Life on the Level (22 page)

After breakfast, Simmons takes a group of six out fishing. Jillian and three others stay at the campsite to “meditate.” Meditating is a pretty flimsy way of saying they’re too tired to do anything but hang around. Still, everyone seems to need this break.

That leaves Hutch, Julie, Pete, and myself, who are going kayaking. I see Julie standing by Hutch’s kayak. She holds the life vest against her chest and squeezes it like a stress ball. It’s disturbing how much she watches him. I’m trying not to let it bother me, but it’s difficult. It’s a crush that’s going very, very wrong.

“Come on, Julie,” Pete tells her. He’s been growing out a beard for a couple of days. It makes him look more grown-up and serious. He prods her in the back with his oar. “River should go with someone more experienced than me, because she’s the newbiest.”

Julie looks disappointed, but drops the vest back on the kayak and goes with Pete, muttering, “That’s not a real word.”

I pick up the life vest and strap myself in. Hutch and I take off in the same direction as Pete and Julie, but keep a healthy distance between the two kayaks. The wind is strong, and the current gets rougher the further out we get. At least the morning sun is shining.

“You okay?” Hutch asks every now and then.

My arms are tired, but we’re paddling slowly. The way the kayak rocks makes my stomach queasy. Hutch comes to a stop, smack in the middle of the lake.

“If you’re tired, you only have to say so,” he tells me.

He stands, and I freak, fearing we’re going to flip over. But he’s perfectly balanced, like a surfing lumberjack. He turns himself around so we face each other. I like the view ten times better now that I can see his face.

“Did you see anything weird this morning?” I ask.

“Weird like how?” Hutch normally looks to the right, but he’s looking to the left, like he’s searching for an answer. I have the feeling he’s lying to me.

“You should never play poker.” I laugh, and splash him.

“Why not?”

“You’re obviously hiding something. Your nose twitched a little. It never does that.”

“You’re too good for your own well-being.”

“So, what did you see?”

He shrugs. “Same thing as you, I guess. Simmons saw me leave from your tent.”

“What?” I clap my hand over my mouth. My voice echoes in the valley. “Don’t you think it’s something you should’ve told me earlier?”

“When?” he says. “In front of the whole camp?”

“Ugh. This whole time I was telling Jillian to be more careful.”

“Simmons and Jillian. Wow. No wonder he was so understanding and offered to keep my secret. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Do you want a prize?” I ask, too sassy for my own good. “Neither have I.”

After a little bit of silence, we start to laugh.

“It’s not funny,” I tell him.

“You’re the one cackling.”

“I do not cackle.”

“Well, I’ve got to tell you, I feel a little relieved that someone else knows. I felt like the heart under the floorboards in
The Tell Tale Heart
.”

“I felt like Hester in
The Scarlet Letter
.”

He holds his oar across his lap to steady himself. Julie and Pete are paddling nearby, but not within hearing distance. He reaches out and tucks a stray curl back over my ear.

“You have nothing to be ashamed about. Unless you’re ashamed of me.”

“I’m not.”

“The Scarlet Letter is about shame.”

“Well, I’m a high school dropout; you can’t expect me to get all the facts right.”

He sighs, stretching his arms out against the breeze. The wind is getting stronger, and clouds appear from behind the mountains.

“Are you ashamed?” I ask, looking off to the side to avoid the intensity of his eyes.

“River,” he says my name in that way of his, like I’m important, like he
needs
to say it. “If I’m ashamed of anything it’s that—”

He looks away.

“Of what?”

“That I’m taking advantage of you.”

I shake my head, confused. “How? We’re both adults. Sure you’re three years older than me, but it’s not like anyone can accuse me of having daddy issues. If that were so, I’d date guys twice my age, and that’s just gross.”

“I’m glad you don’t think being with me is gross,” he says, searching the dark clouds for something. “I’m just—at the end of the day, I’m still a counselor. No matter that we met beforehand. You’re someone searching for help and recovery, and instead of giving that to you, I’m thinking about ways to get into your bed every single night. I’m thinking about kissing you every moment I find. I’m thinking about never letting you go. That I care for you more than I do for my own future. I want you to be my future.”

