Alive (19 page)

“Yeah!” Her curls fly in agreement.

“I haven’t been in a pool in, like, forever,” Levi says.

“Me neither, actually,” I say. “I’m more of an ocean girl.”

Levi’s lip curls up. “I hate the ocean.”

“You hate the ocean?” I laugh. “How can anybody hate a massive body of water?”

He turns pensive. “That’s the problem. It’s too big. It’ll swallow you up. Plus, you can’t see what’s underneath your feet.”

Through the kitchen window I can see the moon, suspended like a lopsided orb over our backyard. The night’s been clear since it stopped drizzling about an hour ago, and the sky’s
spotted with a few low-hanging clouds, turned gray and shadowy by the murky backdrop.

A dip in the Jacuzzi
would
help tire Elsie out, I reason. Plus, if I can get her to bed early, that will leave more time alone for me and Levi. And he’s right. She’d love it.
Much more than watching something that doesn’t involve a talking panda.

“Fine, fine. Hot tub would be nice. And warm,” I concede. “Can you watch Elsie? I’ve got to change and order the pizza.”

“Hooray!” Levi lifts one of Elsie’s pudgy arms and waves it around as they celebrate together. It’s impossible not to smile.

“I’ll turn it on,” he says, and with one last glance back, I leave to dig for my bikini.

Partway up the stairs, I realize I have no idea what Levi’s planning to wear, and the thought makes me heady. What if he wears nothing? As soon as it crosses my mind, I shake the thought
away. Your little sister’s out there, Stella! I rub at the back of my neck. I have to give the guy credit. He has some effect on the Cross girls.

In my room, I rifle through my dresser drawers. I can’t remember the last time I had to wear a bathing suit. Who knows if my boobs will even fit in the ones I have anymore?

Finally, I dig a stringy two-piece out of the bottom of the third drawer from the top. It’s bright blue with red strawberries on it. I cringe at the juvenile fabric, wishing I had one of
those white numbers that make guys hope the bathing suit’s see-through.

Since it’s all I have, I slip it on, examining myself in the full-length mirror that hangs on the back of my bedroom door. At the sight of my reflection, I tense. The scar cuts through me
in a single, long slash, looking violent and new. I take a deep breath, staring down at my disfigured torso and letting my fingertips graze the raised skin. Levi’s seen it, I remind myself. A
small part, but still. He didn’t freak out. I force myself to look again. I can’t spend the rest of my life wearing muumuus, can I? I tilt my head the way Levi had when he looked at it.
See, not so bad.

Grabbing a towel, I wrap it around me and cross the room to peer down at the hot tub. Levi sits on the edge, the water steaming up to meet him and making his T-shirt cling to his body. On his
lap, Elsie reaches up to touch his face.

Watching the two of them, it’s easy to forget that Elsie drives me insane. Her chubby arms flap happily, and I wish this was the only version of her I could see, the Precious Moments angel
baby that my parents fawn over.

I’m about to turn away from the window when there’s a blur out of the corner of my eye. Followed by a splash. At least I think there’s a splash. The night is black, with curly
white tendrils of steam obscuring everything below like a veil. I peer hard through the thick mist.

The soft glow of the pool lights is hardly enough to see by. Darkness seeps in at the corners, nearly snuffing out the scene altogether.

Then a tiny, peach hand breaks the surface. Elsie flails in the water. I watch motionless, waiting for Levi to grab her. The windowpane blocks the sound, trapping me like a glass cage.

Her head bobs up for a split second. Sinks back under.

I push at the bottom of the window, knocking against it with the heel of my hand. Useless. It’s stuck. My hands fall futilely to my sides and for a moment, I can’t move.

Every muscle in my body locks up. Stiff. The water in the Jacuzzi glitters below. Fake blue and inviting. Levi cocks his head. He watches her as if she’s an experiment.

Do something,
I plead silently.

Bubbles crop up at the pool’s surface. This isn’t happening.

As if finally coming to life, Levi reaches into the water. He submerges his arm up to his shoulder.

