Diana Peterfreund - Rites of Spring (Break)

“There’s a lot of old records and stuff lying around.” He peeled another strip of paint off the railing.

I feigned innocence. “‘We guys’?” I said. “I’m not one of them.”

He chuckled.

“Still, you seem to know a lot about Rose & Grave for someone who isn’t a member,” Clarissa added.

“Are you saying you are one?” he replied.

She leaned in. “What do you think?”

The deck tilted as the captain started cutting to the side, and we all jostled against one another. I bit back a scream, since no one else seemed to be fazed by the movement.

Come on, Amy. Pull yourself together. I could do this. It was just a boat ride. I’d been on boats before.

Well, no. I’d been on a log flume once, where the water was about three inches deep. And I’d ridden the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney World. And It’s a Small World, too, come to think of it. But other than that, I’d led a pretty boat-free existence. How had I made it to twenty-two with so little experience? And here I’d thought myself so worldly.

The captain started calling for Darren, and he excused himself.

“Not a bad kid,” said Clarissa. “Shame about the father.”

“Is Daren really stuck down here, alone with his family?” George said. “That can’t be fun. And what are they doing about his school?”

I nodded, not sure I could trust my voice as the boat began zipping across someone else’s wake with several jarring slaps. Could that possibly be good for the hull? If I felt this kind of bumping in a car, I’d freak out, but apparently no one minded that every second it felt like we were about to break open and spill our contents right into the depths. I felt my stomach drop into my toes, then rise in my throat.

Great. Now I was seasick.

A few moments later, Darren rejoined the party.

“So,” George said, “how much farther to Cavador?”

Darren pointed vaguely off into the distance, and the boat pitched again. He covered his mouth with one hand and gripped the railing with the other.

“You feeling okay, man?” George asked. Darren shook his head miserably. From my position on the other side of Clarissa, I sympathized. I wasn’t feeling so hot myself. Maybe the captain should take it easy on us.

Suddenly, Darren reared up and spewed something white and chunky all over Clarissa. She screamed and flung herself backward, out of the splash zone, knocking into me. I lost my grip on the railing and catapulted backward. I made one grab, then another, reeling back, trying to find my balance on the ever-tilting deck. My hands closed over metal, and I heard a crunch.

The chain. The gap.

And then the world turned upside down.

It took forever for the splash.

In case you’re wondering, water is not soft. The sea smacked me in the head as I landed. My breath whooshed out of me and I gasped, instantly swallowing a lungful or two of water.

I tried to move my hands, but they were tangled in something, and the pressure of the water made them feel heavy. Clumsy. There was something very loud nearby. The propeller? I kicked and felt my shoes fly off. When I tried to open my eyes, they burned and blurred.

I saw blue, then the shiny white boat, bathed in sunlight. Tiny colors clustered at the prow. Then blue again, as another wave hit.

I heard a scream. Not mine, of course. To scream, you must be able to breathe.

Thank God for the life jacket, I remember thinking. Right before I noticed I was no longer wearing one.

And then I did feel a scream rising in my throat. I kicked and kicked, and once again, the blue gave way to sunlight and boat. The same colors clustered on the deck, only now there were more of them, and they were pointing at me, and then I saw something black fly out. And then everything went blue once more.

Why couldn’t I move my hands? Where were my shoes?

In the next second, there was something squeezing my chest, dragging me backward. I stiffened and then breathed air. Or something approximating air. My hair hung in my face like a wet blanket, wrapped tight around my neck. I choked and coughed, trying to get my arms free.

“Hold still, Amy,” said a voice at my back. “The straps.”

And then the water got a lot less heavy and I clawed at my face, scratching my skin with my nails as I scraped my hair out of the way. Yes! Air—cold, salty, but air nonetheless. I gulped it into my burning lungs, and started coughing again, jostling against whatever constrained my torso.

“Amy.” The voice was as calm as before. “Stop struggling.”

I went limp, and found that I wasn’t sinking. Someone was holding me above the water. I turned my face toward the voice.

“Ah,” Poe said. “She does know how to listen.” There was a smear of watery red beneath his nose. Was he bleeding?

Something smacked against the water. A Styrofoam circle. Poe grabbed for it with his free hand and shoved it toward me. “Hold on to this.” I reached for the lifesaver with shaking hands, and as soon as I took hold of it, he flipped the tube over my head and pushed me through. “Got it?” he asked, breathing heavily. I nodded, and another coughing fit overtook me.

Poe began pushing me and my Styrofoam tube toward the boat, asking me questions the whole time.

“Can you breathe?”

I nodded.

“Anything broken?”

I shook my head.

“Anything hurt?”

Another shake. Though that wasn’t true. My head was pounding, my lungs burned, my throat felt raw.

“Can you speak ?”

“What happened to your face?” I croaked.

“You kicked it.”

“Sorry.”

We’d reached the boat by then, and Poe pulled me beneath a fiberglass ladder built into the side of the hull. Hands were already reaching out over the edge, but I couldn’t tell who they belonged to. Somehow, I pulled myself up onto the rungs. Somehow, I got over the side and onto the deck, trailing water, coughing and spluttering the whole time. Clarissa wrapped me in a towel. I could see vomit drying on the front of her shirt.

“Amy, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were standing so close to me. I feel awful—”

“It’s not your fault,” George said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “It was an accident.”

“Where’s Darren?” I asked. “Is he all right?”

“Fine. Seasick.” Clarissa pulled her shirt away from her chest. “I’m going to go change.”

Jenny took her place at my side. “You caught your life vest on that chain and it ripped right off,” she reported. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Harun stood above us. “When you went down again, we figured you’d hit your head or something. You just…sank.”

Yeah, dude. That happens when one doesn’t swim. But I didn’t say that. I just hugged the towel more tightly around myself and prayed that this boat ride would be over soon. But how was I supposed to get off the island once I was on it? Another boat? Was there any chance I could be airlifted off?

My Capri pants and T-shirt stuck to my body, my hair hung on my face in clammy tangles. The right side of my head throbbed where it had smacked against the water, and I could feel bruises forming on my right shoulder and the top of my foot where (I suppose) I’d hit it against Poe’s face.

Poe. Where had he gone? I looked around the deck for him, but he hadn’t joined the others in seeing I was okay.

“When will we get to the island?” I rasped.

“Soon, Amy,” Jenny said. She leaned in and dropped her voice to a whisper. “You don’t swim, do you?”