Left Drowning(43)

“No,” he says, sounding more sober than he has all night. “No, it’s not. I’m a prick.”

“You are. But it’s going to be okay. You went into the deep end of the ocean. I know what that’s like. But now we’re both back.” I cross the room to be by Sabin’s side. I’m not afraid; I am just sad. “Let him go, Chris.”

Chris looks at me for a moment and then at Sabin. “Are you done?” he asks softly. “Did you get it all out?”

“Yeah.”

Chris continues to keep his voice level, almost like a parent talking to a misbehaving child. “If I let you go, and you make one wrong move, I’ll have to—”

Sabin throws his hands up in surrender. “I swear to God.”

“How about you not mention God again for a few minutes?” he says, a touch of a smile on his lips. When Chris releases him and backs off to stand with the others near the door, I wrap my arms around Sabin’s shoulders and hug him. I hold him tightly.

“Don’t hug me,” he says, his arms resting at his side. “I’m a bastard.”

“You’re not a bastard. Look, I know what it’s like to want to lash out. I’ve been there.”

Sabin shrugs.

“So hug me back,” I say.

And then he hugs me back, and he feels like Sabin again. He feels like part of me.

I hear Chris talking softly to Estelle, and I look up from Sabin’s embrace. “It’s over,” I hear him say. “Please don’t be upset. Everything is fine; no one got hurt. No one was going to get hurt. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Do you hear me?”

She looks blankly at him, but her eyes are rimmed with tears.

Chris keeps talking. “I wasn’t going to hit him. You know that, right? I would never do that.”

I turn Sabin so that he can see Estelle’s broken expression. “Go tell her it’s over. But just let her have her God. I don’t care if you don’t like it. It’s important to her. Let her have what she needs. Estelle never pushes her beliefs on you. She never tells you that you’re going to hell for not believing in God.”

“I know.”

Sabin is worn out. I can see it in the way he moves to her. She brushes past Chris and flies into Sabin’s arms. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault, Sabe.”

“Never. You didn’t cause this. I’m so sorry, baby girl. With everything that I am—although that may not seem like much now—but with everything that I am, I promise this will never happen again.” Estelle nearly disappears in his big arms. “You keep your faith. Always. I won’t ever try to shoot it down again. On my life.”

“I’m tired now.” She has wilted into him, and he has found the strength to hold her up. “I want to go to sleep. You’ll stay with me?”

“Anything you want.”

“Chris, too. Everyone.”

“Of course,” Chris says.

The six of us leave the battle scene and start to cross the hall into my and Estelle’s room.

“So,” Eric says in an inappropriately casual voice, “we may need to discuss your mattress situation, Chris.”

Chris stops in his tracks. “What?”

“It might be a little … damp.”

“Possibly frozen,” Zach adds.

Chris just shakes his head.

Eric staggers ahead into the room, dragging Zach behind him. “Hey, next time ask someone else to catch the roof surfer.”

“Trayer!” Sabin yells. “The word is trayer!”





CHAPTER FOURTEEN


Breathing under Water


The sun has barely started rising when I wake up. I must have been exhausted to be able to fall asleep sitting up. At least my futon is in the couch position, and except for the fact that my legs are aching from the weight of Sabin’s head in my lap, I’m comfortable enough with my back against the mattress. I had the good sense to change out of my holiday dress clothes and into sweats and a T-shirt, so that helps. Sabe is still lightly snoring, and I gently smooth his hair away from his face as he takes a deep breath and snuggles into me, tucking his arms under my legs. Eric and Zach are unmoving, entwined next to us under the blanket that I’d tossed over them.

I rub Sabin’s back. His T-shirt is drenched in sweat, but I touch him without caring. I want him to feel, even in sleep, that I am crazy about him. I am unfailingly devoted to him.

Maybe someone else would be too disgusted with everything that he did last night to be near him, but I’m not. I know that he should never have touched me the way that he did. I hate that he forced that unwanted kiss on me and that he violated the safe friendship we have, but I forgive him. Easily. The way that he lashed out, the way he did what he could to push me—push all of us—away was a test. He was trying to prove that we would leave him.

None of us will do that. That’s why we are all here together—because you don’t run after devastation. You stay and hold one another close. At least, that’s what you’re supposed to do, I’m learning.

I kiss my fingertips and touch them to his forehead before wiping the clammy sweat from his brow. My phone vibrates next to me. Funny how I keep it close to me at all times as though I am always waiting for … I don’t know what. Something. I take it from the bed and read the text.