He starts laughing. For a second I am angry. Furious.
“I hate this!” the boy cries from nearby, and then I start laughing too.
Ollie’s eyes are full of warmth. “You know how we were talking about the teen years being like the toddler years?” he says. “Based on today, I think I can skip the toddler years, no problem.”
We glance at the boy who floats near us, staring listlessly at the boat as it makes its awkward reversal. “Fuuuucckk!” the boy cries in outrage at the sky. We both chuckle again.
“You getting cold?” Ollie asks me, coming closer.
“He probably is. You can help him.”
“Screw him, he needs the life lesson.”
I cough out water again as I laugh. I am shivering harder now. “I’ve been colder at an outdoor music festival, it’s fine.”
“The things you’ve done for My Chemical Romance.”
He reaches out and puts his hand over mine where I’m clinging to my life jacket. His hand warms mine, then he rubs my shoulder to warm me more. We are coughing up seawater in Long Island Sound, and I realize I don’t even feel that upset. He’s here. He came after me.
“I love you.” The words rush out of me.
There is a flash of something like panic in Ollie eyes.
“Sorry, I just meant…” I begin.
“It’s okay,” he says, but he won’t look at me. “It’s probably the stress talking.”
“Right. Yeah.”
We don’t say anything else. We just watch as the boat slowly finishes its U-turn. I am really starting to shake, now. Ollie tries to rub my arms again.
“Stop,” I mutter. “They’ll see us.”
He nods solemnly and goes back to check on the boy.
In another few minutes, we are being offered a ladder from the side of the deck. Without speaking, we mutually agree to let the world’s worst teenager climb up first. His cousins applaud his return like he has just performed a cool trick.
Then it is my turn and my arms won’t work. Ollie watches me, wide-eyed. “You okay?”
“My arms won’t work,” I say, my voice a little panicked.
“They will warm as soon as you get them out of the water,” he says. “Just put one on the ladder and give yourself a minute.”
I place a hand on the ladder, but the waves are bobbing, and I can’t keep my grip.
“I can carry you,” he offers, and that’s it. He is not carrying me in front of everyone, not after I’ve said I love him, and he didn’t say it back.
I swing one arm up and then slowly, awkwardly haul myself up a rung of the ladder, water sluicing away from my sodden work clothes, and then another, and then another, haulingmyself up. I can do this. My clothes stick to my body like cling-wrap.
I finally get pulled up by strong arms, and then I am standing on the deck, water rushing down me in a torrent, the shivering making it hard to stand up. Ollie is beside me after a moment, equally soaking but not shaking as much. I glance over and see that the boy’s parents are eying Ollie and me suspiciously, like we followed him into the water in a foiled attempt to kidnap him.
“What happened?” his father is asking his soaking son as the teen sits wrapped in a coarse wool blanket. “What the hell happened?”
The boy shrugs. “There was a huge wave, and I slipped.”
Ollie and I accept blankets from the crew.
“Did those two go in the water to try to help you?” I hear a woman ask the boy.
