In Sight of Stars(26)

“Let’s just say, if she cares,” I finally say, “she has a weird fucking way of showing it.”

“So let’s talk about that. Can we?” But I shake my head, and Dr. Alvarez writes something. God, the shit that must be written on that clipboard.

“… he can never know, Annette…”

I close my eyes to block it all out. I don’t want to think about it. About what she’s done, or what I’ve done. Or what my father did.

I want to go back a year, before he shot himself. Before we moved here and my mother ruined everything. But if I can’t have that, I want to go back a few months ago. With Sarah.

K EE HA WOO .

When everything was shiny and new.

*

“Do you know how to swim?” Sarah is smiling mischievously.

“Yeah. Why? You know it’s almost November, right?

It’s our second date. At least I think it is. I think we are actually dating now.

“Oh, that,” she says. “Just a calendar thing. Come on.”

She reaches for my hand and pulls me up from where we’re sitting on a high, rocky ledge overlooking the Upper Bank Basin, a quiet eddy off a rushing, swirling portion of the Hudson.

I wouldn’t even think about following her, except, after a brief chill, the past two weeks have been unseasonably warm. Still, I’m in jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers, while Sarah is in a T-shirt and cutoffs and flip-flops. So if we’re heading down to the water, I’ll have to hang and watch while she wades in.

“Is there a path down?” I ask, looking twenty feet below us to the shore.

“Leave your keys and cell phone,” she says evasively. She taps a shallow groove in the rock with her toes, slips off her flip-flops, and peels her shorts down.

“Wait. Sarah…”

“Yeah?” She gives me a coy look. “What? You didn’t think we were walking all the way down?”

“I, um. You’re not serious, are you? You’re not seriously thinking about jumping in?”

“Define serious.”

“Sarah, that’s like, what, twenty feet down? Plus, the air may be warm, but I guarantee you, in there, it’s pretty damned cold.”

“Your choice.”

She pulls her T-shirt off, so she’s just in her panties, no bra, and wraps her arms around me, pressing her body to mine. “If you strip down, I promise I’ll warm you up good right after.” She kisses me, using her tongue to tell me exactly what she means, which succeeds in waking up pretty much every part of me.

I pull her tighter against me, but she pushes back.

“After. You ready?”

I’m not.

“How far down? Do you even know?”

“Sixteen feet, maybe eighteen. I forget. Twenty, tops.”

“And the water? You’re sure it’s deep enough? I doubt you’re hanging around to cart me places in my wheelchair.”

“Am too,” she says, “But, you’ll be fine. I’ve done it before, plenty of times. I promise. All you have to do is close your eyes and let go.”

Let go. With Sarah. Suddenly there’s nothing more in the whole world I want to do.

I strip off my jeans and T-shirt, leaving my stuff where she points, and she leads me to the edge and takes my hand.

“On three,” she says. “Okay?” She counts, and we jump, holding hands.

The air rushes up and over me, freezing my skin, whistling past my ears. My stomach lurches hard, a tickle that almost hurts but in a good way. My eyes tear and I think, This is it, then. A whole lot less messy than my father.

My body plummets, strong like a bullet, and then I hit the water, hard, stinging, losing my grip on Sarah’s hand. I plunge deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

Everything erases from my brain. The pressure is intense on my ears.

No sound.

No thoughts.

No nothing.

Then, pushback. And lightness. From dark green to pale green to blue, a brilliant and stunning restoration of light as I ascend. I surface, above the water, bobbing like a cork. The sun hits my face and my breath relaxes, and my ears fill with the sound of Sarah laughing.

I spin happily toward it, find her treading water behind me, hair slicked back, eyes shining.

“Awesome, right?” she says, paddling over. She wraps her arms around me and kisses me, and I struggle to keep us afloat but don’t even care if we go under.

Because, it is awesome.

As long as Sarah is here with me, it finally is.

Day 5—Late Afternoon

Shelly is at the nurses’ station. She’s the afternoon nurse who usually brings me my meds.

“I need to call my mom,” I say. She nods and moves away, to give me privacy. I don’t know why I decide to call my mother. Something Dr. Alvarez said. And yet, I don’t want to talk to her. I have no idea what I’ll say.

The sound of the ringing gives me heart palpitations. I should hang up. Or maybe she won’t answer. She rarely answers her phone, so there’s that.

I try to breathe past my panic while it rings again. I know I can’t keep avoiding her forever.

On the fifth ring it goes to voice mail.

“You’ve reached Marielle, please leave a message. I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m able.” Creative. Personal. Warm. The machine beeps in my ear, gratefully cutting off my thoughts.