I want to say something. I want to tell him that I feel the same way. Except, I want to take the brunt of the hurt if something goes wrong. I want to protect his future, because sometimes I don’t feel like I have one myself. He’s too good to bet everything on me.

But I can’t find the words.

“All I want to do is be with you and keep you safe,”
Hutch tells me. “I want to hold your hand and kiss you in the middle of the day, not just in the dark. Right now, we can’t have that.”

I try to process his words as it starts to drizzle. “Hutch, I make my decisions for me. If you think that you’re taking advantage of me, you’re wrong. I picked you, okay? From the moment I saw you at the bar, I had to know you, even if it was just for one night. I wanted you then, and I still want you now. Maybe you’re the one who’s too fucking good for their own well-being. Maybe I’m the bad one, and I’m ruining your life just by being near you.”

I can tell he wants to kiss me, but just then, Julie and Pete paddle over to us. “We’re heading back! It’s getting too windy!”

Hutch stands on the kayak to position himself forward. The current makes him wobble, and I’m afraid he’s going to fall. He sits and we paddle forward. The clouds darken overhead, and it starts to pour. I can’t see anything ahead of us, except a little yellow kayak ahead. Water splashes all around, like hands pushing our kayak from side to side. I start to panic, and I lose my rhythm.

“Hutch!”

“Let me—”

“What?” The kayak is rocking too much.

Then it flips, and we’re underwater, and I don’t have time to hold my breath. The water is freezing and dark, and I breathe it into my lungs. I force myself to reach for the surface, but I don’t know which way is up or down. I gasp as I break the surface, but I feel the current pushing me away from the kayak. My lungs burn and my throat is raw from coughing up water.

Pull the string!
I tell myself.

But my fingers are freezing, and it takes me a few long moments to find it. When I do pull it, nothing happens, and I start sinking. I feel something brush against my leg, and in my panic, I scream. I start kicking my legs just as arms wrap around me. I’m choking.

I can’t breathe.

I open my eyes to darkness.

Darker clouds and darker water.

Hutch is shouting my name. “River! River. Oh God, River please. Come back to me. River!”

His voice is far away. Like we’re on opposite ends of a tunnel. A fist punches me in my solar plexus just as I open my eyes. I feel cold water coming up and turn over to retch. I sit up, gasping for breath.

I close my eyes again, but someone is asking me to stay awake. It sounds like Jillian. Then Randy. Randy, of all people.

Hutch wraps his arms around me. He’s trembling from head to toe. His lips are nearly blue from cold. The other campers are standing and crouching around us. The rain has stopped and given way to a cloudless sky.

“Thank God you’re okay,” Jillian says.

Hutch lets go of me. He’s breathing hard and fast. He runs his hands through his wet hair, then takes off. Meanwhile, I sit up and keep coughing. Jillian wraps a blanket over my shoulders.

They all start shouting things at me. At least, it sounds like shouting. My head is aching, and I breathe in small gasps. It hurts where Hutch punched me in my chest. No, not punched—where he did chest compressions for CPR.

When I feel well enough to stand, I take stock of the camp. Most of our supplies and dry firewood were shoved under a makeshift tent of kayaks. The actual tents sag where water has collected. Everyone goes to theirs and shakes the water off, and they bounce right back. All except for mine. A branch fell off a tree and punched a hole right through it, wetting all of my clothes inside.

“Come,” Jillian tells me.

Simmons gives everyone else tasks to clean up our camp area. I follow Jillian into her tent, shivering down to the bone. She gives me dry clothes and a towel.

“I’d… kill… for… some… whiskey.” It’s hard to get a whole sentence out when your teeth are chattering.

“Take this for now.” She opens a packet of hand warmers. I want to rub them all over my skin. But between them and the borrowed clothes, I soon feel loads better. “That was really scary.”

“You’re telling me.”

“I’ve never seen Hutch react that way,” she whispers. “He was screaming your name. Randy tried to get him off you because he was pressing your chest too hard. He was afraid he’d break your ribs, but Hutch just shoved him away.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” I feel something well up in my chest. If my tear ducts didn’t feel frozen, I’d probably cry. Hutch saved my life, again. And then he walked away from me. After all the things he said to me in the middle of the lake. He just walked away.

