In Too Deep (Heart Lines)

by Larissa de Silva

  “That’s ridiculous,” Terry said, shaking her head vigorously. “You know that that’s ridiculous, right? Because if we hadn’t intervened, he would have died.”

  “There is no way to know that,” one of the lawyers replied.

  Terry scoffed, her eyes wide. “There is definitely a way to know that, he would’ve died. He would’ve drowned, he would have stopped breathing, he would’ve got water in his lungs, and he wouldn’t have gotten out of the ocean. Ergo, he would be dead.”

  “Yes,” the woman said. There was a smile on her face. “Honestly, the amount of proof that they need to have of you being negligent is pretty staggering. We were surprised that anybody took this case. They contend that if it hadn’t been for your intervention, a lifeguard or a boat would have found him sooner, which would have meant that he wasn’t in the hospital for quite as long, and by that measure, he would’ve not gotten a brain injury.”

  “An anoxic brain injury is a very lucky result for somebody was drowning for that long,” Terry said, matter-of-factly. “Does the lawsuit mention anywhere that this kid would have freaking died without us?”

  Both of the lawyers smiled.

  “In cases like this, where the burden of proof is pretty high, we don’t usually recommend settling,” Mrs. Nyback said. “However, after speaking to both of you separately, we feel it might be best to offer a nominal settlement that will get them off your back.”

  “A settlement?” I exclaimed, a little louder than I had expected, then found myself shaking my head. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Yeah,” Terry said. “We saved him and now we have to pay him?”

  “It sounds unfair, but continuing this process might be an enormous drain on your resources,” the male lawyer explained. “You might just want to offer something to get them off your back.”

  Terry scoffed. “How old is the kid now?”

  “He’s sixteen.”

  “Okay,” she said. “And he wouldn’t be if Noah hadn’t saved him, so no, I don’t think I’ll settle.”

  I looked at her before my gaze fell on the lawyers again. “She’s right,” I said. “I don’t want to settle. As a matter of principle.”

  They exchanged a look, and neither one of them said anything before Mrs. Nyback sighed. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll have to draft a letter of response. You both have at least an hour, right?”

  “Yes,” we both said at the same time.

  “Good,” she said. “Let’s take this to the conference room. It might take a little while.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  2019

  TERRY

  As we left the lawyer’s office, I didn’t realize how furious I was until we got to the elevator. It felt like things were in a holding pattern and I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. No matter what happened, they weren’t going to charge me a tax for being a good person. As a resident, I had malpractice insurance, but it didn’t matter—I hadn’t been a resident at the time and I had not been working at the hospital, so overall, I was screwed.

  I didn’t even want to think about Noah, who probably didn’t have anything resembling insurance. We got into the elevator together and he looked down at me, a smile on his face. “This is going to take a while.”

  “Yes, it is. But it’s going to be worth it. It makes no sense for us to just pay for it to go away, because we were just trying to help,” I said. I shook my head again before I took a deep breath. “I know it would be easier to just pay, but honestly, I don’t have any money. And I’m not willing to pay for it to go away, when we didn’t do anything wrong. Why is he suing both of us?”

  “Because he’s trying to get money from one of us. But I don’t think it’s him.”

  I looked him up and down as the elevator started to move down, towards the garage. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I think it’s his parents. They were very… I didn’t think they were being reasonable when he was rescued.”

  I furrowed my brow. “I remember you saying something about that.”

  “I don’t think that it’s a very good idea to settle, because I think that they’re just using the incident to exploit him.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my eyes wide as I stared at him.

  “I… I mean, I might be incorrect here, but I grew up in and out of foster homes, and I remember meeting parents like them. You know, they were just really entitled, really horrible people.”

  I wanted to ask him about growing up in foster homes, but I didn’t. It felt like a violation of his privacy.

  I didn’t say anything.

  He sighed, leaning against the hard the wall in the elevator. “I just wish we got to talk to him. I bet if we did, he wouldn’t be in on this.”

  “You don’t think he wants to sue us?”

  “I definitely don’t. He’s a kid, and we saved him. He might have some anger about it, but I don’t think he would want to sue us. I mean, that makes no sense.”

  I sighed too, leaning against the wall next to him, so close that I could feel the heat coming off his skin. “Yeah,” I said. “What you’re saying makes sense, but there’s no way for us to find out. We can’t talk to him, right?”

  “That’s right. We can’t talk to him.”

  I sighed again, moving my shoulders up and down, feeling a shudder all over my body. “This is ridiculous. I wish there was a way to make it go away.”

  “There isn’t. We just have to fight it.”

  The elevator dinged as the doors opened. “Where are you parked?” Noah asked. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “I didn’t bring my car. I am just going to take the bus home.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, if you have nowhere to be, what about coffee?”

  I looked him up and down. “Are you asking me to go out for coffee with you?”

  He smiled. “Not if you make it weird.”

