Underwater(65)

“You got a burger and fries at your fancy dinner?”

“What can I say? I’m a creature of habit.”

“Bet they loved wrapping that one up.” I take one of only two bites left of the burger and lie down next to Evan. I turn my head to look at him. “I know you didn’t really bring me up here to eat a hamburger.”

“Are you saying offering you the remnants of my cold food isn’t as smooth as I think it is?”

“You don’t have to have smooth moves to get me to hang out with you.”

“Oh, thank god.” He rolls over and hooks one of his knees between mine, presses his mouth to my lips, and trails his fingertips along the hem of my shirt.

And then there’s just the dark.

And the stars.

And the air.

And us.





chapter forty-four

The first day of summer vacation roars to a start. By nine a.m., the sun is blazing hot enough to heat my apartment to an unbearable degree. Evan and I decide to haul Ben, his boogie board, and Evan’s surfboard down to the beach after I’ve packed sandwiches and smothered my brother in SPF 50.

I decide today is as good a day as any to practice my driving, and I find parking easily because I head to the strip of beach where the tourists don’t go. I realize this means we’ll probably see people I know, but I’m hoping we can set up camp on the outskirts. I’d like to take my baby steps without the whole world watching. And since nobody is expecting to see us, they might not even recognize me.

It’s surprising when the feel of the sand squishing between my toes nearly makes me weep. I’ve missed it in a good way. Because I’m a person who belongs at the beach. By locking myself up in my apartment, I’ve been denying who I am. I need sand and salt water. Sunblock and string bikinis. Sun and sanity.

We lay our striped towels down, three in a row, and Ben takes off for the ocean. He’s a pretty good swimmer, but he needs supervision because he has no fear. I follow him out, and when the water licks at my toes, I know I’m home.

Really and truly home.

I pull Ben up on my waist and take him out to where the waves are breaking. I grip the soft sand below with my toes and sink my heels in to brace myself against the salty spray coming at us. And then I tell Ben to hold his breath before we duck under to swim out past the break.

It’s perfect here, with the cool water all around us and my favorite kid in the world hanging on my back. Absolutely perfect. Ben lets go of me and swims in circles around me, sometimes stopping to tread water and catch his breath.

After a while, we come back in from the ocean. I settle on my striped towel, put on my sunglasses, and wring salty water from my hair. Evan heads to the water with his surfboard. I zone out, staring at the ocean, while Ben attempts to dig a hole to China with a miniature shovel. I soon notice three figures slicing through the water in the distance. Their swim strokes are perfectly in sync, strong and seasoned, plowing against the current in bright orange swim caps like they know exactly what they’re doing. Watching them makes me want to swim, too. Really swim. I don’t mean going back and forth in the fifteen-yard kiddie pool in the courtyard of Paradise Manor. I mean tearing through the vast open ocean. As the swimmers get closer, I see they’re wearing PPHS caps. They’re from my swim team. Or my old swim team. I don’t know what to call it anymore.

They pop up to tread water, and one of them points to the shore. They change direction, heading for the sand. I’m not surprised they’ve chosen to stop here. This is where people from PPHS hang out. But I kind of hope I don’t know them. Which is crazy to hope for, because whoever it is was on my swim team. Two of the swimmers catch a good wave that takes them all the way in and spits them out in the white wash. The third one catches another wave. They all stumble out of the ocean, wobbling on their noodly sea legs as they hit firm ground again. When they tear off their goggles and swim caps, I recognize Chelsea and Brianna right away. And then I recognize Taylor, too. I don’t know when they all got to be so tight, but they’re definitely taking their swim training seriously.

I hope my sunglasses are big enough to hide me.

“No way!” Chelsea shouts when she gets close enough to see I’m here. “Brianna! It’s Morgan.”

My sunglasses aren’t big enough to hide me.

The two of them run up and topple me over in a salty hug. I feel like I’m being attacked by wet puppies. Their enthusiasm for seeing me is overwhelming. And touching, too. I assumed they’d stopped missing me.

Taylor ambles up behind them. I swear she’s even buffer than the last time I saw her, but I might just be making that up in my head now. She wrings out her thick braid as well as she can and pushes it back over her shoulder, where it lands with a thump. She ruffles Ben’s sandy head of hair and plops down on the ground next to me. Brianna and Chelsea have taken up residence on my towel.

“It’s so good to see you,” Brianna trills as Chelsea hugs me to her, nodding emphatically.

“Just in time for summer,” Taylor says, and smiles at me. “We’re training to swim the Pacific Palms Rough Water in August. You should join us.”

“I don’t think I’m badass enough,” I say.

Taylor ticks her gaze at Evan bobbing around in the ocean on his surfboard. “Someone thinks you are.”