Chapter 22Gabe carried me out of the river at a waterfront park. We reached the west shore of the Willamette just south of the Hawthorne Bridge. As soon as I could, I let go and walked on my own. Water streamed from my clothes and hair, forming tiny spirals as it returned to the river.
“I can pull the water off your skin,” Gabe said as he helped me keep my balance, “but I don’t like to. I worry about accidentally sucking water out through someone’s skin.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It is bad.”
We scrambled up the rocky shore to a paved path. No one had seen us, or no one cared about two teenagers walking out of the river. Cars drove past on the nearby bridge and street. Ahead, I noted a couple strolling, their attention on each other. A brown-skinned man wearing swim trunks lay on a towel on
