Page 47 of Reset

She shrugged. “It was a long time ago. No big deal.”

“It’s no big deal?” He would have let the comment drop if it’d been thrown out flippantly to end the conversation. Instead, it looked like she really meant it. And that made Ryan mad all over again. “You obviously don’t know me, or you would never tell me food isn’t a big deal. It’s one of the reasons we live. And I don’t mean eat to live, I mean live to eat. Food—good. The more, the merrier. And not just nutritious crap. I’m talking about the good stuff—cake, and pie, and cheese, and pizza. Everybody should have as much food as they want. All the time.” He frowned at her, offended by the stupidity of her comment. “Especially kids.”

Sarah burst out laughing. “Thanks for sharing your manifesto with me.”

“I’m serious,” he said.

“I know you are, and it’s sweet. You also need to remember that you’re reacting to something you just heard. Whereas I dealt with my parents’ neglect a long time ago. I know what it’s like to be hungry, cold, alone in the dark, and scared. And I’m sure that sounds awful, but those are also good lessons to learn, aren’t they?”

“Stats.” He slapped a hand over his heart. “You’re killing me here. Those aren’t things a kid needs to learn.”

“How else am I supposed to look at it, Ryan? Should I bemoan how tough I had it? Constantly live in the past? Hold a grudge against the people who should have cared for me instead of abandoning me? What’s the point in that? The only person it makes suffer is me. So, I take the good and I move on. Look at it this way. Assuming I live until I’m eighty, less than twenty percent of my life will have been crappy because other people were in control of it.” She beamed at him. “Plus, it wasn’t all bad. School was good.”

Damn it. He really wanted to kiss her again. “I’m really regretting that I can’t remember you, Stats,” he told her instead.

He’d expected her to blush and lower her eyes. As usual, Sarah didn’t do the expected. “If you’re very good and we live through our swim, I might find the time to remind you of all the things we did together that you’ve forgotten.” She blinked, and her eyes widened as though surprised at herself. “I mean, verbally. I’ll tell you about them. Most of them. Not all of them. Crap.”

Ryan couldn’t help laughing at the hole she’d dug for herself. “Sorry, Stats. I heard you the first time. There was no mention of a nice little chat. So, I’m just gonna let my imagination fill in the details on what that memory jog will look like.”

“Pervert,” she muttered as a blush crept up her throat. She took a deep breath. “Ryan, I really can’t hold my breath that long. I don’t see how I can get through to the other side of the pool. I think it’s probably best if we split up. You can go ahead and bring back help to get me out of here.”

What? Hell no!

All humor fled. “That’s not happening, so get it right out of your head.”

“It’s logical. If I go in there with you, I’ll panic and we could both drown. I’ll be perfectly safe here until you come back with help.”

He was already shaking his head. “We don’t know how long it will take for me to get out of here. It could take days, weeks even. Who knows? We’ve got no idea where we are or even how far underground we’re sitting. You could starve to death before I make it back. Or run out of water.”

Sarah gestured to the pool. “I have water.”

“Stats, drinking that will make you sick. It isn’t just the limestone that’s making it cloudy; there’s a whole load of crap in there.” Including one bloated rat carcass that he really didn’t want to dwell on. “It’s nowhere near clean, and we’ve no way of filtering it or boiling it to make it even remotely drinkable.”

“It makes sense, Ryan, you ha—”

He reached out and cupped the back of her neck, bringing her face closer. “I’m not leaving you here alone. It isn’t happening, so stop telling me to do it. If we can’t swim out, we’ll find another way. Together. Got it?”

Sarah nodded and wet her lips before replying. “What do I need to do?”

Damn, she slayed him with her courage. Reluctantly, he released her. “First, we practice staying calm.”

“Well, that should be easy,” she muttered.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

For more than two hours, Sarah practiced different types of breathing. Ryan made her lie on the stone floor and place a hand on her abdomen while he taught her how to breathe properly.

“Deep breaths make the belly move. Shallow moves the shoulders,” he explained. “We want to use all of our lung capacity for this. Okay?”

When that was over, they moved on to a technique called box breathing that Ryan had learned in the military to keep calm while under fire or in enemy territory. Inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, hold for four seconds, and then repeat.

“This will help you to relax before we go under the water. The more relaxed you are, the less oxygen you use,” he said. “You want to move as little as possible too. That’s why all you’re going to do is float while I swim us both to the other side.”

And bang went the relaxed breathing. “What about you? Won’t you use a whole lot more oxygen if you’re dragging me along with you?”

“Stats,” he said, “I can hold my breath for five minutes while swimming full out, and for a whole lot longer if I’m just lying there.”

“Show-off,” she grumbled.