Remember When **Under MAJOR Editing**

Chapter 22

I swam like demons were chasing me, like my boyfriend was drowning in front of me. When I reached the spot I thought they'd be, I tread water and shouted into the darkness, "Dade!"

"Mya!" he shouted back, faintly over the roar of the ocean, way down the beach where the current had swept them.

I swam in that direction. Then I felt the current catch me too. It pushed me along too fast for comfort until suddenly, thankfully, I tripped over a warm body in the cold water and reached down to grab it.

Instead of grabbing me back, he shook my hand loose and struggled to the surface on his own. Dade panted, "Zack can't swim. I've got him. Help me," and he was underwater again. There was no way he would let Zack go, and there was no way I would let Dade go. We would all go down together. I took one last breath.

"Mya we'll get Zack," Stephanie said, swimming past me. Another junior girl followed her, and they both dove under.

A wave crashed on top of me and pushed me down. In the blackness I put out my hands for Dade and felt only the sandy bottom where I didn't expect it. I didn't know up from down.
And then I felt him. Put my arms around him. Shoved off from the bottom as hard as I could and kicked until I ran out of breath, kept kicking past that threshold where I had to take a breath, kept kicking.

We hit the cold night air and both gasped.

"I'm okay," he heaved. "Get Zack."

"We've got him," a girl shouted.

"I've got Dade" said Mike gliding beside me. "Mya, just get to shore."

"We've got her," Mckenzie and Lily said. One of them put her arm across my chest and said what lifeguards say. "Stop struggling and relax."

I didn't want to struggle and take them down with me, so I lay back in the water and let them tow me. I knew how to do this. I'd taken my turn being the victim in months of lifeguard training. I glided across the surface, the water cold but seeming warm compared with the colder air. I looked up at the sky and saw a universe of stars.

Closer to shore they handed me off. A boy's solid arm wrapped around me. I could tell from the shouts that Dade and Zack were handed off too, a lifeguard relay.

My back raked across the sand, and the strong arm let me go. I flipped over and crawled the rest of the way up the beach to collapse in the frigid wind, one of a long line of parallel bodies. I allowed myself three deep breaths to recuperate, then sat up to look. "Zack," I said, finding his bulk on the sand. I called, "Is Zack okay?"

"He's okay," the junior girls called back, all four of them in unison.

Beside me, I touched Dade's soaked T-shirt stuck to his hard, flat stomach. "One," I said. There were seventeen people on the swim team, and I had to make sure we were all accounted for. "Two." I counted aloud to sixteen. "Where's seventeen? Who are we missing?" My heart beat frantically as I stood up and scanned the dark beach. "Oh God, where's number seventeen?"

"You're number seventeen," Dade said.

"Oh." I fell to my knees in the sand beside him. "I need another nap."

"I need another beer," Gabriel called. Boys cheered their agreement.

"I need another cast," Dade said. "And some crutches. My dad's going to kill me."

I put my hand on his stomach again. I was still mad at him. Seeing his life pass before my eyes hadn't changed that. But I felt better with my hand on his stomach. "I'll take you to the emergency room." "I'll call my brother to take me," he said.