Page 122 of Loving Wild

Because she hasn’t beenout on the water for a while, Lauren’s hesitant at first to take a passenger on the jet ski.

“I’ll take Soph with me,” I tell her. “Ava knows what she’s doing. You take her out, then if there are any problems, she’ll know what to do.”

I watch as she pulls on her safety vest and zips it up. Her boobs squeeze together and almost burst out of the top once she’s done.

She looks up and catches me admiring the view.

“A life jacket has never looked so sexy,” I tell her with a wink.

Dad takes the younger kids out in the boat, Zac and Coop take Louie and Charlie out on the jet skis to wakeboard, and Lauren and I head from the lake and along the Murray.

Aware that Lauren’s still a little nervous, and that there’s always at least one idiot we’ll likely come across along the river, I keep our speeds low.

We spend almost an hour travelling up and back down the river then back to the lake, Lauren picking up speed as her confidence grows.

Pulling up close to where I can see Dad on the boat, I look across to Lauren.

“How was that?” I call out as she idles beside me.

“Great,” she says with a grin. “Like riding a bike . . .”

I don’t catch the rest of what she says as the sound of a boat engine fills the air.

I look over my shoulder to see Dad’s boat racing towards us. It takes a beat before I register Dad’s not upright but leaning forward over the wheel.

Bella and Grace, Cooper’s twin girls are hanging on to the sides and screaming.

“Move, move, move,” I shout, still not fully comprehending what’s happening.

I move my ski out of the path of the boat, Lauren reacts but is a few seconds behind me, and when the boat sharply veers in our direction, it clips the back of her ski, sending both her and Ava into the water.

* * *

I wake with a jolt.The antiseptic smell of the hospital hitting my senses before I even open my eyes.

“Sorry,” the dark-haired nurse says as she reaches around me and presses some buttons on the machine Ava’s hooked up to.

My daughter’s in an induced coma.

Ava took a blow to the head when she came off the jet ski.

Lauren’s in another hospital with a severe concussion.

My dad’s dead.

My dad’s dead and I haven’t even begun to process that yet.

I don’t want to, I’m not ready.

My eyes hit Dani as she stirs in the chair she’s curled up in, a hospital blanket thrown over her. I’m not sure when or how she got here, I’m not even sure what time it was whenIgot here, but I can see from the window behind my sister, the light is starting to fade.

The accident happened yesterday. Ava and Lauren were both airlifted to hospitals back here in Melbourne.

Cooper and Jess drove me here, staying with me while Ava was assessed, then taken for surgery to relieve pressure on her brain and cauterise the bleed.

That was in the early hours of this morning, Coop and Jess leaving when Ava was out of recovery and brought here to ICU.

And now we wait.