When my fingers find fabric—her sweater, her body—I yank, pulling her with all my strength, body trembling from shock and cold. Her face is pale, lips blue, eyes closed like she’s already gone.
I haul her up to safety and drag her into my arms as I check for signs of life. There are no sounds.
Please, Erin, please.
I push her wet hair away, desperate to see her beautiful eyes. The cold air mixing with my harsh breaths burns my lungs.
“Erin? Sweetheart?”
I spot the gash on her head next.
Dark red blood stark against her pale skin.
Fuck!
Erin’s bodyis limp and weightless in my arms. As soon as I have her off the ice, I remove our skates, discarding them somewhere around me, crank up the heat in the truck, and slam on the gas, cradling her to my chest the entire drive. The truck smells of antifreeze, and somehow that’s the thing that tells me this is real.
Gravel pinches the sole of my feet through my socks as I charge for the hospital doors. I don’t bother locking up my truck.
The automatic doors open.
There are people everywhere, and bright fluorescent lights blind me in a rush of chaos as I yell for help and barrel past those patiently sitting in the waiting room.
Erin’s wet hair sticks to my T-shirt, herskin is so cold it seeps through the fabric, sending a shiver down my spine. People in scrubs rush us. Hands fly around me as they pull Erin out of my arms and lay her small body on a gurney.
A pressure builds in my chest as I look at her.
Pale. Blue lips. Unmoving.
She looks exactly how she felt in my arms.
Frozen.
I stumble after them through the waiting room as they roll Erin down the hall. The place people go and don’t always come back.
“No, wait. Please!” My voice comes out strangled, the words barely coherent as I struggle to breathe through the rising panic. “I’m here, Erin,” I yell just as the metal doors slam shut behind the nurses, leaving me standing alone. “I’m here.”
Alone, I slide down the wall as memories crash over me.
Wave after wave.
Fast and gut-wrenching.
I do my best to replace them with positive thoughts—just as Damon has suggested in our therapy sessions before.
But I’m only capable of three words.
Please be okay.
Please be okay.
Please be okay.
My eyes scrunch together as I replay her plunging into the ice over and over again.
The maintenance report runs through my mind. I pay a crew to maintain it and make sure the pond stays intact year-round, checking it twice a day—morning and evening.
I know the routine.
