What Happens Now(16)

“Yeah, maybe. See you then. Maybe.”

Then he was gone and the door chimed, and the FIND VERA! poster fluttered in the sudden gust like the wave I should have made but didn’t.

The town day camp was held at the rec center, whose cinder block walls and unfortunate orange-and-green interior design scheme had seen the birth of dozens of pot holders, God’s eyes, and sock monkeys for at least a decade, including several I’d made as a kid myself.

When I walked into the gym, I found Danielle’s group and spotted my sister standing off to the side, her counselor’s hand on her shoulder. Dani was crying. When she saw me, she ran up and wrapped her arms around my waist.

“What happened?” I asked, partly to her and partly to her counselor, a college student with a headband and clipboard.

“She fell.”

“Not by accident!” barked Dani, then shot a dirty look at two girls standing nearby.

“Danielle and those girls were on the playground, and they were involved in some kind of game,” said the counselor, trying hard to sound calm and professional. Not really succeeding. “I guess there was a disagreement and Danielle got angry and ran away from them.”

“To Lava Island,” corrected Danielle.

“To Lava Island,” said the counselor with emphasis, “but she fell. The nurse checked her out. She’s fine. We didn’t feel it necessary to call anyone.”

“But it still hurts!” cried Danielle, the tears coming again. “And if they hadn’t made me run away, I wouldn’t have fallen!”

I took my sister’s hand and started leading her out. “Thanks,” I called back to the counselor. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

I marched a weeping Danielle through the parking lot, me not saying a word because what was the point in saying any words, and opened the door for her when we got to the car.

“Get in,” I said, rubbing her back. She did.

“We were pretending we all had imaginary ponies and then the other girls changed it to actually being ponies, and that wasn’t how it was supposed to go!”

“I know.” I reached over her to snap her seat belt. When I looked at her face, I saw one stray tear traveling down her left cheek. I pressed my finger to it, then pulled my finger away, and it was like it had never been there.

“I want to go home,” said Dani, her voice shaking.

“We can’t go home. Mom’s sleeping. We’re going to the lake.”

“I don’t want to.” Danielle sniffled.

Yes, we could have gone somewhere else. But I’d told Max I’d be at the lake. Max had probably told Camden I’d be at the lake. I was going to the lake, dammit, melty kid sister or not.

“But I want to teach you how to dive this year, and today’s the day we’ll start.” I pulled that one out of nowhere. I wasn’t afraid to admit I was good.

After a few more sniffles, she said, “Okay.”

By the time we made the left turn at the sign for the lake, she was humming something to herself. I didn’t recognize it, but it was catchy.

First order of business: a couple of warm-up jumps into the water from the side of the dock. Me first, then Danielle. Then together at the same time, both of us holding our noses. Then I showed her how to get down on one knee, point her hands into a jackknife, look at her belly, and trust.

“I’m afraid,” Dani said.

“It’s only water. I promise it’s soft and wet, like always.” I sat down a few feet away from her.

She stayed still for a long time, then finally took a deep breath and leaned all the way forward until her head broke the surface of the lake. Her feet barely cleared the dock as she went in, which made me flinch, but I wouldn’t tell her that.

“Yee-haw!” she yelled when she popped out of the water. She climbed back up the ladder to the dock, and did it again. And again.

“Whenever you’re ready, you can do it from standing,” I finally said.

Danielle looked nervous but intrigued. “Will you show me, Ari?”

I couldn’t remember the last time I dove. I used to do it constantly when I was a kid, from the board at the end of this very dock. But the older I got, the higher the board seemed. The harder the surface of the lake looked. One day, I just didn’t feel like it anymore, the way I didn’t feel like doing a lot of things. Tiny things. Too small to put a name to, especially a giant one like depression.

“Okay,” I said to Dani now. “Watch.”

I stood up. Bent my knees, stretched out my arms. My body remembered.

In that last second before I broke through, the water looked suddenly green instead of brown. The shock of cold, of water in my nose, the dirty-clean and foreign-familiar taste of it. Then, a sensation of being welcomed back to something but only briefly, before the laws of buoyancy lifted me away. My eyes were closed but I could feel the light growing on my face as I floated toward the surface. When I came up, Danielle was cheering.

And Camden Armstrong was standing on the dock.

I blinked away the sting of the water a couple of extra times to make sure.

“Hey,” he said, sitting down so his ankles were in the lake. Then he motioned toward Danielle. “I want to see if she does it.”

“I will,” said Danielle.

“Will you?” asked Camden, narrowing his eyes. I caught a teasing gleam there.