“Oh god,” says Diana. “Troy’s on that rock.”
Which is true. Troy is definitely holding on to a rock, water pulling at him from all sides. You know right away what you’re supposed to do in this situation. But your brain protests. You’re too numb to move. You try to swim forward, but the current is strong and your limbs are slack. Maybe from the cold. Maybe from panic.
“Guys!” yells Troy. “I’m not a strong swimmer.”
You want to help him, but you feel drained. Empty of life. The water pulls you toward the shore, and a half-hearted attempt to move forward almost sends you back under. You turn around and Diana can’t get there either.
“Hold tight!” she yells to Troy. “We’ll get you from the shore!”
She looks at you and nods.
“It’s okay,” she says. “Just let go.”
You both stop treading water and try to let the current carry you. You look back at Troy one more time and find him gripping tight. His strength is impressive, but it’s unclear how long he can hang on. Then you spot Will and Silas on the nearby bank. They’re moving quickly. Silas is rushing to an outcropping near Troy’s rock, Will trailing him. And as you all watch, Silas carefully reaches over the water and holds a canoe paddle out to Troy, who looks at it like it might as well be a pool noodle come to rescue him.
Silas is yelling something you can’t hear. And gradually, Troy peels a hand off the rock and reaches for the paddle. He misses the first time. Then he extends a little farther and grips it hard. He closes his eyes and lets go of the rock completely. For a second, you think he’s going to get swept away, but Will grabs the paddle too, and the two of them manage to tow him to shore, where he sits stunned in his soaking-wet clothes.
Somehow, you make it to the muddy bank and claw your way up through the cattails. Diana moves up ahead of you, and you watch her squeeze her hair, trying to get the water out. Her boots are squelching water, and her pants are stuck to her legs. She’s just as soaked and humbled as you, and you know there’s nothing she would rather do than get into some dry clothes or lie in the sun. But instead, she walks over to Troy.
He doesn’t look up. Still, she sits next to him. You can’t hear what she says, but you can see the care in her face. And you see her mouth something encouraging. Troy blinks and eventually he nods. She pats his shoulder and stands up, and then she looks back at you for just a moment before heading toward Silas, whois already working on a fire. He’s got blankets from his canoe, and he’s handing them out. Diana takes one and throws it over her head, bundling herself like a papoose.
You shiver and hug yourself for warmth. In this moment, you feel total defeat. You were hoping that just being out here on the trail might miraculously unlock some ability to act brave in tense situations. But that does not seem to be the case.
Wherever you go, there you are.
You turn to Fran, who still looks shaken, and you say:
“You were right.”
Fran blinks. Her memory of your talk seems long gone at this point. She pulls off a boot and dumps out about a pint of lake water. It spatters on the rocks.
“About what?”
“Me and Diana.”
Something clicks in her eyes.
“We weren’t together,” you say.
Then you close your eyes.
“But I was in love with her.”
TEN
That night, shivering in your river-dampened sleeping bag, you dream of Tennessee. Specifically, a dark highway in Tennessee. Lit-up billboards for pecan farms and megachurches. Fields of abandoned machinery. It was the last trip you ever took with your brother, the whole family crammed into a van for a cold-weather pilgrimage to Florida.
Your parents drove most of the way, arguing about exits and forcing you to listen to true-crime podcasts that seemed to get more and more violent the farther south you got. But when the sun went down, they handed the keys to Sean and fell asleep in the back seat. So it was just the two of you up front, headlights carving out a path through the night, your parents snoring behind you, too tired to wait for the cheap hotel in Chattanooga.
The trip had been sprung on you by surprise. Your mom had been working overtime at the hospital, and there was some extra money for once. Not enough to fly, but enough for a room someplace warm if the old Honda Odyssey could make it. Also, the mood in your house had been low lately.
Sean had been favored to win State this year. Nearly everyone who wrote about local sports had him as a lock. But on the day of the tournament, in one of his preliminary dives, he attempteda reverse three-and-a-half somersault and scraped his head against the board. The place went silent. There was blood in the water. He managed to get out of the pool on his own, but he was immediately taken to the hospital for stitches and ended up missing the biggest recruiting opportunity of the year. He was devastated, and you barely saw him in the weeks afterward, as he recovered from his concussion. Part of you suspected that this whole family journey was a cheer-up-Sean mission.
“Sunshine and strip malls aren’t going to heal Sean’s head,” said your dad when your mom suggested the trip.
“Well,” she said. “A little vitamin D can’t hurt! Not sure about the strip malls…”
What went unmentioned in that conversation, like most other conversations in your family, was just how severe your anxiety had been lately. But your mom was definitely aware. You had taken more mental health days in the past month than you’d ever taken before, and on two different occasions, she had caught you downstairs around 3A.M.walking circles around the living room arguing with yourself. Your anxiety was always worse in the winter, so you could chalk it up to the seasons, but even you knew there was something else going on.
