I nod. “I’m just—”
She’s not paying attention. She’s already shoved Hugo off the couch and is propping up the pillows for me to lie down. She quickly kneels in front of me and commences with Operation Flo Nightingale. “Is there frostbite? Can you feel your toes?”
Before I can answer, she orders one of the men standing idle nearby to get her some blankets and a tub of warm water. Soon she’s got pretty much everyone nearby helping out. She’s truly in her element. Hugo’s just standing there, and I half expect him to whip out his camera and start photographing my feet, which are a peculiar blue color, so I’m relieved when Angela orders him to go find Justin.
“Where is he?” I ask as Hugo runs outside.
“Looking for you, of course. He’s out of his mind with worry. We have fifty people out there, all looking for you,” Angela says. She stops rubbing my feet and studies me, then breaks into a sob. “Oh my gosh,” she wails, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “I was so worried about you! I really thought you were gone. You’re not just my cousin, you’re one of my best friends. If anything happened to you, I would never forgive myself.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say, leaning over to pat her back.
“Uh-huh it is! We practically dragged you here.” She wiggles my pinkie toe and I laugh, which I guess is a good sign, because she sighs with relief and moves on to the other foot. “We looked everywhere, but you just went under and you never surfaced. I’ve never seen anything like it. What happened to you?”
I shrug. I want to say something about that guy who saved me, but that must have been a hallucination. Everything about it seems tinged with gray, like an old dream. Like one of those visions I used to have long ago, when I lived in New Jersey. I think about that dark figure looming in the distance, across the river, and shudder. “I guess I blacked out. And when I woke up, I was on the riverbank, right by the Outfitters.”
She wrinkles her nose. “That’s, like, impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s fifteen miles! You floated downriver in the cold for fifteen miles and your feet look like this? And somehow the river just deposited you right on the shore in front of the Outfitters?”
I stare at her. “What, you don’t believe me?”
“No, I do. It’s just a miracle,” she says. “I’ve heard of people blacking out during times of extreme stress. Maybe you … I don’t know. It’s a miracle.”
The door bursts open, sending a swirl of cold air into the cabin. Justin rushes in, with Hugo at his heels. “Is she okay?” Then he sees me. “Kiandra, are you okay?”
I’m about to speak, but Justin looks at Angela for confirmation. “Yeah,” she says. “She seems okay.”
“The paramedics will check you out,” he says, his eyes wider than I’ve ever seen them. It looks like he’s the one who needs medical help.
Suddenly I remember the blood oozing from my back. I’d been so comfortable on the sofa I’d forgotten about it. “Oh, I—I think I hurt my back.” I lean forward and they both inspect it, moving me back and forth to see what I’m talking about.
Angela helps me pull off the wet suit. My limbs are kind of sore, but moving them feels good. The pain is a confirmation I’m alive. I sit there for a while in my long underwear, waiting for them to say something about how big the wound is or how it’ll need stitches, but I wait, and wait. Finally, I look up at their faces. Angela is squinting, not in horror, but as if she’s trying to see something on the point of a needle. Justin says, “Where?” and massages my shoulder. His hands are already warm, even though he’d just been out in the cold.
I hurt all over—but back there? No, it doesn’t ache anymore. Could that have been a dream, too? “There’s no blood?”
Someone comes with a couple of blankets. Angela throws one over me and says, “You should rest. You might have hit your head.”
The wet suit is a puddle on the ground. I lean over and pick it up, turning it over in my hands. No holes. It was a dream. Just like the ones I had in Jersey. Those used to feel so real, I’d known some of the characters in them by name. I used to miss them when they weren’t with me. I find myself flashing back to the girl in the white dress, walking along the river. Lannie.
I look up. They’re all staring at me expectantly. “Um, what?”
Angela says, “I asked if you wanted something to eat.” She looks between Justin and me. “You know what? I’ll just get her a bagel. You guys talk,” she says, and speeds off.
Justin kneels down on the braided rug beside me. “You scared me to death,” he whispers, rubbing his face tiredly.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It’s not your fault. It’s ours. I just— You’re so light. I could carry three of you, if I wanted to. Why couldn’t I pull you in?”
I shrug. “Maybe my foot was caught in the branches of a tree or something.”
He nods, but the look on his face is doubtful. “And then how did you end up here?”
I explain to him what I told Angela. “She says it’s a miracle that I made it after that long in the water.”
He lets out a short laugh. “I’ll say.”
“So I should be dead?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had it happen before. The few times we lost people we were able to get them back in the boat within a couple of minutes. That water was, like, forty degrees. How did you … Oh, right. You blacked out.” He exhales and runs his fingers through his hair. “Yeah. I thought you were probably dead.”
He gives me the most pathetic look I’ve ever seen. For the first time, his eyes glisten a little, maybe from tears, but then I think I must be going crazy because Manly Justin does not cry.
“But I’m not,” I say brightly, trying to take the edge off his misery.
“But you should be. You were gone for three hours, Ki. That’s how long it takes to get down here from put-in. And you got dumped fifteen minutes into the ride. You don’t float down the Dead River in May on nothing but your good looks and end up back home alive.” He reaches under the wool blankets and wiggles one of my toes, like he’s playing This Little Piggy. “And with all your cute parts still intact.”
I shrug. “Just call me Miracle Girl.”
He smiles. “Hell yeah, Miracle Girl. I’m so freaking relieved. How would I have explained this to your dad?”
Angela returns with a bagel with cream cheese and a mug of coffee. “You eat this and rest,” she says. “I’m going to go back to our cabin and pack, and you guys come over after the paramedics have checked everything out.”
I look at her. “Pack?”
Justin nods. “I think we’d better call it a weekend, don’t you? You can’t really want to …”
“No, it’s okay,” I say, wondering how I’d explain to my father why we came home from Baxter Park early. Besides, prom is tomorrow and it’s too late to even think about going now. The words Don’t you ever come back. It’s too dangerous play somewhere in the back of my head, but that’s no problem. It’s not like I was planning to go rafting again. And besides, that was just a dream. “We were going to hike and stuff. I still want to do that. I don’t want to ruin your weekend. You’ve planned it for so long.”
“But—” Angela starts, and then looks at Justin.
“But really, I’m fine,” I say. Plus, the idea of hanging out with Justin tonight, alone, sounds really good. I’m fine. And I’m not going to let a swim in the river and some stupid hallucination tell me where I can and can’t go.
“All right,” they say in unison, then look at each other and laugh.
I knew it wouldn’t take much to convince them. After Ange leaves, I take a bite of my bagel, and then another, and before I know it, it’s totally gone. I’m ravenous. I could eat another one. Maybe two. I also could probably sleep for fourteen hours, because my head feels heavy, almost like there’s water in my ears. I try to stand up to get to the kitchen but Justin puts a firm hand on my shoulder. “I’ll get you another, as long as you chew the next one before you swallow. The last thing I need is you almost dying again.” He rolls his eyes like I’m a toddler in danger of ruining another perfectly good onesie.