and I was done
with the last two for a while.
“Well, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with
the rest of your summer, and how we can salvage some
kind of vacation. And I thought that maybe what would be
best is to get away some place completely different.
Someplace where we can all ― I mean, you and me ― can
relax.”
Yeah, Dad hadn’t had much of a vacation so far.
“And now that the will is sorted out, we do have a lot
more disposable income than before, you know. Like I said
before, most of it’s going into savings and a trust fund, but
that’s not to say we can’t enjoy some of it. So I was
wondering… what would you say to a surf vacation?
Someplace hot, sunny… Costa Rica, maybe? Or Hawaii?”
I sat up. “Surfing?” Dad knew how much I wanted to
try it, but we’d never been able to afford a surf vacation.
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And… Hawaii? I wanted to run off and pack my bags this
second.
But then I frowned. Everyone I’d met who’d surfed
had lived through at least three near-drowning experiences,
and after everything that happened here, did I really want
to put myself into crashing waves with no lifejacket? Maybe
it was just my current state of exhaustion, but surfing
suddenly didn’t seem so appealing. I hoped this wasn’t a
one-time offer, because someday I wanted to, in fact,
burned to. But right now, the idea of just lazing around on
a beach — which used to sound so boring to me — was
looking pretty good.
“Or if you don’t want anything quite so…
adventurous,” Dad said, making me wonder if he felt the
same way, “we could always try Club Med or something.
Lots of beach and pool, but also sailing and waterskiing and
stuff like that if you want. And, you know, lots of girls.” He
winked.
I sat up straighter. This was sounding really
appealing. I wondered if we could invite Mandy. Hey, want
to come on an all-expenses paid trip to Club Med? I
couldn’t imagine anyone turning that down. Then again,
this was meant to be bonding time for me and Dad.