  I laughed. “I have to go to home and get some sleep. I have work early in the morning, but sure, coffee sounds good. As long as it doesn’t take too long.”

  “How about I give you a lift home, so that you don’t have to wait for the bus?”

  I nodded, smiling again. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  “Good,” he replied. “There’s a place around here with really good coffee, and they have outdoor seating, on a little terrace, and sometimes they have acoustic performances on every now and then.”

  “Okay,” I said, biting on my lower lip. “You didn’t have to sell it to me anymore. I get it, but I would have just gone for coffee with you.”

  “Well, I don’t want you to feel like I’m taking you anywhere cheap.”

  I laughed. “Honestly, you could’ve told me it was the worst coffee ever, and I would have still taking you up on it.”

  He looked me up and down, pausing for a second. “You like me that much?”

  “No, but I am that tired.”

  “That’s fine, I’ll take that.”

  I laughed. When he offered me his arm, I took it. We walked away from the garage, out into the street, across the intersection, and then took a left into a small gathering of shops and restaurants. He ushered me inside one of them, and charming little place with lots of wooden accents and a lot of laughter coming from inside of it.

  “They want to?” He asked as we got in line. “The menu is really long, but I always recommend just going for something really simple. That’s how you know whether a coffee shop knows what they are doing.”

  I let go of his arm, which seemed like the right move until I wasn’t holding his arm anymore, then instantly regretted it. It was weird, it had felt friendly, even normal, to be touching him, to have my hand wrapped around his bicep, and it felt normal to let go of it too, except it hadn’t been and I couldn’t just grab him again.

  We weren’t that close and that wasn’t how things worked.

  “What do you normally get,” I said, as I rubbed my hands, enjoying how warm they were from his skin.

 
“Always a straight up Americano. That’s how you know.”

  “Yeah, but I can just do an Americano at home. I can’t do like cappuccino or mocha or something like that.”

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “That’s a good point. A cappuccino is good.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “And I certainly need one after the day I’ve been having.”

  “Why? What’s going on? Is someone suing you?”

  I laughed. “That’s not funny.”

  “It feels funny. You laughed.”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t funny.”

  “Fair enough. It wasn’t funny.”

  He met my gaze, and we both smiled. I could’ve stared at his face for a while, because it was so interesting. His features, pulled apart, were probably not that classically handsome. He had thin lips, a large nose with several bumps in it, huge blue-green eyes that looked like they might be a little too big for his face—but altogether, on his face they way they were, he was something to look at.

  Someone behind us coughed, which made me realize that the line had moved.

  We moved too, slowly, as I looked ahead and giggled. It had been a long time since I had been this taken with someone, but I didn’t know if that meant anything. Things were plenty complicated without even thinking about getting involved with him, and besides, I didn’t even know if he was single.

  I had stayed single on purpose for a while, because there was no time to date in medical school, and there was a part of me that felt like I had forgotten how to date. Not that it mattered, I told myself. I had wanted to focus on school, and now I wanted to keep my head down and focus on my career. That was the best thing I could do.

  For myself, and for my patients too. After we had ordered, we found a little booth in the back, which provided a great amount of privacy.

  It was surprising, because the rest of the seating was all pretty exposed.

  “So,” Noah said as we waited for drinks. “You’re a doctor? What kind?”

  “Family medicine.”

  “Is that the one that like, everyone goes to?” He asked.

  I smiled at him. “Yes, or at least they are supposed to.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you choose that specialty?” He asked. “Only if you don’t mind talking about it.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “No, I don’t. I just really like the idea of being the first point of contact, you know, trying to keep people well. There are many doctors who specialize in healing particular types of diseases and things like that. I think prevention is more important than anything and I want to live by that.”

  “But surely does not as interesting as being… I don’t know. A bone surgeon, for example.”

  I laughed. “No, being an orthopedic surgeon would be awful. It’s very nitpicky and difficult. I really admire orthopedic surgeons, but it’s a hell of a career,” I said, shaking my head and waving my hand in front of my face. “You would be surprised at how interesting the cases I get are. I mean, mostly as cold and flus, and I want to keep it that way. Interesting can sometimes mean deadly when you’re a physician, so…”

  “I would love to hear it.”

  I laughed. “The weirdest thing I get are people getting things stuck inside of them, you know, and then coming up with a ridiculous excuse like, I don’t know, I fell on this TV remote and that’s how it ended up there.”

  His eyes widened and he snickered. “Have you really heard someone say that?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I have definitely heard someone say that.”

  He shook his head. “Your career is so much more interesting than mine. And honestly, far more necessary.”

  “What is it that you do again?”

  “I’m an athlete.”

  I looked him up and down. Of course, of course he was an athlete. He had the build for it, the biceps, the legs, which I could see were enormous and muscular even under the fabric of his trousers. “Oh,” I said. “I never ask what sports you play.”

