Page 64 of Amnesty

Sadie hates the rain.

“Go.”

I leaned down and kissed her, soft and not too quick. When I lifted my head, she cupped my jaw. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I went, but the entire drive, I wondered if I’d done the right thing. In the parking lot, fat raindrops began to fall—slow at first, but by the time I made it to the entrance, rain was hammering the pavement with an angry force and the sky had turned up the volume with sound effects.

On Sadie’s floor, the night nurses saw me coming. I thought they might argue with me like they used to with Am, but this time was different.

“She’s been asking for you,” they told me.

I didn’t stop or even comment; I just went on past and pushed into her room without knocking.

Sadie was curled up on her side, arms wrapped around her knees while she rocked back and forth.

Whenever I looked at her, it was like a shovel to the midsection. For a second, it was hard to breathe. She was the same, but she was also different.

A loud boom of thunder rumbled overhead, and she made a small sound.

The side of my lip curled up. “Still scared of the rain, huh?”

She jolted, surprised to see me there, but recognition was fast and her look turned to relief. “You drove here in this?”

“Heard you were asking for me,” I said, pacing across the room and dropping on the end of her bed.

“I missed you,” she said. “I’ve missed you for so long.”

Another shovel to the stomach. This one left me feeling slightly dizzy. She reached her hand out to me, and I gave mine.

“I missed you, too,” I told her.

“I think about that night a lot.” She confided, leaning a little closer as she spoke. “The night I fell into the water.”

“What happened to you that night, Sadie?” The words burst right out. I knew it was too soon to ask, but my God, I’d waited so long. Scenario after scenario had played through my head over the years.

Her brow furrowed as though she were thinking about it, trying to remember every last detail. “The current was so strong. I remember trying to swim against it, my arms burning with the effort. The water was so dark. It was so hard to tell which way was the right way.”

“I searched for you. I screamed your name,” I told her. “I swear to God, Sadie, I tried so hard to find you.”

“I know you did,” she whispered, holding my hand a little tighter. “I heard you screaming. I tried to call out.”

“What happened?” I asked again, the pain from that night returning and making my chest hurt.

“I came up for air. My lungs burned so much. Just when I got a few breaths in, I was sucked back under. The next time I came up, your voice sounded so much farther away. I called out to you, but I was so weak I barely even heard myself.”

“Ah, Sadie,” I murmured, scooting a little closer across the mattress.

The room was lit with a bolt of lightning and thunder roared outside the window. Sadie jumped, her hand falling out of mine.

“It’s just a little rain.” I promised.

She didn’t seem very convinced.

“Cross my heart,” I said, making an X over my chest.

A smile I thought I’d never see again transformed her face. “Hope to die.”

I grinned, and together we said, “Stick a needle in your eye.”

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