Copyright 2018 by Colleen Hoover

Splashing.
I continued to swim.
She continued to scream.
Nothing.
I heard another splash.
More nothing.
I kept swimming and refused to look back until I could feel the mud seep
between my toes. I gripped at the surface of the lake like it was a life vest. Crew
was gasping and coughing, bobbing up and down, clinging to me. It was harder
than I thought it would be to keep him afloat.
Jeremy would thank me for this. For saving Crew.
He’d be devastated, of course, but thankful, too.
I wondered if we’d sleep in the same bed that night. He would be exhausted,
but he would want to sleep in the same bed as me, hold me, make sure I was
okay.
“Harper!” Crew yelled as soon as he cleared his lungs of water.
I covered Crew’s mouth and dragged him to the shore, plopping him down
on the sand. His eyes were wide with fear. “Mommy!” he cried, pointing behind
me. “Harper can’t swim!”
Sand was all over me, stuck to my hands, my arms, my thighs. My lungs felt
like fire. Crew tried to crawl back toward the water, but I pulled his hand and
made him sit down. The ripples from the commotion of the water were still
lapping at my toes. I looked out at the lake, but there was nothing. No
screaming. No splashing.
Crew was growing more and more hysterical.
“I tried to save her,” I whispered. “Mommy tried to save her.”
“Go get her!” he screamed, pointing out at the lake.
I wondered then how it would look if he told anyone I didn’t go back out into
the water. Most mothers wouldn’t leave the water until they’d found their child.
I needed to get back in the water.
“Crew. We need to save Harper. Do you remember how to use Mommy’s
phone to call Daddy?”
He nodded, wiping tears from his cheeks.
“Go. Go to the house and call Daddy. Tell him Mommy is trying to save
Harper and he needs to call the police.”
“Okay!” he said, running up to the house.
He was such a good brother.
I was cold and out of breath, but I trudged back out into the lake. “Harper?” I

---

said her name quietly, afraid if I called too loudly, she’d get a second wind and
pop up out of the water.
I took my time. I didn’t want to go too far and risk touching her, bumping
into her. What if there was still life in her and she clung to my shirt? Tried to
pull me under?
I was aware I needed to be out here when Jeremy showed up. I needed to be
crying. Cold. On the verge of hypothermia. Bonus points if I was taken away in
an ambulance.
The canoe was upside down, closer inland than when it flipped. Jeremy and I
had flipped the canoe a couple of times before, so I was aware there were air
pockets when it was positioned like it was. What if Harper had swam to it? What
if she had clung to it and was hiding under it? Waiting to tell her daddy what I
had done?
I worked my way to the canoe. I moved carefully, not wanting to touch her.
When I reached the capsized boat, I held my breath and went under the water. I
popped up inside the canoe.
Oh, thank God, I thought.
She wasn’t there.
Thank God.
I heard Crew calling my name from far away. I ducked under the water and
popped up outside the canoe. I screamed Harper’s name, full of panic, like an
actual devastated mother would.
“Harper!”
“Daddy is coming!” Crew yelled from the shore.
I started screaming Harper’s name even louder. The police would be here
soon, before Jeremy.
“Harper!”
I went under several times so that I’d be out of breath. I did that, over and
over, until I could barely stay afloat. I screamed her name and didn’t stop until a
police officer was pulling me out of the water.
I continued to scream her name, throwing in the occasional, “My daughter!”
and “My baby girl!”
One person was in the water looking for her. Then two. Then three. Then I
felt someone fly past me, onto the dock. He ran to the end and jumped in head
first. When he popped up, I saw that it was Jeremy.
I can’t describe the look on his face as he yelled for her. It was a look of
determination mixed with horror mixed with psychosis.
I was crying real tears at that point. I was hysterical. I wanted to smile at how
appropriately hysterical I was, but I didn’t because part of me knew I had

---

messed up. I could see it in Jeremy’s face. This one would be even harder for
him to recover from than Chastin.