Page 145 of Forbidden Lessons

She hesitates at the edge of the creek, wobbling as she balances on one of the big, flat rocks scattered about. I stop beside her, waving at the water.

“Go on.”

“It is going fast, isn’t it?” she whispers.

“Yeah, ‘cos I’m not a filthy liar like you.” I give her a little shove. “Go on.”

She looks down at herself. “But my new shirt.”

I look at the white t-shirt she’s got on. “Is not.”

“Is to!”

I poke my finger through a small tear at the back of one sleeve. “Got a hole in it.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, so quiet I can barely hear her over the thundering creek.

Her eyes are glazed as she stares at the churning water. “Will I really die if I go in?”

“Probably.” I shrug, and jump in. The water rushes around my feet, almost tipping me over. “But heaven’s gotta be better than this dump, right?”

“No such thing as heaven,” she says firmly.

I look over at her and see that familiar set to her jaw. She gets it whenever I tell her she can’t do anything. That she’s too small, or too weak, or too girly to do it. I suppose I shouldn’t tell her that, but she’s just a kid.

And a girl at that.

Ezra says females are useless. Their only purpose is to get preggers. Which makes me feel bad for my Aunt Rose. Mom said she can’t get preggers, that’s why they have so many dogs.

“Only one way to find out!” I yell at her, making a point of splashing around in the surging water. It’s so cold it’s makingmy teeth chatter, but I love the way it hits my body, pounding against it so hard, but it doesn’t hurt at all.

Except when it hits my bruises of course. Those always hurt.

Haven peels off her t-shirt and lays it carefully on the rock beside her, then she squares off her shoulders and jumps into the raging creek. She stands with arms outstretched, wobbling on the rocky river bed, and then gives me a bright, victorious smile that made my heart light up.

A second later, she’s on her way to find out if heaven exists.

She told me once God hated her because he killed her mother and turned her father into a mean, nasty animal.

Maybe it’s true, because the river changed that day. It went from playfully pushing me around to trying to drag us both under like a murderer. All because Haven jumped in.

I barely react in time to grasp her arm, and then I’m knocked off my feet, too. It’s like an invisible hand dunks my head under the water. Once, twice, three times, until my nose and throat are burning from icy water going places it shouldn’t.

“Haven!”

An arm flashes, a sliver of a leg, but there’s too much frothing, churning, angry water between us.

“Haven!”

She bobs up like she heard me calling her name, and tosses her head to look back at me. The terror in her eyes makes me want to pee myself, because I’m so far away I can’t do anything but watch her struggle to stay afloat.

Until she hits the rock splitting the flow of the river almost in half.

Horror flashes into pain.

I hear her scream before water rushes over her. But she’s pinned against the rock just long enough for me to reach her, to catch her, and to haul her against me before we’re swept down the river again.

Yards later, I snag the root of a fallen tree. The storm water must have uprooted it last night, because it was still standing the last time me and Haven were in this area.

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