I run outside, and he follows, but he stops briefly at a life preserver station I hadn’t noticed before. He loops the orange doughnut over his shoulder.
I point toward the spot where Sienna fell in. The frothy surf is still crashing onto the rocks and erupting into the air.
She’s dead,I think to myself. She has to be. There can’t possibly be any hope.
There are moments in my life when I despise myself, when I know I’ve done everything wrong and I’m a complete and utter failure. In those moments, I’m overcome by a sense of dread. My bad decisions will surely turn on me, and I’ll wish I’d acted differently. I’ll wish I was smarter and possessed a better understanding about how certain situations might unfold.
The man from the restaurant is a faster runner. He’s familiar with the crests and valleys of these sloping rocks, and he leaps like a gazelle over tidal pools.
I’m out of breath when I reach the high point where Sienna and I argued. I stop abruptly and watch the man hop from one outcropping to another. He then jumps into a small chasm, out of sight.
I follow. I run. I trip and fall, skin the heels of my hands on the rough surface of the granite. Quickly, I scramble to my feet and continue until I reach the edge of the rocks, halt, and look down.
I freeze.
There she is.
Sienna ... lying on the rocks while two young men on their knees, on either side of her, perform CPR. One pumps her chest while the other bends to breathe into her mouth. The man from the restaurant stands over them with the life preserver on the ground at his feet. He’s talking to someone on his cell phone.
All I can do is stare in shock at the scene before me. How did they get Sienna out of the water? Did one of them dive in after her? Did they swim and pull her to safety?
Again, I’m a failure, drowning in my inadequacy.
Chapter Eighteen
Amanda
I’m sitting on my bed, working on an English essay, when my cell phone rings. It’s Dad, and I’m half tempted to ignore the call because if I callhimin the middle of the day and he’s busy at work, I’m supposed to respect that.
In my opinion, schoolwork is, by definition,work, but I doubt the same rules apply when the roles are reversed.
The phone rings a third time, and Oscar, who has been trotting around the house anxiously for the past forty minutes, appears in my open doorway, tail wagging, as if this phone call is a side of beef.
“All right, all right, I’ll answer it,” I say as I reach for my cell phone and swipe right.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” Dad says.
There’s something strange in his voice. He sounds shaken, so I set my laptop aside, get off the bed, and rise to my feet.
“What’s going on?”
“I need you and Connor to come to the hospital.”
My stomach clenches into a sickening knot. “Why? What happened?”
“Mom was swept off the rocks at Peggy’s Cove.”
Suddenly I can’t breathe. I can’t even feel my legs. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know. They did CPR, and right now she’s in the trauma unit at the Halifax Infirmary. I’m still waiting for someone to come out and tell me something.”
I grab my jacket and hurry down the stairs. “You’re at the hospital now?”
“Yes. Can you bring Connor?”
“He’s at hockey practice,” I tell him.
