Out of Breath (Breathing, #3)(39)

When I glanced back up, Cole had disappeared.

I could hear laughing and hollering around the other side of the cliff. I gritted my teeth as I kicked towards the boats, coming into view of the other swimmers. Meg and Peyton were still on the rock, soaking in the sun. When I neared the boat, I heard Cole plummeting into the water to reach me.

‘Holy shit, Emma! I can’t believe you jumped. Are you okay?’ he demanded, water splashing around him. All he had to do was look at me. ‘You’re hurt. Where?’

‘I scraped my leg,’ I murmured, shrinking away, holding the edge of the canoe. ‘I’ll be fine. Can we go back to the camp?’

Cole didn’t answer me right away. ‘Yeah,’ he finally replied. Turning towards the beach, he shouted, ‘We’re taking off. We’ll see you back at the camp.’

Meg’s forehead scrunched in confusion. Before she could question us, Peyton yelled back, ‘Okay. See you there.’

I gingerly lifted myself into the canoe. My entire body was starting to ache from the impact. I wrapped my leg with a towel before Cole could see the gouge below my knee, but I couldn’t prevent the blood from trailing along the bottom of the boat as he paddled out of the cove.

‘Let me see it, Emma,’ he requested sternly. ‘Let me see how bad it is.’

Hesitating for a moment, I slowly turned towards him and unwrapped the towel.

He sucked in through his teeth. ‘Shit. You cut it up pretty bad.’

I quickly wrapped the towel back around my leg, clenching my teeth against the stinging burn.

Cole didn’t speak to me as we paddled past canoes full of drunken, laughing students. When we finally arrived at the load-out, my leg was pulsing, and blood had seeped through the towel. Cole helped me out of the canoe, and I limped over the rocks to the van, where he lifted me in.

‘There’s a first-aid station at the campground,’ the driver announced, eyeing the bloody towel. ‘I can drop you off there if you want.’

‘Thanks,’ Cole said, responding for me. We continued in tense silence until we arrived back at the Stanford camp, my leg thoroughly cleaned, bandaged and throbbing profusely.

‘Emma,’ Cole demanded, the uncharacteristic strain of emotion in his voice making me raise my head. ‘Do you even know how f*cked up that was?! You could’ve seriously hurt yourself, or even died. I can’t believe …’ He ran his hands through his hair and backed away. He shook his head in angered disbelief. ‘I don’t understand you.’

I remained silent.

Cole tightened his jaw, running his hands through his hair again. ‘I need to clear my head.’ He turned away from me and walked off down the gravel road.

I watched after him as laughter poured out of a van that pulled up to unload. He deserved an explanation. But I didn’t have one that would satisfy him. Or one I understood myself.

I closed my eyes and sank back into a folding chair.

Somewhere behind me a couple of guys were talking in the obnoxiously loud voices specially reserved for drunk college guys. ‘Hey, dude, thanks for hitting me up last night. That party was sick!’

‘Were you at Reeves’s party last weekend?’ a second guy asked.

‘Jonathan’s?’ My eyes shot open. ‘Yeah, that was the best party I’ve ever been to. What school did he graduate from again?’

‘Architecture, I think. He was a grad student, though.’ My heart slammed against my chest.

I twisted around to see who was talking. Several guys were sitting at the picnic tables, stuffing their mouths with burgers.

‘Whatever it was, he must’ve landed some killer job in New York or something because that party must have cost him a ton,’ the guy in the grey T-shirt contributed.

I bent over with my elbows pressing against my thighs, trying to calm my frantic pulse. There was no way it was him. But when I turned back and saw the USC hat, I knew – Don’t wait for me. I don’t want you to be there for me, not ever. Stay out of my life.

My caustic words turned my stomach. I hadn’t thought about him since that night I’d driven him from my life. Until today. Now, with just the mention of his name, every thought of him I’d pushed away came rushing back.

We trust each other with secrets no one else knows.

I covered my face with trembling hands. I kept his secrets as my own, despite the weight they had on my conscience. I’d never told anyone what he’d confessed to me that night. And I’d tried to shut it out, to forget the horror he’d inflicted on so many lives. But that was impossible.

‘When did he say he was leaving?’

I stilled, listening closely.

‘I don’t know – either today or tomorrow, I think.’

‘Back to New York?

‘Yeah, I guess he’s from there or something.’

Giving in to an impulse, I stood up and approached the table.

‘Hey,’ I said at the end of the table. ‘Were you guys talking about Jonathan Reeves?’

The guy in the grey T-shirt produced a half smile and said, ‘Yeah. You know him?’

‘I do,’ I responded. ‘I wasn’t able to make the party last weekend. But I wanted to say goodbye before he left. Except I can’t find the email he sent. Do you still have it?’

The guy with the hat pulled out his phone. ‘Yeah, I have it right here. Want me to forward it to you?’