Sweet Water(82)

Another car? I was sure I was being rescued.

Dr. C said it could have been a semi passing by, the headlights. I’m not sure.

Dad was still gasping for breath when I saw the lights, and I knew someone was there and called for help. No one came. For hours.

No more sound from Dad. Just silence. He bled out. I nearly drowned even though we were on land, the bloody water seeping in from the riverbank cresting to my chin.

And then my screams. And the cold. Just cold. No more warmth.

After the dreams, the quiet kills me. I’d die for a hit. Cash wants me to stop smoking, and I haven’t heard of any kids who smoke pot at this school. I’ll get kicked out if I do, and I need to learn how to deal without it, but if I had it right now, I’d smoke it.

Why couldn’t it have been me? I prayed for them to take me too. I still pray for it on nights like this.

The kids here don’t know what happened to us, and that’s the best part about being awarded this scholarship. I can reinvent myself here. I’m not the girl who was trapped in the car with her dead dad. The creepy girl.

I’ll be the cool city kid here on scholarship. The one with the sunglasses on fleek, even though Cash had to steal them for me. I can use them tomorrow to cover my scratch.

The kids here all have nice accessories, like sunglasses and bags, their statement pieces in a world of uniforms. I didn’t ask Cash to lift the ones he bought me, but I think he’s always trying to compensate for Dad.

He’s practically waged war on the upper class.

I’m tired, but I can’t sleep. I’ll play my guitar instead.

Oh, sweet Jesus. I had no idea it was that bad, the grim details. Another wave hits me as I imagine being stuck in a car like that with my father, unable to help him, listening to him take his last breath. It would ruin me now, forget about when I was Yazmin’s age. Why didn’t I do more to help her? If Finn would’ve let me in, I could’ve helped this girl.





9-11


Week three and Cash is already plotting. I want to be better here, I told him. I’m getting good grades, studying to quiet the images. It helps to concentrate on something real.

A math problem I can solve, a literature assignment I can digest and pick apart.

I decided to run for school treasurer, throwing myself into new things so I can forget the old ones. I smile at everyone I can here, and I write stellar words in the student paper to announce my reasons for wanting to run for student council. I don’t know if they can tell I’m faking it, but several girls complimented me on my sunglasses today and told me they’d vote for me.

Cash said if I wanted a designer bag to let him know, and I can see how this could become habit-forming, but I tell him no. I need to make it the right way, even though it’s hard; it’s what Dad would’ve wanted.

Most of these kids have been with each other since grade school, and that’s hard too, but I’m also the new kid, instantly intriguing. Different.

Not in the way I was different at my last school—the depressed kid.

I wear less makeup here, because everyone else does. I use less hair spray too and embrace my flat iron. I’m quickly learning their ways, and the boys all smile back at me. Cash says I can have my pick, but he wants me to choose “right,” and everyone here seems so proper. Except for the three kids I found who smoked after the football game.

Matty and Joel are brothers and shared their weed with me once I caught them. They didn’t really have a choice. Their friend Finn was there too. Matty and Joel flirted with me hard, but I liked Finn because he barely said a word, and usually I don’t go for shy guys, but he seems like someone I want to get to know.

Yesterday he held the door open for me in fourth period. I almost laughed, but then I realized maybe guys really do hold doors open for girls here, and I like that. And today he told me I looked like Ariana Grande! I’ll take it.

My disguise is working. They can’t see the real me. I’m going to be okay here.

I page through again furiously.





10-2


Cash yelled at Finn tonight, and it’s all my fault. I invited Finn over thinking no one else would be home and we could be by ourselves. Cash and Mom were working. Cash must’ve gotten done with his shift at the pizzeria early and snuck inside the house without me hearing him.

Finn and I were in my room. Cash walked in while we were kissing. Even though he’s the younger one, he’s always acted like my father when it comes to boys, especially after Dad died.

Cash wanted me to start dating an Academy kid for his money, but I’m starting to love Finn for his heart. He has a good one. Cash said I didn’t have to get physical with these guys, that they were total losers and we could pull one over on them without that. He didn’t want me to put myself out there like that, but this wasn’t something I was doing for a score.

I wasn’t Mom, dealing cards and taking side bets for other things. I think that’s what he thought, but I really like Finn. What now?

There are tears streaming down my face, and my heart is beating a mile a minute.

That poor, poor girl. If she’d only let me in, I could’ve helped.

Like the true avoider I am, I haven’t read the last page yet, and now, after reading the rest, I’m so fearful of it, I can barely breathe. I’ve read the part where she met Finn. There can be nothing before that page that’s relevant, so really this is all of it, and it’s worse than I could’ve imagined, the things this girl has been through.