“Does it still work?”
“I’m not breathing in expired steroids,” she snapped.
Tom steadied himself. “I’ll pick it up at the pharmacy,” he offered.
I only get one Rosie, and if she breaks, I don’t get another.
“It’s almost five. All the pharmacies will be closed. I’ll get some tomorrow.”
“What if you get worse overnight?” He remembered the spring of their freshman year, when everyone had gotten the flu, and Rosie’d come down with the flu, bronchitis,andpneumonia. He’d dragged his mattress into her dorm room and slept on the floor for a week because he’d worried about her breathing. “I’ll go to a twenty-four-hour pharmacy,” he decided.
“There isn’t one on the island.”
“I guess I’ll take the ferry, then,” he said, backing away toward the ladder.
Rosie’s eyes flew open with surprise. “No, you don’t have to dothat,” she said, not very convincingly. “That’s at least a three-hour round trip from here. And what if you miss the last ferry?”
“I’ll drive fast.”
“It’s snowing.”
“Then I’ll drive slow,” he said.
“That doesn’t make any sense! I’m fine. I don’t want you to do it.”
Tom exhaled in exasperation, because obviously shewasn’tfine and shedidwant to breathe.
“And you callmea liar.” This was never going to work if she wouldn’t even be honest about what she wanted.
“What?” she cried. “I’m saying you don’t have to go.”
“I dove into a flood for Boyd, and I barelylikeBoyd. You don’t think I’d take a little boat ride to get your medicine?”
Rosie didn’t say anything, but the tremulous expression in her wet, bloodshot blue eyes was answer enough.
Tom got his boots on and climbed back up the ladder. He went to her bedside and cupped her face between his palms, holding her still when she tried to pull away. “Baby, I love you. I’dswimif I had to.”
Her lower lip quivered, and her face was uncertain.
On a wave of righteous anger—at Boyd, at the decade they’d wasted, even at Rosie for not hearing everything he wanted to tell her—he curled his fingertips into her soft, damp hair, weaving them in so she couldn’t pull away until she heard what he had to say.
“I’ve been crazy about you since the day I met you, and the worst mistake I ever made was walking away instead of fighting it out with you. I’m coming back tonight with your medicine, and I’m not leaving again until we work this out. You’ll have to get one of those vaudeville stage hooks to drag me off the island. Okay?”
Rosie put one palm on his chest as though not certain whether she was going to push him away or hold on tight. She was still breathing faster than he liked. He’d shocked her with that, maybe more than when his supposed boyfriend had showed up to collect him.
“Your threats are more convincing than your promises,” she said.
He huffed out a short laugh. “Yeah, okay,” he said, releasing her and climbing back down the ladder.
She followed far enough to lean out over the platform.
“Are you going to make him leave?” she asked.
“Do you want me to? I will,” Tom said, since he hadn’t decided yet.
She shook her head. “I’m not interested in publicly battling Meteor Man for your love.”
Tom opened the door to go. “Well that’s up to you, babe, as long as you know that you’d always win.”
