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03

03

I ran for as long as I possibly could, until I made it halfway around the lake and sat down on the hard stones of the surrounding forest.

The moon was full tonight and I pushed my body back against the ground so that I looked up at the stars, the bank of the lake at my feet.

How could he do this to me? He knows that Casey is my friend, and he knows that this party is a party of someone at my school.

He knows.

I ran my hands through my hair and broke down, tears steaming down my face. Although it was a year ago, I couldn't forget my summer with him. No matter how hard I tried nobody could ever help me move on.

I couldn't stop thinking about him.

I don't know how long I'd been out here for, but I heard footsteps so I sat up quickly and moved from the edge of the lake out of the moonlight.

"Mae?" Tristan said, slowly edging towards me. I could tell it was his voice.

I hopped up and stepped out of the shadows behind the tree, tears still streaming down my face.

"How could you...?" I said.

"I didn't know-"

"No you did. You knew Tristan!"

I stepped back and he reached for my hand, softly touching my skin before I pushed him off me. His face dropped and his frown glowed in the moonlight. He knew that I was hurt, but obviously he was too. I don't see how this situation made him hurt. How could I have possibly hurt him in this situation?

"I didn't honestly know Mae. You said you had gotten over me."

"I never told you that."

He dropped his head in what seemed like shame, and I looked over his body. He had become quite stronger since I had last seen him, and his arms were bulging out of the fresh shirt he had thrown on.

"Tristan, why are you here?" I asked, hoping he would look me in the eye.

"I just wanted to see you, it's been a long time."

Although my heart fluttered a little bit, I knew that wasn't the reason.

"So... what's the real reason?"

As he went to open his mouth, a cry came from the lake next to us. Damn it.

Both of us turned towards the lake and there was a young couple in the water of the lake. The raft they were in had overturned and both of them were drunk and not wearing life jackets.

I knew something would have to interrupt us right at that moment. Tristan didn't even think before running into the water and throwing the grey baseball cap off of his head and onto the dirt ground next to where I was standing. I watched as some partygoers made their way down the hill from the house and into the lake, after some guys tried to swim in to where the couple were calling for help.

Some people at the party were noticing the commotion, and many of them made their way down to the lake, most of them were drunk though – so it's unlikely they would be able to do anything.

Tristan was struggling to make his way over to them in the dark, and I saw the reflection of the house in the lake overshadowing the raft that was over turned.

I quickly ran after Tristan and dove into the edge of the lake.

When I went under, the unclean water filled my mouth and gave me the taste of dirt. I rose up to the surface and grimaced, coughing the slight bits of bark out in my mouth.

I kicked my feet and moved my arms, pushing my body to reach Tristan in the water.

A guy was screaming for help as he was pulled from the edge of the lake, where some other guys helped him up.

I reached Tristan and he dove under the raft to overturn it - when us and the others that had swam to the raft – all stopped and looked puzzled.

There was no girl.

"It's Rebecca, she down there! Her jeans got caught on a branch under the water," the guy from the edge of the lake shouted. He was out of breath and he wrapped a towel around his broad shoulders. I tried to stay afloat by remembering every technique I had learned in school to keep myself above water.

Tristan dove further down and rose to the surface moments later, the girl with a blue face and her eyes sealed shut.

People started shouting at us from the edge of the lake and we all managed to swim her over to the edge, where some girls and guys pulled her out from the edge and put her on her back on the grass.

We slowly crawled out of the water, my clothes heavy from the dirty water that was soaked into my clothes. I crouched over, my body finding it hard to breathe. Dozens of people crowded the girl, and someone who claimed they knew CPR was kneeling next to her, pumping his fists on her chest.

"Someone call 911!" he called, after failing repeated times. I stood at the edge of the group, water dripping off my body and into the soft grass below me.

Tristan turned back towards the lake and shook his head, as if he was about to say something he'd regret.

"We don't have time," he whined, turning back. It took an idiot to do the math. We were out of town and most emergency services would be busy on a night like tonight. The group of people turned to him and he started calling out orders to everyone so that he had a plan of action to save her life. I stood back and watched the scene unfold.

Within minutes, Tristan backed his car out of the front yard of the house, and looked back in his rear view mirror to see the girl lying on the back seat, accompanied by some people, who continued to try and revive her.

I jumped into the front seat, and I looked over to see his intense face, stressing and anxious about the girl in his back seat, the vein in his forehead bulging out.

Three minutes later, they managed to revive her, but she began wincing about something, and she had a branch of some sort impaling her leg in the thigh, which the guys must have missed before. There was blood all over her jeans, and getting over the back seats of Tristan's expensive car.

"Can you drive any faster?" I asked quietly, in between turning back to help the guys in the back who were trying to get her to stay calm and breathe properly, but it wasn't working.

"Ah no, sorry I can't. There's this thing called the speed limit Mae."

I rolled my eyes, this wasn't the time for sarcasm and he knew it.

We sped along the dark highway, and I looked at the clock of his car. It was nearly three in the morning, the emergency room would probably be hectic at this time of a Saturday morning.

When we arrived, we all ran in together, and the girl – whose name was Kelly, she was Cody's cousin apparently – was carried in by Tristan bridal style. He tossed me his keys and I locked up his car, then running in after them, the doors opened and suddenly the smell of antiseptic hand gel wafted into my nose.

The nurses flooded to us with a bed and we placed her down, and they explained the situation. I stood back. Hospitals weren't really my thing. I sat down on the waiting chair and watched Tristan stress over a girl he had only met twenty minutes ago. He clenched the side of his wet shirt, then running his hand through his wet hair, which was hanging outwards in small curls.

"Tough night?" I asked as he came and sat next to me, his elbows resting on his thighs and his head resting in his hands.

"Someone nearly died."

"I know Tristan, just calm down. They revived her, she should be fine now."

"But she might not be," he softly said. The others walked to another wing, deciding they were going to stay the night waiting for Kelly to come out of surgery.

I took a deep breath in and handed him back his car keys. "What?" he asked, looking at the keys in his hands.

"Take me home."