Page 174 of Whistle

“Bodhi!” I roared, blinking water from my eyes and struggling to see. “Goldilocks!”

A wave slammed into my face, making me sputter, and I dipped below the surface to avoid the worst of its assault. Under the water, I opened my eyes but could see nothing farther than my own hand.

The look on his face as he had fallen flashed behind my eyes, and I broke the surface again, screaming his name.

Whirling in a circle, I squinted through the misty fog drifting over the surface. The air here was just as cold as the water, the scent of damp earth and mildew permeating my nose. This river was rocky, the rushing water slamming into the stone obstacles like it dared them to stand in its way.

A tremor of fear came over me that he had hit one of those formidable rocks and was broken, bleeding, and unable to swim. Another vision of him smacking his head and sliding into the current only to be swept under and drowned assaulted me.

I gagged, the vision so abhorrent I couldn’t even swallow. I started swimming frantically. We only had so much time. I had to find him.

“Em-mett!” My name, as two syllables, carried over the tumultuous surface, reaching me in broken parts.

I let out a wail or perhaps a whimper, and if I’d been standing, I would have been brought to my knees.

“I’m here, Bodhi!” I roared, catching sight of something flailing about, water splashing as he thrashed. “Here!”

Through the dark and riotous water, our eyes connected for the briefest of seconds. And in that second, all was right with the world.

Almost as if Satan himself felt my palpable relief, he decided to rise and test me once more. A vicious wave knocked into Bodhi, and he disappeared from sight.

“No,” I croaked, cutting through the water, fighting tooth and nail against the current to get to where he’d just been.

He resurfaced farther downstream, sputtering and hacking but still alive.

Still alive.

“Keep swimming,” I called, changing direction, ignoring the exhaustion in my limbs. Swimming was my entire life, and now I would use it to save my future.

“I c-can’t,” he said, nothing but a pale head above the dirty, churned-up water.

“You can,” I demanded, gasping for breath. “I believe in you.”

He disappeared from the surface again but, this time, did not reappear.

And it was his absence that opened the door for my own trauma to pull me under.

“How much longer, Lance?” I spat, scrubbing a hand over my face.

My body was tired from a long practice and then a gym session, but really, my physical exhaustion had nothing on how exhausted my heart was.

“I don’t know.”

I bit down, teeth cutting into my lower lip. “We said when we came to Westbrook it would be different. That we would be.”

“I’m not sure I can do it,” Lance whispered.

My heart cracked. “Do what? Be with me?”

He shook his head. “Choose.”

“Choose between what?” I asked, trying—forever trying—to understand.

“Between you and the rest of my life.”

The words were an arrow that found its mark. Reducing me down to an either-or instead of an everything.

“You don’t have to choose,” I reiterated, wondering what I meant. Did it mean I’d stay in the closet for him? Or did it mean I’d let him go?

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