Nolan grabs my forearms, pulling me through the angry waves to his chest, a look of pure resolution plastered over the terror on his face.

“Nolan! I’m fine,” I yell, unsure if I’m lying. Everything beneath my waist aches.

Nolan doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t let go, which turns out to be necessary. My ankle begs for me to stop, with each flog of the waves. When we’re a few feet from shore, a displaced rock smashes into my injured foot and I can feel a scream vibrating up my throat, though I don’t hear it. Nolan stoops, tries to grab me behind the knees and hoist me, but another wave knocks us both into the shallow water.

Maybe Jenna and the clever wind want me to die out here, to give my last breath to Nolan and Wally and let my body float out past the chorus of whales to wherever Jenna is. Maybe this is why I’m so conflicted about my future … I’m not supposed to have one. I close my eyes and imagine never opening them, to see how it feels.

But I remember Nolan and jerk my eyes open, scrambling to find my footing in the water. He’s still half holding me, dazed.

“Are you okay?” I ask, pulling on his shirt when he doesn’t move. “Nolan, answer me!”

He remains still, one hand cradling my head and the other awkwardly cupping my elbow. Then he is looking down at me, and in a rush he says, “If they had lived, if I saved them, there would be—” He’s cut off by a wave, and once we rid our mouths of water, he finishes. “There would be no Orman.”

It’s dark, we’re both in over our heads—literally and metaphorically—and we need to dredge ourselves from the lake, but I find his eyes in the storm. I don’t know who they are or if Nolan could have truly saved them, but I know Orman has rescued countless people, in the way only powerful stories can, and that can never be a bad thing.

“Just because it came from something terrible doesn’t make Orman less beautiful,” I say. “You weren’t wrong to write it, Nolan, no matter where it came from.”

This is not the time or place for a meeting of souls. More waves knock against us, their frequency and magnitude breaking our eye contact, but I must have said something right because Nolan finds it within himself to drag us to the shore, our bodies impossibly heavy as we emerge from the water.