I had no desire to go under. The same way I had no desire to even get into the damn water in the first place. But like thedutiful soldier I was, I nodded my head and pushed under the surface, my curses turning to bubbles that I wished were warm.
They were not warm. Nothing was.
Everything was dark and cold. An obvious thought, but still one that came to me as I essentially tried to drown myself and gain a good hefty dose of hyperthermia to really round out the entire experience.
I had no idea how long I tried to fight my natural urge to get away and breathe, but eventually I had no choice but to submit. Like the bad bitch I pretended to be, I shoved all the concerns down and I meditated to calm myself down. My logic being that I would either die looking cool and unbothered or be rescued. Either worked for me because as much as I loved being an independent woman, I also had no objections to being a damsel in distress sometimes if it got me out of a situation I didn’t want to be in.
Eventually it worked, and I stopped fighting against the unnaturalness of being stuck under freezing water. I stopped trying to jump out or scream or panic. I went deadly still and calm like a corpse. Only because I realized the truth and knew one thing for certain about my dad and his plan. I trusted him. I knew he had not brought me out to the middle of nowhere to murder me, and that this was a test – a game.
Becoming strong was easy enough when you wanted to do it. But remaining strong when you wanted to give up? Almost impossible. That was what we were here to learn – that was why I was under the water and damn near drowning myself on my dad’s orders.
My thoughts were only confirmed when after an eon of death wrapping me in her arms, a hand gripped my shoulder and I was yanked from out of the water just enough that I was allowed to breathe once more.
My lips were quivering, the wind as sharp as knives as it caressed my skin, and I could barely hear a thing as my dad bent down to face me.
“What do you do when something is hard, and you want to quit?”He asked, words almost a buzz of wind and nonsense.
I never answered with more than huffs and puffs, and he persisted. And as nice as it was to complain, I would not be allowed back onto land until I gave him what he wanted. Though it was for my benefit, I was a little bratty with my tone because hello – I was fucking freezing!
“What do you do, angel? What do you do when the deck is stacked against you and there seems no chance of winning? When you want to give up and say no because everything is wrong, and you hate your situation with every fiber of your being?”
God, I knew the answer. I knew it better than I knew my own name and despite the cold inside my bones, the shivering of my body, and the frustration in my tone, I replied to my father with the words he wanted to hear that had been ingrained into my DNA since birth.
“I keep fighting.”Speaking hurt. It took far too much effort to even make my words sound normal.
“Why?”
“Because Montana’s never quit.”I hissed, pushing through the pain.“We always keep trying, even if it hurts. We do not give up. We do not surrender, and we do not die without a fight. Montana’s are strong and brave even when the world is against us.”
There I went with the magic words, giving my father exactly what he wanted me to say and truly understand.
He yanked me out of the water, instantly wrapping me in his coat, almost drowning me in faux fur. My entire body shookas I stuffed my unresponsive feet back into my boots and bit down on the extra swear words I wanted to let out.
“And just like that, you’ve won – you have won every battle you face because you will not quit.”He laughed as he waved me toward the cabin we had come from, about a half mile away on the shore.“Go get dry and warm and I’ll make you a hot chocolate – you did good. Beau took far longer to stop struggling against the cold.”
I frowned.“Beau came here?”
“When he was fifteen.”Dad replied.
“Why? That’s way younger than me.”I had turned twenty barely a handful of days ago.
He glanced away from me, smile falling just enough that I noticed it.“Your uncle needed some guidance at that age – he needed a little push into becoming the man he was meant to be.”
“He was probably being a brat because I was born.”I tucked my hands under my armpits, trying to force some heat back into them.“He always said he was mama’s favorite until I came along and stole her, so perhaps he acted out because he was jealous of me.”
I always thought my uncle was jealous of me or perhaps a bit sad that he had never been as naturally outstanding as I was. Whenever he’d thought I wasn’t looking, he’d always stared at me with a weird sort of look in his eyes that, had I not trusted him with my life, I would have been confused and mildly concerned about.
He looked at me the same way I looked at candy on my period – the way I stared at a good hot chocolate, freshly steaming and covered in cream when I was sad.
I loved those things, but they were only there because of my pain.
“Your mama did not have favorites.”Dad snorted, but it was half-assed, and I decided he was perhaps thinking aboutsomething, and chose to remain silent instead, leaving him to his thoughts.
We walked back to the cabin, and once I had showered, dried and dressed again, my father ushered me into the kitchen for some hot soup and drinks. I was still shaking, but it was a lot better than before, especially with a pair of fluffy socks on my feet that had little rainbow colored cars all over them. I didn’t know a thing about cars, but my uncle Malone had gifted them to me as part of my birthday gifts from him – he was a mechanic – and so they were my new favorite pair to wear. He’d said his youngest son had helped him buy all my presents, and I was shocked at how great they’d done, considering we’d never met. Whoever it was had weirdly figured out what sort of things I liked, and I was baffled by how a man as scary and brutish as Malone had made a son that was so in tune with women. I presumed Retta had been more of an influence on them than mytíoand that was how they had such a good eye for pretty things.
The moment my dad poured some steaming tomato soup into a bowl and lay it on the rickety wooden dining table before me, he broke his quiet mood with yet another thing that made me wonder what was on his mind.
“Are you happy, angel?”He asked.
