Never Have I Ever(108)
But now I was under. I kept my eyes on the shark, and all these things were in me here, down beneath the water.
Last of all I thought of Roux. That winded, sucking noise. Her glossy eyes, gone empty. I wrapped all these thoughts up tight in Roux’s dead arms, and then I let her go. She had such weight, and like a weight she sank.
It would all come back, of course. As would Roux herself. I’d done what I had done, and I would have to live with any hauntings it earned me. Honestly, she was a quieter ghost than Mrs. Shipley. But she would come, carrying home to me all the things I’d wrapped up in her arms.
I would only bring them down again. Open my hands. Let them drift deeper to wait, out of sight but present always. As many times as needed, I would bring them here, and I would let them go.
Maddy tucked her arm through mine, squeezing. I checked my gauges. Eighty-eight feet down, and at this depth we didn’t have a lot of no-stop dive time. In a few minutes, we would need to turn back, make our slow way up the slope, leaving the shark to keep my secrets company.
The bull shark finished her pass and lost interest. She turned away. We didn’t look like anything she ate, and she didn’t care for our noisy bubbles. We stayed vertical, watching her sleek, muscular body undulate and surge. She disappeared into the darkness and the blue. The way everything does, eventually.
Acknowledgments
When I first had the idea for Never Have I Ever, the way I thought scuba would work, both technically and thematically, was way off. My first open-water dive changed both me and the book; everything that Amy says about getting under is gospel. It is a meditation, it is peace; it is also unearthly beautiful and hella fun. If you get the chance, go.
Thanks to SeaVentures in Alpharetta, Georgia (especially Claude Smith), and Emerald Coast Scuba in Destin, Florida, for teaching me to dive, taking me down again and again, helping me scout, invent, and amalgamate submerged locations, and answering my endless questions—including the ones about how to commit crime underwater. I’ve shorthanded some details so as not to bog readers down in the technicalities, but any straight up errors are my own.
Thank you, Emily Krump, for your enthusiastic response when I handed you the first few chapters and said, So . . . this is different. Can I do this? Your wholehearted encouragement allowed me to run full tilt in a new direction, and I am having the best time. Ugly-cry-level gratitude to everyone at Morrow whose passion has both anchored and buoyed this book: Liate Stehlik, Lynn Grady, Jennifer Hart, Tavia Kowalchuk, Kelly Rudolph, Kathryn Gordon, Maureen Cole, Kate Schafer, Libby Collins, Mary Beth Thomas, Carla Parker, Rachel Levenberg, Tobly McSmith, Ploy Siripant, Mary Ann Petyak, Shelby Peak, Julia Elliott, and Maureen Sugden (aka she who took the word “near” out of every other sentence).
I am grateful to Alison Hennessey and Raven Books for giving Never Have I Ever such a perfect home across the pond.
Thank you to my agent, Caryn Karmatz Rudy, for all the things over all the years. I can always count on you for honesty with a support-and-Campari chaser, and I appreciate you more than I can say.
Thank you to the writerly cohort who always has my back: Karen “the rabbit” Abbott, Sara “night whispers” Gruen, Anna Schachner, Reid Jensen, Ginger Eager, Jill James, and Dr. Jake Myers, who speaks fluent lamb. Thanks, Alison Law. Lydia Netzer, you are, in fact, the strongest person of any size.
Deep affection and eternal gratitude to literary agent Jacques de Spoelberch, who pulled my query out of the slush pile and told me I had a voice.
I love you, Scott. I love you, Sam and Maisy Jane. I love you, Betty, Bobby, Julie, Daniel, Claire (our newest Jackson!), Erin Virginia, Jane, and Allison. I love you, Dad. So much. I love you, people of Slanted Sidewalk, small group, and The New Revised Standard Dinner Club. I love you, board members and teachers and students in Reforming Arts, and I believe with you that our voices matter. I love you, STK and First Baptist Church of Decatur, for trying to make the tent a little bigger every day.
Most of all, thank you, person-holding-this-book. Because of you (and the righteous hand-sellers and bookish big-mouths and librarians who helped this book find its way to you), I have the best job in the world. I’ll keep writing as long as you keep reading.