The sound of whirring helicopter blades pounding through the air woke me.
I was halfway perched on a branch in the tree with most of my lower body still swaying in the frigid water.
I looked around, dazed, and saw the new roof of my house barely sticking up out of the water nearly a quarter of a mile away.
The rest of that distance now was brown water dotted with floating debris. I looked up, too exhausted and too heartbroken to even wave for help.
The helicopter circled overhead for almost twenty minutes, then I heard its blades grow louder as it descended closer. A voice shouted instructions down to me, but the words were just noise to my grief-stricken brain.
Everything was gone.
Everything that I wanted out here had been taken away by one bad storm.
My home, my ranch, and Mustang.
Mustang.
I couldn’t bear the thought of what must have happened to him. I closed my eyes and hoped I could slip away, carried off by the water like he was.
There’s no reason to hold on anymore.
I could just let go and it would all be over soon.
It would all be over soon.
Those words resonated in my head like a warning message, causing me to sit up and take a deep breath.
What kind of thought was that?
What would my father have given for just a little more time?
What did Mustang fight so hard for overseas if not to keep living?
He could’ve given up any minute of any day, and his pain would have been over. But he didn’t.
He fought, and so would I.
For him and for my dad.
Heavy tears blurred my vision, making it almost impossible to see. A harness, lowered on a cable from the helicopter, splashed down into the water near me.
I tried reaching for it with one arm. I was so weak from holding on through the night that as soon as I took one hand off the limb the rest of me started to slip below the surface. I quickly grabbed the limb with both hands in a panic.
I tried pointing one leg out toward the cable, hoping to bring the harness closer to me by catching it with my bare foot, but it was too far out of reach.
I crept down the limb towards the harness and tried again, scraping my legs on the churned-up fragments that the flood had washed up against the tree.
Finally, I realized what I had to do.
I had to let go with both hands.
There was no way to hang on to what I was holding and still move forward, a thought that made me close my eyes against the fresh tears that spilled down my cheeks.
I took a deep breath and released my hold on the tree. I grabbed the bright red harness, spearing it with one arm just as the moving river almost carried me past it. My arm jerked back with a tearing pain ripping through my shoulder as the harness went taut.
I rested for a moment, letting the current stretch out my body while I held on to the large harness, my arm linked through it and holding on with my free hand.
Soon, I gathered the last ounce of my strength and pulled myself against the force of the water, inch by inch, until I had both arms through the harness.
The last step was to push against the current and get my head and shoulders through the harness.
Five minutes later, I still struggled futilely in the water.
I couldn’t find leverage as I kicked in the water, with my feet not finding solid objects to push against.
I fought the urge to cry and give in. I forced myself to look hard within myself to find not only the strength that I needed to do this, but also the will.
To fight.
To live.
Doubt crept back into my mind as I looked around me, realizing that all I really had to do to end this was just let go.
I was so very tired and defeated.
My numb, frozen fingers began to lose their grip on the harness.
A loud splash nearby startled me, as did the pair of hands that grabbed me roughly by the wet, torn fabric of my shirt.
I turned in surprise and stared into Mustang’s face.
“Mustang?” I yelled, confused and disoriented.
“It’s me, baby. I’m right here,” he answered grimly in a voice that sounded far away, so far that I wasn’t sure I heard it so much as felt it.
“You’re alive?” I whispered, unable to stop the tears now as they flowed unchecked down my face.
Am I dreaming?
Could I already be dead?
“How did you get here?”
“There’s no time to talk, you have to hold on,” Mustang said. “Hold onto the harness.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can, and you will.”
“No, my hands are frozen. I can’t feel them. I’m too weak,” I argued.
“You can do it.”
“I tried, I really did.”
“I know you did, but you’re not done. Come on. Do it again. Do it for me, don’t let it end like this. You don’t have a choice here.”
I felt his touch on my arms and was shocked by how warm he felt against my icy skin.
He felt alive.
He was real, and he was here to save me.
I tried for him, just as he’d asked me to.
I nodded weakly.
“I can do it.”
“That’s my girl. Hold on tight. They’ll get you out of here.”
This time, feeling Mustang lift me up, I slid through the harness and got my arms through its opening.
Mustang waved a hand in the air to signal the helicopter pilot.
I was immediately lifted up by the cable out of the horrible water. Looking down, I saw Mustang in the water below me.
He was smiling at me.
One of those beautiful smiles that lit me up from the inside.
I would never forget it.