Anything but Ordinary(43)

Free and easy, Bryce thought. She turned over to float on her back. Dead man’s float. She wondered if she was drifting, or if the clouds were drifting, or both.



Time had passed. She was being dragged out of the water. Her back scraped the edge of the pool. She struggled to her hands and knees on the patio.

A voice above her asked tensely, “What the hell are you doing, Bryce?”

Sydney. With difficulty, Bryce stood up to face her sister. Then she abruptly turned to go through the open doors, dripping water on the basement tile, and vomited into her hands.

Alarmed, Sydney followed her quickly, watching her retch. She ducked outside to the pool, and came back with the blue bottle. “Oh my god, Bryce. Are you drunk?”

Bryce froze, disgusted, holding back the next round of vomit. She was sobering quickly.

“Go take a shower,” Sydney said, either trying to hold back laughter or vomit of her own. Bryce couldn’t tell. “I’ll take care of this.”

“No, don’t,” Bryce said, wiping her hands on her shorts, trying to stop the ground from spinning.

“I’ll take care of it,” Sydney repeated.

Bryce had little choice. Her clothes felt almost too heavy to move. There was vomit in her hair.

She stood in the shower until her hair was rinsed clean. Then she sat down, her bare backside and thighs on the white porcelain tub, her legs crisscrossed, letting the hot jets hit the back of her head, her neck, sending a feeling of intense calm through her spine and all the rest of her. All the mistakes washed away, at least for the moment.

When she came out of her room, dressed in a new T-shirt and basketball shorts, it was evening. Sydney was gone. At least she seemed to be. She was usually gone by now.

Bryce was overcome by her sister’s absence. By the emptiness of the house. What would she do, all alone here? What she normally did, she guessed. But what was that? For some reason, she couldn’t remember.

“Bryce?” she heard Sydney’s voice above her. “I’m upstairs!”

Bryce’s anxiety melted away. She found Sydney lounging on the couch in front of the TV, wearing men’s boxers and a tank top.

“You’re not going out?” Bryce asked.

“Not tonight,” Sydney responded, her eyes on the screen.

Bryce’s first instinct was to ask if she could sit down. On her own couch. Next to her own sister.

“Nothing’s on,” Sydney said.

Bryce sat down. “That’s okay.”

“So,” Sydney said, absently landing on a channel. A school of jellyfish appeared on the screen, part of some nature video. “What was that all about?”

Bryce sighed. The problems she had washed away were crawling back. “I messed up.”

“You mean you got messed up?” Sydney turned to her with a wise smile. “Because that’s what it looked like.”

“Both.” Bryce turned her gaze to the jellyfish. They glowed unnaturally on the screen, their white translucent skin dominating her vision.

“Tell me why,” Sydney said.

Bryce didn’t want to answer that. “I’m sorry I drank your vodka,” she said instead.

“It’s fine; just tell me why you drank it.”

One jellyfish had broken off from the pack. Its tentacles jutted out to suffocate a sea star. Bryce became immersed in finding the sea star’s flashing orange legs among the pink-white neon of the jellyfish. She had to fight the urge to follow it through the midnight water, reminding herself that it was just on screen.

She turned back to Sydney. Bryce could tell her sister, she decided. She had to get it all out somehow. “You promise you won’t tell?”

Sydney made a noise for “Are you kidding me?”

“Okay,” Bryce said. She took a deep breath. “I’ve been…seeing Greg. Behind Gabby’s back.” Bryce closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see Sydney’s reaction.

“Wow,” she heard Sydney say. “Huh. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Bryce opened her eyes. Sydney wasn’t shocked or disgusted. Sydney was facing her, her head resting on her hand, looking steadily at her sister. She wasn’t wearing eyeliner. She looked younger. Softer. More like the old Sydney.

She sat up. “Yeah…” Bryce said. “Me neither.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” her sister asked.

Bryce clenched her teeth, images from last night running through her head. She flashed to the anguished look on Greg’s face as she walked away from him. “I already broke it off.”

Sydney shrugged. “So, great. What are you torn up about? Do you still love him?”

She pressed her palms into her eyes. “I do. And he loves me. He wanted to go away together, but I said no.”

Sydney stayed quiet.

“Part of me thinks since I already screwed up, I should just go all the way. Just take him back from Gabby and get my way, and everyone else be damned.”

“You really think you could do that?” Sydney said with a half smile.

“I don’t know.” Bryce shrugged, even though she knew the answer was no. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Do what you want, and not care about what anybody else wants, or thinks?”