Jillian places a hand on my shoulder. “He’ll be back. He was scared. He really cares about you.”

I nod my head and wrap myself in the blanket. “So do I.”

“I think we can help each other out,” Jillian says.

“How?”

“You need a tent. We can say you’re staying in mine. But it might make sense if you sleep next to someone bigger. For body heat. We can switch after everyone’s gone to sleep.”

“Let me go find him.”

I leave the tent and the other campers descend on me. They tell me how Hutch dragged me to the shore and started CPR. How my whole face turned blue, and everyone thought I was dead.

I didn’t feel dead. I just felt heavy and cold. Like a stone, dropping down into the water. My chest still hurts, and I feel disoriented from everyone’s attention. I see Julie scowling on a log with her arms wrapped around her chest. There’s something dark in the way she looks at me, but I push it away because I need to find Hutch.

It’s a terribly beautiful afternoon, now that the morning storm is gone. I walk along the water’s edge, over the broken branches and piles of leaves. It’s like the hand of God raked over our tiny little island just long enough to try to drown me. That’s a really terrible thing to think. Maybe I’ve just infuriated the big bopper long enough, and that was my comeuppance.

When I see Hutch, he’s standing with his feet in the water. His arm is resting on a low branch. His wet shirt clings to his muscles, and as I get closer I can see little rivulets of water trickling from his dark curls. He turns around when my foot snaps a branch in half. He doesn’t say anything, but he stares at me.

I’m used to Hutch being all smiles and sexy smirks. This is the first time I’ve ever seen him lost. He breathes hard, like he was the one who almost drowned. Like he’s struggling against a current I can’t see. His eyes glisten. They furrow angrily as he grips me and pulls me against his chest. He burrows his face into my neck, and then this terribly beautiful, sweet man trembles. I can feel his body shudder, and he grips me so tightly it hurts.

I don’t feel cold anymore. Something in my heart is melting right into Hutch’s arms. He’s as solid as the great big trees that surround us. He’s as strong as the earth beneath my feet. His emotion is almost too much for me to bear, but I tell myself I need this. I tell myself I deserve someone like this. Don’t I?

“You scared me half to death,” he says, getting down on his knees and pressing his face against my belly. “I thought—for a very real moment, I couldn’t hear your heart beating, River. You were gone.”

I rest my cold, wet hands on his cheekbones. I could stare at him all day. If I were to drown, I would take the image of his face with me to the bottom of that lake. I bend down and press my mouth to his. My heart skips a beat, and then skips a handful more at the thought of someone coming to look for us. But right now, I don’t care. My heart hurts from this thaw. My heart hurts from Hutch showing me this kind of emotion.

“I’m right here,” I say.

I press my hand on his chest as he stands back up. He keeps my hand pressed there. I wish I could leave my body and look at us, standing on the shore of an island in the middle of a lake, in the middle of nowhere. I press his hand against my face.

“I think you scared everyone,” I tell him.

He nods slowly, focusing on my face. “Shit. I think I gave Randy a black eye.”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s still in the green phase right now. Probably won’t be purple until tomorrow.”

He shakes his head solemnly. He hasn’t come back to me 100 percent. I’m not used to someone caring about me like this.

“Hutch, why did you walk away from me when I woke up?”

He turns away from me. “I guess I scared myself into thinking that I had lost you. When you opened your eyes, I can’t even explain what I felt. It was like little pieces that were starting to break apart inside me came back together. You were
breathing
. And there they were, everyone looking down at us, when all I wanted to do was kiss the warmth back into you.”

“Thank you,” I tell him. “For saving my life again. I have nothing to give you back, you know. It’s getting pretty annoying.”

“I haven’t been shaken up like that in a long time. I’m starting to realize—” His midnight eyes are too intense. I feel myself getting lost in them. Screw it, I’m already lost in this man, and I don’t think I can find my way back. “I’d go crazy without you.”

“Careful with that kind of talk.” I tug on his chin. “They might throw you in psych.”

“Come here.” He pulls me into a hug. I want to do away with these wet clothes and create some body heat. I tell him about Jillian and our plan with the tents for tonight. “I don’t know about bringing Jillian and Simmons into this.”