The Survivors

Chapter 10: Patience

10

PATIENCE

I lay submerged at the bottom of the icy lake until my skin started to swell and feel slimy. I waited until dark to drag myself onto the beach and out of the murky waters. I made it only a few feet out of the water before I gave up, exhausted, my body splayed out on the isolated western coast of the lake. My temperature was so low that my muscles were seizing. I had never been so cold in my life.

 I knew I had to get out of the wind, out of the cold, and out of those clothes, but I could not will myself to move. There was a bright waxing moon in the cloudless sky. On the day of Corrina and Felix's rehearsal dinner, the moon had been in its first quarter. That was only thirteen days ago. My life had turned completely upside down in less than two weeks.

Now, with the evening wind turning the water to ice on my skin, I tried to feel the pleasant heat that came from my memories of Everett. It wasn't working.

I felt my senses dulling and imagined this is what it must feel like to die. So when I heard Mark Winter's voice in my head, I knew was hallucinating.

"Jesus, Sadie," his ghost voice said. I didn't respond. I felt something large and soft and warm around me, and suddenly there was no earth below me and the moon was moving in the sky overhead.

This was real.

 Mark had picked me up off the ground in one, fluid movement, and now he was carrying me away. He ran impossibly fast, my entire body covered in a blanket, protecting me from the forest he ran through. I could tell when we stopped climbing and descending and knew that we'd reached the even terrain of Flathead Valley. As the blanket draped away from my face, I could see the blur of light and houses, cows, barns, and fences as we sped by them in the dark. He took me to the hotel I'd come to with the Winters, halfway to Kalispell. But why Mark? Where was Everett? Wasn't this exactly what my knight in shining armor was supposed to do? (How quickly I had been reduced to the damsel in distress.)

 I was mildly aware of the thoughts of hotel employees who were incredibly concerned that this man was carrying this woman, nearly passed out and visibly shaking, up to a room. They did nothing, of course. Another strange human quality that made it to my list-knowing something is likely going terribly wrong and doing absolutely nothing about it.

  He brought me to my room and lay me on the bed.

  "Sadie," he said again, shaking me. "Sadie, come on," he said. I could only hear his voice. He was projecting; that's why he was here instead of Everett. "Snap out of it," he urged.

 I couldn't move.

 "Ahhh," he said, frustrated. "This isn't going to work. You need to be dry first." I became aware of him rummaging through my suitcase. "Sadie, you need to get into dry clothes." I could hear how stressed he was. "Sadie, please. You probably can't feel how cold you are, but even for you, it's not good."

 I wanted to get into the dry clothes, but I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. He rubbed his face and hair with his hand. "Please forgive me," he said, partly to me and partly to himself. "Sadie, I would love your help on this, but you aren't responding, so I'm going to change your clothes for you," he said.

  He sat me up and cradled my body in his arms. I heard an echo in the back of my mind. It felt far away, like someone was calling to me down a long hall. The sound got louder, as if the voice was running toward me. Sadie, no! He's going to see you naked! He's going to see your scars! It was my voice. I was screaming at myself. I knew the voice was correct, but my body couldn't respond. I was helpless.

 Mark fumbled with the hem of my shirt. He knew how modest I was. He knew I would not have wanted this, but I had heard the helplessness and the concern in his voice. I hadn't left him a choice.