Out pops Elsie’s head. Her mouth is open. I still can’t hear anything. A silent movie.

A sob racks my lungs. Oh, thank God. He must have freaked.

She’s okay. She’s okay.

But before I can steady myself, Levi palms the top of my baby sister’s skull like it’s a basketball—and plunges her back down.

A scream lodges in my throat.

“No!”

A whisper.

Levi looks up at the window where I’m standing, a glint in his shadowed eyes as he holds her underwater. My knees jerk. A sick feeling wells up.

Not Elsie. Not Elsie.

My joints unlock. I spring into motion, racing down the stairs. I skip stairs as I go. Not Elsie.

My legs pump. I yank open the back door. “What are you
doing
?” My voice is a shriek.

Levi jerks back, startled. “Stella?” He’s sitting on the side of the hot tub, Elsie in his lap. She scrunches her hand to wave at me, her wispy curls dry as tumbleweeds.

I blink, stopping in the doorway. “What’s going on?” The words stick to my tongue and I have to scrape them off.

“What do you mean? Did you order the pizza?”

“I…” My vision starts to tunnel and I feel faint. “Is Elsie okay?” I ask weakly. My heart thwacks at the inside of my chest like a mallet on a crab’s
shell.

“Yeah.” Levi swings his feet out of the hot tub, holding tight to Elsie. “Are
you
okay?” I can’t look him in the eye. “You look a
little—”

“I know.” My hands are shaking. “I actually don’t think I’m feeling well. Do you mind if maybe we just watch the movie?”

“Sure, yeah, okay.” He hops off the ledge and strides over to hand me Elsie. Never before have I wanted her so much. I clasp her to my body, smelling her hair and baby-powdered skin
and clenching her like someone might try and take her from me.

I find a towel for Levi, who dries off his legs and feet. My face is hot with shame that I thought Levi would try to hurt Elsie, but still, I won’t let her go. My ears keep buzzing and my
breaths are shallow. Even when Elsie starts to cry, even when our pizza arrives and Levi scoots in close to watch the Hitchcock movie, I hold her, letting her sit on my knees and hugging her until
our breaths match and she’s an extension of me. I look down at my sleeping sister and can see through the wisps of baby hair that cover her fuzzy head and smell the sweet skin underneath,
both fresh and familiar. There’s a flat stretch at the crown of her head that’s the same as mine, and when I notice, it’s as if I’m seeing her with new eyes. It’s as
though I can finally see her. I pull Elsie into me. This miniature human bundle is made up of the same ingredients as I am. No longer the Replacement Child, but she could have replaced me, maybe,
if she’d needed to.

What are u doing?

I’m w Brynn
.

Why?

It’s just for an hour or so
. My thumbs work furiously across my phone’s keypad.
I need fashion help
.

Don’t get it from her
. I chew on my cheek and contemplate ditching my friend.

Play nice,
I type instead.

I need you
. Upon reading this, I feel my throat constrict. The pain in my chest roars.

“Hello!” Brynn butts in. She has a pile of clothes strung over her arms and shifts the weight from one elbow crook to the other. “It’s me. The perfectly acceptable human
specimen perusing the mall with you. Can you see me? Am I invisible?” She looks down at her forearm and makes a big show of examining it. “I don’t
appear
to be invisible.
Maybe I’m only invisible to certain people. Like, say, ones with boyfriends?”

I roll my eyes. “Invisibility would be completely wasted on you. You can’t sneak up on people if you can’t keep your mouth shut.”

She heaves an exaggerated sigh. “You’ve been glued to that stupid phone since we got here.”

“That’s not true.”

“Um, except that it is. You’re obsessed, Stel. And you’re kind of giving me a case of the icks.”

“Someone can’t stand not being the center of attention,” I mutter.

