About twenty minutes later, I was standing near the pool speaking with one of our cousins when I heard her behind me. “Tessa.” I turned. She had that look she got when she had already decided something was funny. “What?” “Smile.”
I barely had time to frown. Her hands hit my upper back. Hard. My feet left the edge. Instinctively I threw my left arm out, but my right side reacted too late. I twisted in the air, hit the water awkwardly, and felt a hot tearing pain shoot through my shoulder. For several seconds, I could not tell which direction was up.
When I surfaced, people were shouting. Someone reached down. “Give me your hand.” I tried lifting my right arm. Nothing happened except pain. “My left,” I gasped. “Take my left.” Two guests pulled me toward the edge. A man I barely knew climbed halfway into the pool to steady me while a woman wrapped both hands around my left forearm. They got me onto the stone.
The man kept asking permission before he touched me. “Can I put this towel behind your back?” I nodded. “Can you breathe all right?” “I think so.” He stayed at my level rather than looming over me.
I wanted to thank them, but my teeth were chattering. Water ran from my hair into my eyes. I could taste chlorine when I swallowed.
Across the terrace, a server lowered a tray of champagne onto a table. The glasses clicked together — an ordinary person quietly setting celebration aside because something serious had happened.
Then I heard my sister, and realized she had not set anything aside at all.
I was coughing, soaked, humiliated, clutching my right arm against my body — and Lena was laughing. Not nervous laughter, not the shocked kind people make when a prank goes wrong. She was actually laughing. “Oh my god, Tessa, your face.” I stared at her. “I can’t lift my arm.” Her smile faltered for half a second. Then she looked around at the guests. “It was just a joke.”
Nobody answered immediately. My mother hurried toward me with a towel. “Let’s not panic.” “I’m not panicking,” I said. “I can’t move it.” “Someone get ice,” Dad said. Lena crossed her arms. “She landed in water, not concrete.”
Caleb was no longer beside her. He had stepped toward the doorway. Sophia followed Lena several feet away, lowering her voice. I couldn’t hear everything over the guests asking whether I needed an ambulance, but Caleb could. He stopped. Sophia said something. Lena answered. I saw Caleb’s shoulders go still. Whatever she said erased every trace of celebration from his face.
He turned and looked at my sister. For a few seconds, nobody moved. Then Caleb crossed the courtyard.