Page 64 of Grinch Girl

But they didn’t leave—they just changed tactics.

The hands stopped tugging and moved down my thigh, to my knee, to my calf, to my ankle—oh! Trying to investigate the cause of the hold on me. Smart, my brain mused from a long distance away.

Everything was kind of tunneling out now. I was vaguely aware of my chest screaming in pain and the fact that I couldn’t feel any of my extremities. But mostly there was blackness seeping in from the corners, about to overtake every thought.

The hands were furiously tugging at something I couldn’t feel. My foot, maybe?

Suddenly, Icouldfeel a change near my foot. Like my toes were stabbed with needles. And there was a…loosening. An arm wrapped around my chest, and I was being tugged to the surface.

I was free!

I was too cold to move my arms or legs so I went as limp as possible and allowed my rescuer to pull me up. When my face broke to the air, my lips parted. I needed air, but I was overcome by racking coughs and some horrible choking.

“Please breathe.”

I managed to gasp in some air. The intake was so high-pitched it sounded like a scream.

“That’s it. Again,” the voice said. I was still being held aloft by their arms. “Your b-boot was stuck under a b-branch. Just h-had to unz-zip and g-get your f-foot out of it.”

With another gulp of air, my head began to clear, and I opened my eyes.

Bella clung to me with one arm, the other clutching the pier with a white, frozen-clawed hand.

Bella?

Bella was the one who saved me? Bella jumped off the pier into the winter water—by herself. There was no one else on the pier. She must have seen me fall and sprinted straight to me.

She was the one who wouldn’t leave me when I was stuck.

Her lips were cobalt. It was strangely pretty. Of course Bella would look pretty half-drowned. “Hey, Bells,” I said in wonder. “Your lips match your eyes.”

For the rest of my life, I’d remember the relief that settled over my childhood friend’s face in this moment. The laughter that cackled out of her. “J-Bird, you aresuchan idiot.”

Chapter Twenty

You’ll be spendingChristmas Eve together this year. A sleepover in the house. Talk all night and toast me with mimosas on Christmas morning. *That* is the life celebration I want.

I climbed the stairs to Greta’s house, breathing deeply to counteract the twinge in my chest. I hadn’t been over here since she passed. Bella had been staying here all month—how could she stand it?

But Bella’s relationship with Greta in the last decade had taken place outside of this house. They’d taken dozens of trips together and celebrated holidays out of town. The last time Bella spent significant time in this house had been before college, so it made sense that grief didn’t knock her sideways.

I’d been in and out of this house on a daily basis for much of my life and especially in the last several years when Greta needed so much care. I could hear her voice in every room, hear her footstep around every corner.

“Merry Christmas,” Bella said as she opened the door. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, and she wore a long maroon sweater over gray flannel pajama pants.

I shifted the overnight bag on my shoulder and held up Greta’s favorite bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon in one hand and a grocery bag full of snacks in the other. “I brought provisions.”

We hadn’t really spoken since she fished me from the depths of the lake two days ago. We’d been too weak to pull ourselves out of the water, but Michael had heard our shouts and came running. Then the entire population of the bonfire camerunning, including the cameramen. Since I’d been too out of it to edit footage the last couple of days, I’d briefly worried about my fall ending up in theSingle Bellsepisode. But Carol had let me know that they’d made an executive decision to cut any mention of the incident. If the goal of the web series was to increase tourism, we certainly didn’t need to showcase my dumb-ass behavior that highlighted danger.

My ill-advised little swim had given me a brief fever and cold symptoms, so I’d spent most of the time since then sleeping. In my brief waking moments, I saw Nate’s frantic eyes when he’d run out onto the pier and the way he’d whipped off his coat and wrapped me in it before Michael insisted on driving Bella and me to the hospital, just to be safe.

Can we talk on New Year’s Eve?

That’s what I’d texted him yesterday. I didn’t necessarily have any more clarity on my feelings about us than I had at the bonfire, but I owed him a much better explanation. As well as an apology for being so shitty and hurtful.

He hadn’t responded.

As I followed Bella back to the kitchen, I wished I knew more about Nate’s Christmas plans. Did he have Chicago holiday traditions with friends? Did he ever go back to England for Christmas? Did members of his huge family come here?You’d know all the answers to these questions if you’d just behaved like a sane human being and went out on a date with him when he’d asked.

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