Reagan was resisting getting in the cold water, so Patrick lifted her off her feet, carried her like a new bride to the water’s edge, and dropped her into her tube. She hit the water, craned her head back, and roared in laughter. Patrick eased in up to his waist, wincing at the freezing cold, and felt every part of his body contract. He jumped into his tube, got positioned with the booze, and made sure he had both their keys secured in his pocket. Away they went, zipping into the current.
They played games as they went. Patrick would push her tube away until she got separated from him, she would pretend to be upset, at which point he would paddle over to her through the light rapids. Then just as he grabbed hold of her tube again, he would shove her away and tell her she would have to beg him to save her this time. She refused, but they both were smiling as they slowly worked their way back toward each other and rode through sections of light rapids holding hands.
The boulders that usually jutted out of the river were now like iceberg tips, barely breaching the surface. And those that usually only poked out a little bit were completely submerged. It was going to be a short ride so he drank fast. They were having so much fun that he didn’t stop her when she finagled some of his wine, which Reagan seemed to suck down. She asked for the vodka too, but he pretended to not hear her.
They bobbed violently through the increasingly rough patches of rapids. Patrick made sure to look out for her and make sure she didn’t spill out. She was like a feather on her big bulky tube, which was Josh’s. The spray and rapids would spit onto their legs and chests and they would shiver and scream at the sudden burst of coldness, but the sun always kept them just warm enough.
At the first series of major rapids they got torn apart in the slides and swells. But afterward they came back together, this time reuniting with a quick, playful kiss. Patrick felt himself racing into a drunken state, and every time he looked at Reagan bobbing and laughing on her tube, his heart picked up speed too. She was beautiful and tan and had that infectious laugh. Her hair was so dark it looked like each strand had been dipped in glossy black paint, but what really gripped him was the glow she emitted. An aura of pure joy. This girl didn’t hold back. It was special.
She was special, he realized.
He sensed that Reagan, possibly drunker than he, was seeing him the same way.
They passed under the bridge demarcating the halfway point, and Reagan rolled off of her tube into the water. Patrick was floating a few yards away, sipping his wine, when he saw the splash as she went under. What the hell? He sat up slowly at first, then drew up quicker as his eyes scanned the ripples and swells. The water was clouded with sediment. He couldn’t see her anywhere below. Her tube began to drift away. His eyes began to race, scanning all around.
Reagan suddenly burst through the surface right next to his tube, startling Patrick so bad that he spilled backward out of his tube and went under. He surfaced and blew away the water running down his face. He floated on his back and she held onto his feet and they floated along speedily in the current.
“Did you think I was drowning?” she asked.
“No.”
“Bullshit. You were worried.”
“We should get back in our tubes.”
An irreverent smirk passed her lips. “I was on the swim team for two years.”
“C’mon,” he said a little more sternly.
“Fine, fine.” She swam back to her tube rather impressively and wormed back onto it, now totally soaked, her skin prickling from the cold.
As they came upon the Double Tree Hotel not long after, Reagan asked him again for some of his vodka. The wine was all gone. He hesitated and looked away, but she held out her hand expectantly. Patrick sighed and moved to hand her the Nalgene finally, but as she clutched at it, he let it slip through his fingers on purpose. The murky river water mixed instantly with the cocktail and the Nalgene went under.
He faked an apology to her. They were buzzed enough. Reagan looked away and got quiet, but she didn’t look angry. If she was indeed an alcoholic—he didn’t even like the sound of the word—then she covered it well. She seemed just like a young girl that wanted to have a little semi-reckless fun.
They were approaching Smelter, by far the nastiest, biggest rapids on the lower Animas. Usually, Patrick only went through it when he was with his buddies. The most difficult of the rapids upstream had been almost unrunnable; a chill rippled up his back as he sensed them nearing it.
“You need to stay with me through this part. It’s—” he almost said dangerous. “It’s going to be huge.”
“You need to stay with me,” she responded, her words slurring a bit now. “I’ll lead us through.” Reagan’s countenance suddenly looked hazy and lost.
Patrick was struck with a horrible urge to get out, but there was nowhere to pull out on the craggy shore. The rocks were big, sharp and slick, and the plants spiked high up out of the banks, making it nearly impossible to get good footing.
He held her hand tight and made sure he was leading. He wanted to lift her onto his lap, but they still might both flip. The roar and thunder of the rapids grew as they neared. Patrick’s heart pounded, and a sober flash of reality moved before his eyes. It was so loud it sounded like they were coming upon Niagara Falls. It was almost deafening.
“Take a deep breath!” he shouted. The fall was so severe he couldn’t even see the bottom of the slide. They dropped into the chute, water spitting up all around them. “We’re gonna flip!”
Patrick went over first, almost instantly, and was sucked under into the roar. Their hands were torn apart.