  “Rowing. I’m a rower,” he replied. “I used to do it when I was in school, and then when I get out, I got recruited to be on the team that’s trying to go to the Olympics.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Before I could answer, a waitress put our coffees in front of us. Once she left, I cleared my throat. “That’s very impressive.”

  He laughed. He took a sip of his coffee before he answered me. “It sounds more impressive than it is. Rowing is really big in other countries, here it’s like… Well, that’s definitely a thing people can do.”

  I laughed too. I took a sip of my cappuccino, which was perfectly warm, delicious, exactly what I needed. “This is so good.”

  “See? I told you. I don’t really drink caffeine, but when I need a little pick me up, I will come downtown just for the coffee.”

  I nodded as I took another sip. “I can see why.”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “And this Americano is going down a treat.”

  I smiled. “So, if rowing is not that big, how come you’re into it?”

  “Well, it’s kind of a long story,” he said, looking away from me, then flashed me what looked like a confused smile. “I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before.”

  “I want to hear it,” I replied before I took another sip of my cappuccino. “If you’re comfortable telling me.”

  “Yeah, sure. It’s not very fun, but I can definitely tell you about it,” he said, then immediately quieted down.

  I nodded, gesturing toward him. “Okay,” I said. “So tell me.”

  He cracked a smile. “Right. Well, my parents divorced when I was young, like eight, and they had split custody. So I was supposed to stay at my dad’s for one week and then at my mom’s for another week, but things were really hostile between them and I ended up living with my dad eventually, who had a lot of problems.”

  I stared at him as he spoke. He didn’t seem upset to be talking about this, in fact, he seemed detached from it. It surprised me, but it felt wrong to pry, and I assumed he was going to tell me exactly as much as he wanted to.

  “Anyway, when I was about eleven, I walked in on him overdosing, and I had to call the paramedics and it was a whole thing. I went to live with my mom full time, but she’d married this guy and he was a real jerk and I thought I had to protect, so we got into this physical altercation and before I knew it, I was in foster care.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “How old were you?”

  “I had just turned fourteen,” he replied, then looked at me. “I’m not telling you this so that you feel sorry for me. It so that I can explain what happened next. Without the context, you would probably just think I was a bum kid, an extreme vagabond.”

  “Maybe, but I wouldn’t have judged you for that,” I replied.

  For the first time since I had met him, I saw his cheeks redden. He cleared his throat before he started speaking again.

  “The first foster family I went to was really nice. I was scared, because I heard that most foster parents were unreasonable and unkind, but being with them was a huge step up from being with my own family. They lived in this little beach house, really tiny, where I basically had to sleep in a converted laundry room. I didn’t like being there too much, so I went to the beach a lot. I swam and I swam, and eventually I got a job as a lifeguard on the beach simply by virtue of being there all the damn time.”

  “Oh, wow,” I replied.

  “The lifeguard that recruited me, he was really into rowing. One day, he said he wanted to teach me, but then he saw me rowing, and he immediately went to my foster parents to ask them for permission to get me into his team, which was a school team. So my foster parents had to do a bunch of weird shit in order to get me to switch schools, because this was a private high school, and they didn’t have the money to pay for tuition.”

  “Did you switch schools?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “I got a rowing scholarship, which, I know, it sounds ridiculous because it is. And ever since then
, I’ve been into rowing. Every time that I get upset or anything, I just get out and go for it and I always feel better afterwards.”

  “I’m glad you found something that you like.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, so am I. Sometimes, I think that if it wasn’t for rowing, I probably wouldn’t be alive,” he said, more to himself than to me. “And that scares the shit out of me, because it feels like it’s so true.”

  “Well,” I said. “For what it’s worth, if it wasn’t for the boy that got you into it, you would have never been able to save that kid. You would’ve never been able to save me.”

  He smiled. “Yeah,” he said, after a few seconds. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  “I am right,” I said. “That’s a frequent occurrence.”

  He raised his eyebrows, smiling at me before he took the last sip of his coffee. “Is that right? I would like to put that theory to test.”

  I bit down on my lower lip. “How?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

  “Yeah,” I said, meeting his gaze. “I’m sure you will.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  2019

  NOAH

  “Would you like me to drive you home?” I asked as I took a glance out the window. It was getting dark and I knew she had to get home soon. I didn’t want to keep her for too long. I knew she needed to get back to her place before it got dark, and she had said that she didn’t want to stay out for too long.

  Selfishly, I wanted her to stick around for as long as possible. I liked being around Terry. She made me feel like everything was going to be okay, even when things around me were falling apart, like they were right then.

  I didn’t know how much I had craved this feeling of quiet contentedness until I met her, which was bewildering. I had plenty of experience with girls. Being around Terry didn’t—or shouldn’t—have had any effect on me.

  She was beautiful, sure, but I’d hung out with plenty of beautiful girls before. I’d had relationships with plenty of beautiful girls before. Even when I felt like I was deep into a relationship, I couldn’t remember feeling like this about any other girls, and I had only really been hanging out around her for a little while.