First Chance Book 6

Zepp

The sun is blinding me. I lift my hand to shield my eyes, trying to get a clear view of her—Rush, my little sister.

Our parents, born in the early sixties and teenagers by the seventies, were rock music enthusiasts. They met at a concert, fell in love, and the rest is history.

Fast forward to the nineties, when I was born, they were still jamming to the same tunes. They even named me Zeppelin, after Led Zeppelin, because Stairway to Heaven was playing on the night they think I was conceived. Rush got her name from the band Rush, thanks to Tom Sawyer playing on her likely conception night.

They could have been more creative, maybe named us after a band member, but no, they went with the whole band.

Rush is four years younger than me, just eight years old. We’re on a family vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Our parents decided to sleep in, so they let Rush and me go for a walk along the ocean, right behind our hotel.

It’s not even noon yet, but the humidity is already unbearable. The beach is crowded with people trying to escape the heat.

“Zepp, I want to go swimming,” Rush runs up to me, her voice filled with excitement.

“Mom said we couldn’t, remember? That’s why they let us come down here. We have to wait until they’re with us.”

“But it’s so hot, Zepp. Just a quick dip, I promise. I won’t tell. Pinky promise.” She holds out her pinky and gives me her best pouty face.

She knows I can’t resist that face. I’m the big brother, always looking out for her, always spoiling her.

“Alright, but only for a few minutes. We need to dry off before we go back upstairs.”

“Yes!” she shouts, kicking off her sandals.

I find a spot on the sand to drop my shirt, making sure it’s out of the way. Rush adds her clothes to the pile, and soon we’re cooling off in the ocean.

“Don’t go out too far, Rush. Keep the water below your knees.”

What was supposed to be a quick dip turns into an hour-long swim. We take turns running from the waves, seeing who can outrun them the best.

Eventually, she convinces me to let her bury me in the sand. We borrow a shovel from another kid and she starts to dig.

I use my hands to help make a shallow hole, big enough for me to fit in.

“Okay, help me get out of here.”

“Nope. Get out yourself.”

Rush walks away, heading towards the edge of the ocean. I call out to her, “Rush, help me out of this.” She turns around, laughs, and runs off.

I try to free myself from the sand, but it’s not budging. I can’t see Rush anywhere. There are too many people in the water.

A kid walks by and I ask him for help. He starts to dig me out, and soon I’m able to move my limbs and free myself. That’s when I hear it.

A woman’s desperate cry. “Help! Help! She’s drowning!”

I look towards the sound, praying it’s not Rush. She knows better. She knows not to go out too far. She knows the ocean is dangerous.

I find the woman who’s screaming. She’s crying, terrified for the person who’s drowning.

Three men are trying to reach the victim, trying to save them from the relentless ocean.

All I can see are hands slapping the water, disappearing and reappearing with each wave. Until they don’t reappear.

And all I can think is it can’t be Rush.

The hands are gone for what feels like forever, but one of the men finds them and pulls the small hands back to shore.

It's Rush.

***

I wake up with a start, my alarm blaring. Thank God it was just a dream. Tears are welling up in my eyes. I wipe them away and throw off my blanket.

I get up and head to the bathroom, flicking on the light. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, but when they do, I stare at myself in the mirror.

I always wonder if others can see the pain I’m hiding, if I’m an open book.

This dream, this nightmare, comes every year around this time. In the weeks, the days leading up to the anniversary of the event that really happened.

The day Rush drowned, the day I couldn’t save her, the day I let her wander off.

The day that broke my parents, shattered their dreams, the day I was supposed to be watching my little sister and I let her swim in the ocean.

All because of a pouty face and a pinky promise, something so childish even for me at twelve.

Brown eyes scrunched up in sadness, pink lips puckered in a pout. A look she gave me all the time, a look I’ll never see again.

Rush didn’t die that day, no, she was saved by a stranger who became a hero in my eyes.

I blamed myself, him, even my parents for letting us go outside without them that day. I made us all responsible for what happened to Rush.

Do you know what happens when the brain doesn’t get oxygen for too long? It’s called Cerebral Anoxia. Brain damage can occur after just three minutes without oxygen. The doctors think Rush went seven minutes without oxygen.

Rush is alive, but she’s not the same person she was, or could have been.

Without oxygen, brain cells die. That’s what happened to Rush. She suffered severe brain damage and was in a coma for six weeks.

We stayed in South Carolina for four of those weeks, until it was safe enough for her to be flown home by medical helicopter.

She wakes up two weeks later, but she’s not really awake. She’s in a vegetative state. My hope for her recovery shrinks to nothing. My parents’ eyes are filled with blame and anger, all directed at me.

Then, a week later, she stirs. It’s nothing short of a miracle, but she’s different.

They run MRIs and CT scans, monitoring her brain, tracking its healing. She’s suffered brain damage from the accident.

Rush is left with long-term memory loss. She has to relearn how to talk, how to walk. She has to relearn everything an eight-year-old should already know. Some things, she struggles to grasp.

Her speech is slow, her walk unsteady. She’ll never be able to live alone. She can’t take care of herself, and she’ll never have the chance to lead an independent life.

In a matter of minutes, she lost everything. She lost her future.

Today marks fourteen years since the day Rush’s future was stolen from her because of a choice I made.

The nightmare always returns, the harsh reality of what happened and what I could have done to change the outcome.

Music is my escape. It’s my way out of every situation I’ve had to face, my escape from Rush, from my parents. It’s my escape from the guilt that it wasn’t me who drowned.

***

“The only thing a person can ever really do is keep moving forward. Take that big leap forward without hesitation, without once looking back. Simply forget the past and forge toward the future.”

— Alyson Noel