His body banged against submerged boulders and he didn’t erupt right back up through the surface like normal, he was being pulled down, into the dark all around him, with an amber-tainted flicker of sunlight on the surface above. The undertow took hold of him, tossing and tumbling his body over and over onto the rocks. The panic-inducing notion that he could die suddenly became real. He threw his arms out and lashed against the tow.
At last he was spit out at the bottom of the chute and gasped air down his windpipe and into his lungs. His tube had been thrown about ten yards off to his right.
Patrick latched onto a boulder and looked for Reagan, waiting for her to surface. He called out, craning his head to look all around for any sign of the girl. More adrenaline flooded into his body.
There was no one on the shore to point out to him where she’d gone under. He did the only thing he could think of. He ducked his head into the water and clawed forward upstream, rock by rock. He gazed into the current and was blasted with sediment and raging flow.
He came up once for air, gasped, and then went back under. Something kicked against his shin. He dived directly down and felt a kick again. It was one of Reagan’s limbs being thrown against him as she tumbled in the undertow. He waited a second to be hit again and this time latched both hands onto her bony ankle as it struck him.
He had her.
He pushed off a boulder with both feet and propelled both of them upward.
Sunlight hit his skin and he sucked in air frantically. They’d surfaced. He worked his hands up her leg and around her waist. He really had her now.
Her hair was draped over her face. The aviators had been ripped off. She was retching water and coughing hysterically.
“I’ve got you,” he kept saying to her. “I have you. You’re okay.”
Patrick glanced around for their tubes, but they were about forty yards downriver now. Slowly, he paddled them over to shore, making sure to dig his fingers into her flesh so she couldn’t be ripped free. After they got a bit away from the rapids, the river smoothed out and it was easier to maneuver.
Reagan had fought all the water out of her lungs but had broken down crying, obviously terrified that she’d almost drowned. He walked her out of the river with his arm cradled around her, mud up to their knees. They fell into the grass of the park and Reagan curled up under his arm.
“You’re okay now,” he
consoled.
“I’m sorry, Patrick.”
She kept repeating it between sobs.
“It’s okay.”
It was okay. They both lay there in the grass, breathing hard, holding each other, while their tubes floated out of sight. He could almost feel the panic rattling in her body and that was enough. He was just glad they were safe now. He had her. That’s all he could think. He had her.
George
“ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO me?” George asked Tiffany as he found a parking spot right off Main Street.
“Of course I’m listening.”
“They were together, Tiffany. Like together, together.”
“Did you see them kiss?”
He siphoned a breath into his tight chest. “No.”
“We’re they holding hands?”
He rolled his eyes. “I couldn’t see if they were or not.” He couldn’t believe she was finding a way to defend Patrick’s actions. Even now, faced with direct evidence, her denial was too thick to break through.
“And it wasn’t that Lindsey girl?”
“No, Tiffany. But it doesn’t mean—”
“Who was it then?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“I’ll talk to him about it.”
“How? He won’t even return your calls.”
Tiffany was quiet for a few moments.
“Look,” he said. “I have to go. You said to tell you if I saw anything suspicious and I’ve told you what I saw. From there, you’re on your own.”
“Fine.” A moment of pause. “And thank you. I really do appreciate it, Georgie.”
He said goodbye to her and hung up the phone. He put the cell down and sat there despondently behind the wheel for a few minutes.
There was a sharp discomfort in his chest that wouldn’t subside.
George had watched Patrick pull the girl out of the river, having nearly drowned. He saw them fall together onto the grass, and how she lay lovingly against him. Whoever she was, Patrick took care of her in a way that George hadn’t seen before. There was an intimacy between them that had taken him completely by surprise. He’d watched them from his car before speeding away.
He couldn’t do this anymore. Keep playing this role with Tiffany. There was no more wretched an existence.
George got out and straightened his tie. He would find a job, damn it. He needed something, anything to keep his mind off of… that familiar feeling. A black poison inside. As he got walking he realized what it was—he was sickened by himself.
Mallory
PATRICK SAT ACROSS THE TABLE from Mallory, leaned forward, smiling at her with his beautiful white teeth. Looking at her with his beautiful fixed coffee-colored eyes, a look that excited her.
“I work my next shift with him tomorrow.” He let out a laugh, and helped himself to a chip dipped in salsa. “Should I mention we had dinner?”
“Not unless you want to lose all your teeth.” Over the past several days Mallory had refused to respond to Teddy’s calls or texts. She wouldn’t tell him where she was or who she’d been staying with.
“You’re right. I’m not the fighting type. I’ll tell him we’re just friends. Or maybe that I’ve gone gay.”
Mallory shook her head. What was she doing out to dinner with this guy? Was it loneliness? That didn’t seem a wholly satisfactory answer. There was something else, something strong brewing between Patrick and her, like trust found in two people telling a lie to everyone else. They were at dinner where someone could easily see them. Mallory didn’t feel the need to hide anymore. This is where she was in her engagement, and when she thought about it too deeply it made her sad, made her feel like a failure.
