I lifted my head and looked at her.
"Juliana, will you back me up on this?"
Juliana went blank.
"Back you up on what?"
I said it slowly, word by word.
"That you're the ones telling me to go in and save her."
"That if I touch Patsy Fox, it's to save her life."
"That once she comes to, whatever she says, none of you turn around and bite me for it."
The faces of the sent-down girls went ugly.
"Dustin Delgado, what's that supposed to mean?"
"Patsy's about to die and you're standing there worrying about this?"
"She's a woman. You think she'd smear her own good name just to frame you?"
The exact words. Word for word from my last life.
I laughed.
It made their faces uglier still.
Out in the river, Patsy seemed to run out of patience. Her body dropped hard, sinking lower into the water.
The bank erupted all over again.
"She's going under!"
"Dustin Delgado, if you don't save her now, that's murder!"
Juliana panicked and grabbed at me to drag me in.
But I turned, pulled a long bamboo pole from the edge of the field ridge, and pushed it straight into the water, bracing it under Patsy's shoulder.
"I'll save her."
"But I'm not going in."
"You girls come over and haul the pole."
Not one of them moved. They just stood there staring at me like fools.
I said it coldly.
"Weren't you all in such a hurry to save her?"
"Now that it's your turn to lift a hand, every one of you just stands there?"
The girls flushed red.
Juliana clenched her jaw and finally stepped up to grab the pole.
"Don't just stand around. Get her out of the water first!"
Only then did the others lend a grudging hand.
Patsy was dragged ashore soon enough.
She was soaked through, her face bloodless, lying on the ground without a twitch.
One of the girls crouched down and patted her cheek.
"Patsy?"
"Patsy, wake up!"
Patsy didn't respond.
Someone looked over at me.
"Dustin Delgado, is she still breathing?"
"Hurry, give her mouth-to-mouth!"
I stepped back.
"I don't know how."
The girl got frantic.
"How can you not know how?"
"Last month the commune medic came out and taught us first aid. Weren't you the one who learned it best?"
"The medic even praised you, said your compressions and your breaths were the most textbook-correct of anyone!"
I said it evenly.
"All I know how to do is drag her out of the water."
"Mouth-to-mouth, that kind of thing, isn't proper for a man like me."
"Which of you wants to do it?"
The girls fell silent in an instant.
Juliana hesitated too.
She reached out and checked Patsy's breath under her nose.
"Still breathing."
"She just swallowed water."
The words had barely left her when Patsy broke into a violent fit of coughing.
She spat up a few mouthfuls of water and slowly opened her eyes.
Everyone let out a breath.
But the next second.
Patsy suddenly clutched at her collar, and the tears rolled down all at once.
She looked at me, her voice shaking.
"Dustin Delgado…"
"Why did you try to hurt me?"
