Chapter 12
In my dream, I found myself back in my hometown.
By the river, I swam alongside my best friend and another girl named Daisy Harton.
I turned away for just a moment.
When I turned back, my best friend was trembling on the riverbank, and the water’s calm surface betrayed no trace that Daisy had ever been there.
The police and parents arrived. Daisy’s parents wept with gut–wrenching despair.
My best friend explained, “She insisted on going to the deep water. I couldn’t stop her, and then she sank.”
But I remembered–it was my best friend who had always wanted to go into the deep water.
When I woke up, I was lying on a hospital bed.
A dull pain throbbed in my abdomen.
I touched it lightly, feeling the bandages wrapped around me.
Lloyd suddenly entered the room and grabbed my hand.
“Don’t touch it!”
“Did they take my kidney? Are both still there?”
“Both are intact,” he replied.
I laughed weakly. “Thank you.”
Lloyd waved off my gratitude. “It wasn’t me. It’s mainly thanks to that policeman who saved you. But he’s off chasing the culprit now, so he can’t come to see you.”
Just as he finished speaking, the door to the room burst open.
“Sweetheart! How are you, my girl? How could you not tell me something this serious? Do you want to scare your mother to death?”
My mom rushed in, her eyes red, and hugged me tightly.
I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Mom, I was so scared. Mom!”
“Don’t be afraid. I’m here now. Come home with me, and don’t be mad at me anymore.”
I hadn’t expected her to still remember the fight we’d had six months ago.
Lloyd stood by the bed, smiling.
I introduced him to my mom. “Mom, this is Lloyd. He saved my life.”
