Page 37 of The Other Brother

Mel insists on calling Mum to tell her what happened, and I have to deal with my parents confused praise. I’m guessing when they realized Mel was calling them about me, they were expecting I’d pulled off some prank, not heroics.

Mel takes the phone and retreats to the kitchen. She tells them how I’ve been great, cooking dinner nearly every night and helping with stuff. I can hear the surprise in my mum’s voice from my position sprawled on the couch.

Cody’s watching me closely. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just a bit of a delayed reaction,” I say. I take another swig of my coke and swallow before continuing, “I think that was the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”

“You looked so confident, in control. Like you knew exactly what you were doing.”

“I was shitting myself,” I confess.

Cody runs his hands through his curls. “This kid from my class, Jason, once had an epileptic fit right in front of me. He was thrashing on the ground, and I just froze. And what’s worse, we’d been given this training only a few months before about what to do if Jason had a fit, how to keep him safe, and I couldn’t remember any of it.”

“It was kind of the opposite for me,” I say. “Like my brain regurgitated all this stuff that I’d learned ages ago and didn’t think I would remember.”

“You should think about becoming a doctor or nurse or something.”

I snort. “I don’t think I could get through all that study.”

Cody just gives me one of his looks. “Seriously, keeping calm under pressure is something no one can teach. You either have it or not. And you definitely have it.”

I try to school my face so I don’t reveal how much his words mean to me. Would I like to do something like that? Maybe. The idea of doing a job where you’re not stuck in an office, a job where you get to help people definitely appeals. But I don’t know if I’d want to be stuck inside a hospital either.

Mel finishes her conversation and comes back over to us.

“Mum and Max are coming home on Saturday,” she tells me.

Saturday. Two days away. The buzz I was feeling from Cody’s praise drains away.

“Oh, okay,” I say. “That’s earlier than expected.”

“Yeah, so you can head home Saturday morning if you want.”

If I want. Yeah, it’s actually so far from what I want, it’s not even on the same continent.

“Why don’t you stay here a bit longer, hang out?” Cody suggests, not meeting my eyes.

“Surf forecast is good for the weekend. I might hang around for that,” I manage.

As I take another sip of my coke, my chest tightens, and I don’t think it’s anything to do with the rescue.

Instead, it’s due to something I’ve been trying not to think about.

My time with Cody is ending.

Chapter10

That night I’m surfing with Cody when he falls off his board and starts to sink.

I desperately try to reach him, but he moves further and further out of reach. He slips under the water, and I dive down, but he’s sinking so fast, and my lungs scream for air. I know if I go back to the surface, he will sink by the time I dive back down. Panic surges through me, my lungs are on fire, but I refuse to go up. I can’t leave Cody…

“Ryan.” Someone is gently shaking me.

I open my eyes. It’s Cody sitting on the edge of my bed.

Oh, thank God. He’s here. He’s safe.

I don’t think. I sit up and lean into him, shuddering as I try to get my breath back. My heart pounds in my ears, a rapid, frantic beat that shows no sign of slowing.