The Rest of the Story(58)

Bailey looked at her brother, who was spinning Taylor out as she tilted her head back and laughed. To Vincent she said, “Are you going to scream?”

“I’ll try not to,” he replied.

They joined the group, Vincent pumping his hands over his head while Bailey, less enthused, shifted from side to side. When April saw her and stuck out a hand, however, she took it, doing a little spin. When everyone else applauded, I saw her smile, but just barely.

Back against the wall, alone, I wished I could have captured this moment like those ones on the fridge. Posed, or spontaneous, I wouldn’t have cared. I just wanted to remember it, every detail, long after this night was done.

“Saylor.”

I looked up: Roo was standing in front of me. “Yeah?”

“Want to dance?”

I felt myself blink. Of course he’d think I’d want to be part of this: I was here, too. But all my life I’d felt more like an observer than an active participant. Beside the wheel, not behind. It was safer there, but could be lonely too, or so I was now realizing. Maybe there was a middle ground between living too hard and living at all. Maybe, here, I was finding it.

“Sure,” I said. Then he stuck out his hand, I took it, and he pulled me in.

I danced. We all did, there in that small dark room lit with tiny white lights, spinning and bumping each other and laughing. We made our way through a couple of April’s playlists, then one of Jack’s, before finally Vincent was allowed to take over DJ duty. Two songs later, when my head was throbbing with happy screaming and my dress literally stuck to me with sweat, April threw open the door and announced we were going swimming. No one hesitated except for me.

“But you can swim,” Roo said. “Right? Because if not, you should have told us that first night out at the raft. Strong lake rule, that one.”

“Yes, I can swim,” I told him. “I just haven’t here. Yet.”

And why was that? Because no one else had been swimming and invited me. Once again, it was all the actions of other people, like Bailey, that made my own life happen: Blake, my first kiss, even the prom I’d almost attended that night. I was like those pieces of litter I sometimes saw swept up on windy days and carried down entire streets. You just look up and there you are.

I watched now as Taylor took off her corsage, carefully laying it on a porch rail. “I’m going in,” she announced before shaking her hair back and running down the grass to the dock. At the end, she leaped off with a shriek before disappearing into the dark water. We all cheered.

“My turn,” April announced, kicking off her shoes. “Dare me to belly flop?”

“Don’t do it,” Vincent said. “Remember last time!”

“What happened last time?” I asked as she barreled down the dock before launching outward flat, arms outstretched, with a scream. A beat later, we heard the slap of skin against water.

“She’ll feel that tomorrow,” Roo said.

“She’s not the only one,” Jack said, turning to look behind him at Bailey, who was sound asleep on the couch, her dress tangled around her legs and bare feet dirty, flecked with sand. All the time and money she’d spent to make this night perfect, only to end it passed out, alone.

“She’ll be okay when she sleeps it off,” I said, to him as well as myself. Then I stepped inside the door, grabbing a blanket I’d seen earlier from a chair there. When I shook it out over Bailey, she slapped it away, muttering as she curled deeper into the cushions. I left it at her feet in case she changed her mind.

“Hey!” April called out from the water. “Y’all coming in or what?”

“On the way,” Jack replied, then pulled off his shirt, dropping it to the grass. After a quick check on Bailey—I saw it, if no one else—Vincent did the same. Those already in increased their volume as Jack dove in sideways and Vincent did his own cannonball. Splash. And then there were two of us. Who were conscious, anyway.

“You know I was just giving you a hard time before, right?” Roo said as I watched Taylor splash Jack, and him dunk her in return. “I understand not wanting to swim in that dress.”

I looked down at it, the corsage he’d pinned on now wilted, hanging feebly by its pin. Like it, my dress had lived the evening hard, the hem now dirty and one strap, loosened by a particularly enthusiastic conga line, hanging down over my shoulder. I pulled it back up; it fell again. This time, I just left it there.

“It’s not the dress,” I said, looking back at the water. “I think it’s more that it’s nighttime. I’ve never gone swimming in the dark.”

“Some people might say night swims are a lake rite of passage,” he pointed out.

“I guess.” I crossed my arms. “But maybe my mom did it enough for both of us.”

He bit his lip, ducking his head as he turned to look at the water, dark except for the moon and thrown light from the motels and houses along the shore. “Right,” he said finally. “I wasn’t even thinking about that. Didn’t mean to make it awkward.”

“You couldn’t,” I said, and smiled, to prove I meant it.

Behind us, Bailey shifted, talking in her sleep, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying.

“You know,” Roo said, once it was quiet again, “I’m really glad you came this summer.”