Yesterday night, in a huge moment of weakness, she’d been the one to text Patrick. After a few jokes and a little bit of harmless back and forth, he’d asked her out to dinner. He said ‘that way we can be friends forever’. It was ridiculous, but it made her laugh. Neither of them wanted friendship. They both wanted the same thing. She had accepted against her better judgment, but now, sitting across from him, she felt sexy and wanted, and things didn’t seem so bad. She had on a short little skirt and a low-cut blouse that flaunted the part of her body she was most proud of.
She was sipping on her second margarita of the night. She vowed to herself that shots were out of the question, but having a few margaritas wasn’t a crime. Patrick was drinking a margarita also, and had moved from the topic of Teddy finding out about the two of them onto random reveries. Mallory just watched him talk. The way he spoke, so animated and freely, and the way his voice commanded her attention, it had a mesmerizing effect on her. He seemed like someone who loved being alive.
As he talked and talked, Mallory wondered about who he’d been with lately, what type of women they were, were they all college girls—those sorts of things.
Their food came. Two hot plates of enchiladas.
“And what about you?” he asked, testing the taste with his fork.
“Huh?”
“Well, I’ve been talking and you haven’t said much.”
She laughed. “My life is the last thing I want to talk about right now.”
“It’s tough right now, I can tell. Mine too.”
“Oh?” she said, taking interest. “That’s surprising, you seem so happy.”
He shrugged. “Hard to believe a college guy could have real problems?”
“No,” she replied. “We all have things to deal with. What’s so messy about your life at the moment, anyway?”
He glanced up from his food and his mouth curved up on both sides. A sly smile. “Girls.” He laughed, with a slight blushing in the cheeks.
“Girls?” She emphasized the ‘S’, wondering what he meant by the plural.
“I’m breaking it off with my girlfriend soon.”
She stopped chewing, hesitated, and then swallowed. “How come?”
“It’s gone cold.”
“Why?”
He rested his elbows on the table and clasped his hands. “I don’t know, exactly. Everything has a shelf life, I guess.” He caught himself. “I mean, except for true love, of course.”
Mallory assumed he was referring to her and Teddy, a slip of words she couldn’t identify as a slight or simply him attempting to be polite.
“It just isn’t love,” Patrick continued. “I mean, we’ve been dating a while now, I think I would know if I loved her. I just need to end it.”
“Sure,” she said, wondering about the implications of this. Was she a fling for him? Had she been the reason that his girlfriend fell out of favor with him, or was that just a self-indulgent fantasy?
There was a pause and then she asked, “But you haven’t ended it yet?”
“No,” he admitted, then locked eyes with her. “Does that bother you?”
“A little, but if we’re both telling the truth—”
“Are we?” he asked, and it drew a nervous laugh out of both of them.
“I’m not totally innocent either, is what I’m getting at.”
He nodded and took another bite.
“You said girls,” she remarked.
“What?”
“You said girls, plural.”
“You listen well,” Patrick said, smiling at her. “Well, there is this other girl I’ve had an eye on, but I don’t know if she’s ready, you know, for jumping into something with me, and everything that entails.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he said, the turbulence of his eyes focused on her.
“Why isn’t she ready? What does that mean?”
“I can just feel it. I have my downfalls, I know that. But I have a lot of…” he paused, “a lot of things that girls find interesting. At least I’ve been told.” He raised his hands. “Truly not bragging,” he said, boasting a shameless grin.
“Truly,” she said, shaking her head.
Patrick let out an amused laugh and sipped his margarita. “This girl, she would have to investig
ate herself to really find out why she isn’t making herself available. Fear, probably. Knowing she’ll be let down in the end. Or maybe she knows what I am, and she’d be letting herself down, lowering herself. But like I said, who can know for sure?”
He hadn’t come right out and said it, so she couldn’t be sure who he was referring to. Mallory turned introspective for a moment and wondered if she was feeling what he described. There was plenty of paradox inside her, she could at least admit that, like inside her live two halves of different lives.
They ate their food in the ambiguous mist of his words. She was uncomfortable, but not in a hurt way.
“What about Lindsey?” she asked.
He drew his eyes up slowly from his plate. “She’s a good person.”
“Is she?”
He laughed. “To tell you the truth, I don’t actually know her that well.” He laughed a bit harder and she wondered if his laugh meant that they had slept together. All through dinner there’d been a matter-of-factness about him, so she decided to ask. “So have you and she?”
He calmly set down his fork. “Have she and I what?”
“You know.”
“Become friends?”
She shook her head. “C’mon, just tell me.”
From his expression, she didn’t think she was going to get the truth out of him.
“We’ve kissed,” he admitted.
“And that’s it?”
“You’re engaged, Mallory, what does it matter to you?”
“I’m interested to know,” she said.
He leaned forward against the table, his smooth lips and hard cheeks dipping directly into the light hanging overhead. Beneath the table, she flinched feeling his hand brushing against her knee.
EDGES Page 21