Sink or Swim

"Ooh! Look at that!" my friend, Hannah exclaimed, pointing out the window of our bus.

"Woah," I agreed. The Colorado landscape was breathtaking in the summer. We both marveled at the bubbling river that ran alongside the road.

My friend Hannah and I had signed up for "Adventure Camp" with our church group. Over the summer, we both had to work extra babysitting jobs, and do extra chores at home to earn enough money to go. But, it was all worth it. After arriving the day before, we had already spent one night in tents, and we were looking forward to or first full day of activities.

"So, you're going to be my duckie partner, right?" I asked. A duckie is an inflatable, 2-person kayak, that can withstand some minor rapids.

"Um..." She looked away.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

"Yes, it's just that I already promised Grace that I would go with her."

"Oh. That's okay," I lied. I had truthfully hoped we could be partners.

"I'll just... find someone else." I began to ask around if anyone still needed a partner. Most people had already partnered up, or said they were going in the giant raft. I slowly made my way to the back of the bus, to ask the people there. This person, let's just call her Sally, sprang up out of her seat and gave me a giant bear hug. "Hey, I haven't talked to you in such a long time!" She said as I managed to wriggle out of her deadly grip.

"You chatted with me the ENTIRE way up yesterday," I muttered under my breath.

"Well, 12 hours is a pretty long time, am I right?" Sally said so loud she was almost yelling.

"It's more like 15 hours, Sally," I automatically corrected.

"Whatever. I told you to call me Sal, remember?" She impatiently stuck a hand on her hip. "So, do you have a duckie partner? Because I don't! I call sitting in the back, because..." this continued for about 2 minutes. I tuned her out after about 30 seconds.

"I'm going to see if anyone else needs a partner..." I started.

"The only other person left is Tristan. I'm not going with him!" She stuck her hand on her hip again and began yet another rant. To make her stop talking, I gave in, and told her I would be her partner. She talked about random things nonstop for the rest of the ride, until we got to the riverbank. Then, she just started jumping up and down like a five-year old who just got birthday cake.

"I'm. So. EXCITED!!!!!!!!" She said each word like individual sentences as we pulled our duckie out of the trailer.

Before we could disembark, our guides gave us a safety talk that lasted about 20 minutes. I couldn't hear most of it, because Sally was rambling on and on about how mad she was at her boyfriend. The entire time, I had a gut feeling that something was going to go wrong. Unfortunately, I chose to ignore that little voice, and trust Sally. We climbed into the duckie, me in the front, Sally in the back.

"Alright, rafters! Make sure to follow the safety guidelines as we go down this bad boy of a river," shouted our guide over the roaring river. "Always remember, the person in the back is in charge. Let's go!"

Wait, I thought. I don't remember hearing that.

"Sal-," I started, but it was too late. She had already pushed our kayack off of the river bank, and we began to float downstream. Trying not to lose it, I practiced some of the paddling techniques that I picked up from the safety talk.

"Hey! You're not doing those right!" Sally screamed at me. "You need to paddle at the exact same time as me, but in the opposite direction. Like this!" she began to awkwardly slap the water with her paddle. I rolled my eyes.

"When I say left, you paddle right, and visa-versa. Okay?" Sally didn't even give me time to answer, and started "paddling" again. The whole way up, I struggled to keep up with her constant commands, such as "Right! Left! Right! Left! Left! No, you're other left!". We almost never went in a straight line, floating to one side, then choppy paddling pushing us to the other side. One of the guides even pulled his duckie next to ours and told us to get our act together. What was even worse was when I saw Hannah and Grace nimbly speed their way past us. I almost cried.

After three hours of torture, we were finally close to the clearing where we would eat lunch. So far, nothing had gone terribly wrong. Yet.

"We'll stop and eat lunch up ahead, right after this rapid." Our guide told us. "Make sure to follow the raft, this one's especially rocky!" Looking up ahead, I saw rocks of all sizes and shapes ominously sticking up out of the violent waves, like jaws of death waiting to snack on inflatable kayaks. I gulped.

"C'mon! Let's beat everyone to lunch!" Sally yelled at me, and began to paddle furiously. Again, I rolled my eyes, knowing there was no stopping her.

We made it halfway through the rapid without any major problems, until we came across THE rock. It was just like any other rock: brown, speckled, about 3 feet wide. The problem was its location. The rock was adjacent to another large rock, which caused a mini-current that was unavoidable. Sally kept on screaming at me to paddle left, then right, then left again as the rock pulled us closer, and closer. She gave up commanding me, and shrieked when we flipped over.

If this were some easy going kayak trip to a slow-moving, non-rocky river, we would've popped right back up and got back in our canoe. We would've maybe even laughed about it!

But this was the Arkansas River.

The next thing I knew, I was halfway trapped under the kayak, floating downstream, backwards. The rocks scraped at my legs, while the frigid water found its way into my mouth and nose. Every breath I managed to take in, I screamed for help. Every time I tried to pull myself up and out of the water, I was pulled back down, overtaken by the current. I have never felt that scared in my entire life.

Then, like a ray of hope, I saw a paddle thrusted out towards me.

"Grab on!" I heard my friend Hannah yell. So, I held tight to the paddle as she swung me around and into her kayak.

"You okay?" Grace asked as they maneuvered us to shore. I was shaking and crying too hard to even process what had just happened, let alone her simple question. It took me ten or so minutes to calm down before we ate lunch. As I snarfed down my sandwich, Sally started walking towards me. I was so mad at Sally that I pretended not to notice her.

"I'm sorry," she said plainly, and openly. Those two words completely caught me off guard.

"You what?"

"I said I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have been so bossy. It wasn't until we flipped that I realized how mean I was being." She looked sad. Defeated, almost. I felt so terrible for being so rude. So, I decided to make it right

"It's okay," I grinned. "I'm sorry too for getting frustrated with you. I'm sure I would've cracked under the pressure if I sat in the back." We both shared a smile.

"Sooo," Sally smirked. "Do you want to be my hiking partner tomorrow?" My immediate thought was to blurt out 'NO!', but instead I stood there with a dumb look on my face.

"Just kidding!" She laughed loud enough that I'm sure it caused a rock slide somewhere. I laughed too.