She throws the potential costumes we’d pulled over a clothing rack and stretches out her arms. “No. What I can’t stand is going shopping with my best friend—or at least
the girl formerly known as my best friend minus all the garbage-punk-rock-goth-eyeliner stuff—to do her a favor and being ignored. I did not come to Creepy Costumes ‘R’ Us for my
own health.” She eyeballs the place. It’s the only store in the mall that’s not open the whole year round. The place is stuffed with limp masks, displays of face paint, and demon
baby figurines whose eyes flicker red whenever someone passes by.

“If you don’t like my haircut you might as well cut the passive-aggressive routine and just say so.”

“Excuse you. When have you ever known me to be passive-aggressive? I’m aggressive-aggressive. I don’t care what you do with your hair. I care why you do it.” Brynn bats
away an orange streamer hanging from the ceiling.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t think you should have to be Stella two point oh just to make some guy like you.”

“He liked me before,” I point out.

“You know what I mean.”

“No. I don’t.” I cross my arms.

Brynn picks a mask off the rack. She turns it over in her hands, sees that it’s an insane clown face, and shudders, stuffing it back behind the others. “Henry liked the old you. Just
saying.”

“That’s the point. I don’t like the old me. And either way, I’m
not
the old me. I can’t be. I can’t swim, I have to take horse tranquilizer pills every
five seconds, and I’m constantly on the verge of a mechanical breakdown. No offense, but you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Brynn frowns. A little kid wanders too close to our conversation, swinging a pumpkin candy holder and humming “The Monster Mash.” Brynn makes faces at him and he scrambles over to an
adjacent aisle. “Okay, I get the whole desire-to-reinvent-yourself thing or whatever. It’s very Madonna. But…”

“There has to be a ‘but.’”

“Only because you’re kind of acting like one.”

“Mature, Brynn, real mature.” I smirk.

“
But
,” she continues, “just make sure you’re doing it for you and not some dark, brooding dude with a record collection.”

I laugh uneasily.

She relaxes her shoulders, grabs a witch’s hat off a nearby rack, and pulls it over her head. “Okay, the public-service-announcement portion of this afternoon is over. Now put the
phone away and let’s find you a costume.”

“Right.” I nod. Halloween is in two days and I have nothing to wear. Brynn made her costume, but I have neither the time nor the creativity, so that meant I had to settle for the
big-box store, which is why we’re braving a mob of sticky children and their trailing mothers who look worn at the edges and wary of what a pound of sugar will to do their little hellions.
Three times this trip miniature ghouls and goblins have jumped out from behind corners and yelled, “Boo!” kicking my heartbeat into warp speed.

“You’re so lucky.” Brynn retrieves the stack of costumes she’s picked out for me. We’ve wandered back into the “adult section” of the Halloween store,
trying to act as if we belong.

“I don’t think
lucky
has ever been a word used in the same sentence as my name, but thanks.” I stare at a scantily clad model posing on the package for an angel costume.
There is nothing angelic about her.

I find a salesperson—a gothic girl with a bored expression, chewing on the twine of her pentagram necklace—and ask her for a fitting room. Brynn throws her costume stockpile on the
floor and I barely have room to stand on both feet. She steps out of the stall and draws the curtain shut behind me.

“Previous notes aside, you have a boyfriend for Halloween.”

“Why? It’s not like it’s Valentine’s Day.” I pull a long black dress over my head and fasten the nun’s habit over my hair.

“It’s better than Valentine’s. It’s the one day you get to dress like a slut and no one can say a word about it. Levi’s going to flip.”

I slide open the curtain to model my nun costume.

“Oh God.” Brynn slaps her hand over her eyes. “Unless you wear that. That was not in my stack of approved costumes.”

“I thought it might be funny,” I whine, but I’m laughing already. “Like ironically funny?”

“Nobody cares about your irony, Stella. Irony does not get you lai—” I shoot her a glare. “—lucky.”

I turn away to hide the fact that I’m blushing. I haven’t told her about our rendezvous in the woods, which, okay, might not quite have been newsworthy in the Brynn McDaniel
universe, but it was approaching the perimeter.

“Fine.” I disappear back into the fitting room. I stuff the outfit back on the rack. “No matter what the context, I’m still not sure
lucky
is the right word to
describe me.”