Left Drowning(7)

“I’m just going to grab my shirt. I’ll catch up with you.” He backs up.

Under the guise of looking for good stones, I keep my head down as I start to walk because otherwise my eyes will follow him. I find him … I don’t know. Something. I don’t know exactly what, but I do know that I wish I were wearing something besides a shitty sweatshirt, although I have no idea what I could have resurrected from my closet.

I feel him next to me. “What are you doing here so early in the morning?” he asks.

“Sleep issues. What about you?”

“Who’d want to miss this?” He waves his hand in the direction of the lake sparkling in the sun. “Damn spectacular.”

I glance to the side. He’s put on a faded black T-shirt. “Aren’t you cold?”

“I like it. Refreshing. Before you got here, I’d been considering stripping down and diving in.”

“You were not.” I look up. He towers over my five feet four inches.

“I most certainly was.” He is grinning at me.

“Now you’re risking that I’ll brand you an exhibitionist.”

Chris kneels down for a moment, picks up a stone, and slips it into his pocket. “What’s a little risk now and then, huh?” He rushes past me and turns so that he is walking backward, facing me as he talks. “It makes you feel alive. It brings you crashing into the here and now. Keeps you alert and grounded.”

“I have more here and now than I can handle, thank you very much, without skinny-dipping.”

“Technically it wouldn’t have been skinny-dipping because I was going to keep something on.”

An image of Chris in nothing but snug boxer briefs flashes into my head, and it takes me a moment to recover. I try to walk nonchalantly, following the backward path he is making.

“Are you a student?” he asks.

I nod.

“Where?”

“I’m a senior at Matthews.”

He stops and I nearly crash into him. “Me, too. Why don’t I know you?”

It’s bad enough that I’ve had this conversation once already today, but to have it with Chris feels worse.

“I transferred in as a junior,” he continues, “but I don’t think we’ve ever met. What, do you take all independent studies classes and never leave your dorm room?”

I don’t say anything.

“Oh my God, you don’t actually do that, do you? I’m sorry. I feel horrible. I was just making a joke.”

“What? No! I take real classes. Of course I do.” He steps aside as I keep walking, moving past him. This is so embarrassing. Have I really become invisible unless I’m funneling beer at parties? Yes, I accept, I have. It is pretty easy to pass unnoticed when you want to.

Maybe I don’t want that anymore.

Chris bounces ahead of me again. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I move a mile a minute and miss things. Miss people.”

“Maybe there will be some good stones up toward the grass.” I move up the slight incline from where we are standing. “I’ll go check.”

“Oh. Okay.” I know he is staring at me. “I’ll look in the shallow water.”

We spend a few minutes silently collecting stones, and I wonder what sort of excuse I can come up with to leave. Clearly I have botched our entire exchange. It’s one that I never should have started in the first place, considering that I’m idiotically out of practice when it comes to basic social interaction. I try to give myself a pep talk. Perhaps this will be like riding the proverbial bike? If I keep going, maybe I’ll remember how to behave like a normal person again? I used to be good at this.

“Hey, Blythe,” he calls out. “I found a bunch of good ones. Come down and we’ll get more, and you can show me what you’ve got.” His voice is deep, masculine, yet I hear compassion and humanity in each word he says. Hearing him relaxes me and undoes my self-consciousness in a way that nothing else has been able to since that one night four years ago.

Four years. Jesus, I have been like this for four f*cking years? I start to wonder what I have missed out on. Who I have missed out on. I am momentarily furious.

But then I look to the water, to Chris, and his infectious grin meets me. This boy makes it impossible for me to be pulled under. I smile back at him with a real smile. “Yeah? You found more? Okay.” I step over the overgrown grass and the half-buried rocks to reach him.

“Shoes off!” he commands.

“What?”

“Shoes off and pants rolled up! We’re going to get you in tune with the lake. Good stone skipping is not just about the stone. It’s about the water, and it’s about you. So, off with your shoes!”

“It’s cold!” I protest.

“Baby,” he teases as he starts removing his shoes.

“Am not. I’m showing a measure of sanity.” The irony that I am saying this is not lost on me.

“There’s nothing good to be said about sanity. It’s dull. Live a little. Come on.”

I try not to smile back as he arches his dark eyebrows playfully.

“Fine,” I say, kicking off my sneakers and rolling up my jeans. “To prove I’m not a baby.”

“In we go.” Chris wades a few feet into the water and turns back to me. “It’s really not cold. Promise.” He holds out his hand. “Really.”