How to Save a Life(22)

“Yeah, I know what you mean. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

“It’s horseshit anyway,” she declared. “It’s totally okay for random guys to screw around with random girls. It makes the guy a god but the girl gets called a slut.”

“Sounds like a good editorial for our next edition,” Adam mused.

This got Marnie all excited, and the two of them began chattering away about the last issue of Mo Vay Goo before the end of school.

My thoughts drifted away to Evan. They were tethered to him with some kind of invisible string. No matter how hard I tried to think of other things or distract myself, I always came back to last night, our talk, and how he wanted to see me again.

Rumors of me slutting it up with Matt King might change Evan’s mind.

The gods of attendance were smiling on me: Evan wasn’t at school that day. I didn’t see him anywhere and his desk beside mine in Western Civ was empty. I was relieved as hell while hoping he wasn’t sick, because then I wouldn’t see him at the pool that night.

For our date.

I had a date with Evan Salinger. It was as far a cry from dinner and a movie as you could get. I had no reason to think of it as a date, but I did.

I sure as hell did.





As I biked home, I realized I was in danger of becoming one of those girls who gets all flustered about a boy. Part of me recoiled at the thought and part of me reached for it. Wasn’t it what normal girls did? They met a guy, they liked him, they wanted to hang out. No big whoop.

I could admit I liked Evan. A little. But it didn’t mean I was going to be stupid enough to get attached. Everything and everyone I had ever been attached to had vanished or died. Evan was going to vanish too.

He’s skipping town in three weeks.

With that thought shouting loudest in my head, I almost didn’t go to the pool that night. Then changed my mind back again, like ping-pong. Not showing would mean I couldn’t control myself. Screw that. I wasn’t some weak, lovesick airhead. I was the school slut, right? Not only would I go to the pool, maybe I’d f*ck Evan sometime before he left town. A little going away present…

I sank down on the edge of my bed, suddenly on the verge of tears.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I huffed deep breaths, pressing the air inside, pushing the emotions down with the rest of the sewage. When nine o’clock rolled around, I put a bathing suit on under my clothes and headed to the pool.

My stupid heart fluttered like mad to see Evan already there.

Waiting for me.

He was treading water in the deep end, wearing boxers and a plain white t-shirt that clung to his skin. I wondered why he bothered with a shirt, but I was too relieved to see him there to ask.

“I didn’t see you at class today,” I said, keeping my tone ultra-casual.

“Harris needed me at the shop,” Evan said.

He wasn’t keeping it casual. He was smiling like a fiend, watching me, staring at me. Wrapping me in his attention with a soft heat as I set my bag down on the lounger. “I didn’t know if you’d come back.”

“I said I would, didn’t I?” I twitched a smile to show it was my version of teasing and pulled out my cell phone. “You ready? Got the timer all set up.”

“Not really. I liked talking to you yesterday.”

“Me too.” I set the phone down. “Later?”

“Maybe.”

A silence. I needed to stop being a chickenshit and just swim, but taking off my clothes in front of Evan made my stomach twist in nervous knots.

Some school slut I was.

“It’s really hot out,” Evan said. “You want to swim?”

I tucked a lock of hair behind my right ear. “I was thinking about it. I brought my suit.”

Evan beamed. Beamed. “Come on in.”

“It’s not too cold?”

“They keep it heated. It’s perfect.”

“Can’t argue with perfect.” I heaved a breath. “Turn.”

“What?”

“I’m not doing a striptease for you. Turn around.”

He obliged and I stripped off my jeans and t-shirt.

My suit was a black one-piece with a vintage style. The material skimmed my hips. The straps of the heart-shaped bodice were wide instead of stringy. I was a little too thin for it—it was a suit made for a gal with hips and boobs. I thought it was pretty, but I couldn’t let Evan watch me parade around in it, not when he seemed fully-clothed by comparison.

I quickly took the steps in the shallow end and submerged myself to my neck. The cool water did feel perfect against the night’s stifling heat. Keeping my hair anchored over my left cheek, I swam with my head above water toward the deep end. I stopped and stood where the cement under my feet slanted down.

Right on the edge.

“So,” I said into the silence. “Come here often?”

Evan laughed. “Yeah, I do, actually. Pretty much every night.”

“Why? No air conditioning at Chez Salinger?”

He grinned in a way that made me want to keep making stupid jokes all night.

“Yeah, we have it. I just like being here. It’s peaceful. And when I’m under, holding my breath, it’s peaceful and quiet, and I can just…be.”

“Like meditation?” I asked.