What Happens Now(17)

She matched his expression. “Duh. But I have to do five more kneeling first. Okay?”

“Okay. Then, go.”

As Danielle was setting up for her dive, I climbed the ladder quickly but not too quickly, feeling self-conscious about the ten pounds I’d gained as a side effect of my medication. Then I sat down on the edge of the dock a few feet from Camden and crossed my arms so my scars weren’t showing.

“I forgot,” I said as the splash from Dani’s dive sprayed us both. I was determined to talk to him first, and this was the best start I could come up with.

“Forgot what?”

“What it feels like, to dive.”

“Why did you decide to remind yourself just now?”

Because suddenly it felt Possible.

“I wanted to show her,” I said. “I can’t teach her if I can’t do it myself, right?”

Camden looked me in the eye for a gripping second, then glanced away. I was close enough to see his eyelashes for the first time. Thick and long. Almost girlie.

He drew one leg out of the water to scratch his ankle and said, “Forgive me for the cheesy-pick-up-line quality of this question, but do you come here often?” My heart crumpled for a moment, that he didn’t remember me from last year. Then he added, “I mean, I know you’ve come here a lot. In the past. But this summer. Do you plan to come often this summer?”

Danielle splashed down in another dive, and I took advantage of the sudden distraction to swallow hard, breathe normally. What was he really asking?

“It’s the lake,” I said as calmly as I could. “Everyone comes here often.” I paused. “I thought you were going to ask me something like, ‘What’s your sign?’”

Camden looked straight at me again, almost surprised. Crap. Those eyelashes. “I’m an Aries.”

“Oh.” Oooookay. “I’m a Libra.”

“And an Arrowhead, apparently,” said Camden.

I smiled. “That, too.”

“I don’t generally like labels, but every once in a while, it’s nice when you can say you definitively are something. ‘I am male. I am six feet tall.’”

“‘I am a fan of a campy sci-fi TV show,’” I added.

Camden laughed and I waited for him to ask me more about Silver Arrow. Wanted him to. Badly.

“I go to Dashwood,” he said instead, and the way he said it, it didn’t seem like a change of subject. “Do you know where that is?” He stared out at the water as he spoke, squinting slightly, as if trying to see the words as he formed them.

“Up by the nature preserve, right? I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard of it.”

It was hard to keep a straight face here. Hard to pretend this was all news, the details of his life we had so desperately hunted down a year ago.

I turned to see Danielle, who was climbing onto the dock, shaking water out of her ears.

“That was five, right?” I said, glad for a break from this conversation that was thrilling me and stressing me out at the same time. “I think you’re ready.”

She shook her head. “No, not yet.”

“Danielle . . .”

Camden got up. “Look at it this way. You’re not standing. You’re just . . . not quite kneeling anymore. I’m Camden. Can I show you?”

She nodded.

Then he turned to me. “It’s okay?”

“Yes. Thanks for asking.” That made me crush on you 5 percent harder.

He went over to Danielle and asked her get down on one knee again. Then he gently picked up her bottom leg so her knees were parallel and she was squatting. He held her around the waist.

“I’ve got you. Try it now.”

She took a few moments to psych herself up, and then she did try it. She went into the water clean.

When she surfaced, Camden let out a “Woohoo!”

“I did it!” Danielle screamed, then scrambled up the ladder. “Now I’m going to try it without you!”

“Good,” said Camden, and with that, he dove into the water and swam quickly, almost sprinting, out to the raft. I watched him climb onto it and unfold in the sun. He reminded me of a cat that came up to you for petting, then ran away at the moment he seemed to be enjoying it most.

Maybe I’d offended him. Or bored him. Oh, God. Boring would definitely be worse.

I imagined diving in after him—yes, diving again—and swimming to the raft, too. Reaching for his arm and holding on tight as he helped me up. Sitting down next to him so we could continue our conversation, if that’s what it had been. Showing him how astonishingly un-boring I really was, and maybe even convincing myself.

Then I heard splashing behind me and turned to see Max and Eliza rushing into the water from the beach. Squealing, because that’s how cold the water still was in late June, that’s the kind of pleasure-pain-pleasure dance you did with it.

I watched them swim under the rope dividing the shallow end from the deep end, headed to the raft. Doing the exact thing I’d just envisioned, the distance between me and them growing wider with every kick they made.

And in that moment I decided for sure to make that distance go away. It wasn’t going to be now, because it couldn’t, but it could be—would be—soon.

“Come on,” I said to Dani. “If you do one more dive on your own from standing, I’ll buy you any treat you want from the snack shack and we won’t tell Mom.”