Alive (8 page)

With the group following behind, I climb the railroad-tie stairs barefoot and tiptoe onto the pier. The wood is moist and rough underneath the soles of my feet. I run my hand along the railing
as I walk farther out. Underneath the landing, we’d been protected from the wind, which now whips spray off the water and onto my face. I wipe it from my lashes and squint against the gusts.
The breeze lifts the hair off the back of my neck and I stare down at the water as I walk. Frothy whitecaps dot the sea.

The voices of the group sound distant, carried off by the wind. When I reach the end of the dock, I hoist myself up on the railing and crawl over so that I’m standing on the opposite side.
The drop is farther than I expected.

I look back. The whites of Brynn’s eyes stand out against the night.

I’m an excellent swimmer. I have been since I was five, and teenagers have done things far more stupid than jumping off a pier at night. A list of all the things I’ve never done
scrolls at rapid speed through my head.

Not anymore.

The swelling throb of my heart pounds inside me like dramatic background music that nobody else can hear.

Without another thought, I release my grip on the railing. The air rushes up to meet me. My stomach leaps into my throat. A shriek escapes just before I plunge into the ocean.

The cold water clenches around my chest. I open my eyes and stare up. The blackness is complete. My legs beat and my arms churn. I struggle upward.

My mouth breaks the surface in a loud, ugly gasp. I tilt my head back. Everyone is cheering and shaking their fists in the air. My teeth chatter uncontrollably as I tread water. Exhausted, I let
my head fall below again and then bob back up.

Salt stings my eyes. I toss my head and then, underneath the pier, next to our campfire, I spot the outline of a person. In the smoke and shadows, he feels familiar and, although all I can make
out is the silhouette, I have the unmistakable feeling that he’s watching.

After the lab incident—not to mention my leap from the pier—whispers follow me around school. They snake around me, cling to my clothes, and get tangled up in my
hair. Stepping through them is like passing through a cloud of buzzing gnats; all I can do is keep my mouth shut and hope that none fly up my nostrils.

I’m making my way down the covered archway with Brynn. The morning fog has turned to drizzle, and the smell of wet grass and mud fills the air.

“Do you think she just snapped?” I hear someone murmur behind me. I fight the urge to look back.

“Were you there?” another voice responds.

I chew the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. I know this isn’t what one would call good publicity. But people
noticed
me.

Brynn must misread my worried cheek-chewing, because she wraps her arm protectively over my backpack. “Jackasses,” she says loud enough for the culprits to hear.

“It’s fine,” I mutter, not wanting her to cause a scene. Scratch that. Not wanting her to
stop
the scene. It’s as if I’ve turned a key and unlocked the
secret chamber.
Click
. I’ve become visible again.

My hands tingle like they’ve been zapped with electricity. I’m buzzing with the same energy I used to feel poised on top of the dive stand. Goggles locked over my eyes, swim cap
pointed toward the water.

Brynn unfurls her arm. Her blue-polished nails disappear into the pocket of her sweatshirt. “You have one public freak-out and all of a sudden you can’t catch a break, am I
right?”

I let out a soft snort. “I know. If I was on reality TV, that wouldn’t even make the filler reel.”

“My thoughts exactly. I mean, I think people should at least wait until you’re running around naked before making a big deal out of it.”

Brynn drops me off at Calc, where two girls are already sitting a row back. One of them is Tess, and with her elbow propped up on a desk and not a drop of makeup on her face, she must be nursing
a wicked hangover. Can’t say she doesn’t deserve it.

I slide into my desk and begin copying down our teacher’s notes from the whiteboard. From behind, clipped, tittering whispers reach me. I think they’re talking about me. My shoulders
tense. Being noticed is one thing, but if Tess Collars forgot I lived on this planet, I’d be totally okay with that.

I sit back in my chair to listen.

“Where do you think he’s from?” I hear Caroline ask.

“How the hell should I know.” Tess’s voice is thick, as if someone’s playing a recording of her in slow motion. “He just got here.”

Definitely not talking about me. A flush rises in my cheeks. Since when did
I
become so egotistical?

“He might have just gone to public school before.”

“Who cares?” Tess hisses. “As long as he’s at least passably attractive. I could use some new scenery around here.”

“He’s more than passable,” Caroline confirms. “And he must have money, too, if his parents got him in this late in the year.”

So, there’s a new kid in our class. And apparently he’s quite dashing. Already a bigger conversation-starter than I am. Mr. Conway stands up and asks everyone to pass up their
assignments from last night. It’s sort of strange to be starting at a new school partway through senior year, though. Did he get in trouble? That has to be it. After spending a few minutes
pondering what dark past our new classmate must be harboring (drugs, probably, I decide), I go back to trying to listen to Mr. Conway explain limits and continuity, but mostly I just watch the rain
outside.

I’m startled out of my reverie by the sound of the door slamming. My elbow nearly falls off the edge and I sit up with a jolt.

“Shut up. He’s in our class,” Caroline says a bit too loudly.

“He sure is,” Tess whispers. “Somebody hand me a camera, because this suddenly became a room with a view.”

I pivot in my seat. There’s a boy. An oh-my-god-gorgeous boy. He takes long strides in a pair of faded blue Converse, laces untied—and not uniform-sanctioned—to the front of
the room, where he hands Mr. Conway a yellow slip of paper.

The sight of him makes me asthmatic. In a good way I didn’t know was possible. There’s a distinct tightening of the chest, like I’m battling the effects of a peanut
allergy.

“Sorry I’m late. Some confusion at the front office,” he says. Mr. Conway slides his reading glasses up to the bridge of his nose.

“Welcome, Mr.…” Conway holds the slip closer.

“Zin,” he offers. “Levi Zin, sir.”

Thick dark eyebrows frame his almond-shaped eyes, half-covered by slick black hair that hangs low over his forehead. He’s clinging to an end-of-summer tan that hints at liquid sunshine and
honey dripping off the comb. A damp polo sticks to his chest. I find myself wanting him to look at me so that I can grasp the whole picture at once. I have an idea that the full effect can’t
live up to the bits and pieces I’ve been cobbling together through sideways glimpses.

I lean forward on my elbows, hoping that I’m not too obvious, but not willing to be more discreet. One look, I tell him with my mind. A stray, stupid thought I’m sure I
wouldn’t have if I wasn’t so completely bored in class, but for now, it feels like a game. Notice me, I tell him.

“Please, take a seat. We’re on section five.” Mr. Conway gestures to an empty seat in the front row.

Levi turns, slipping his backpack off one shoulder. For a split second our eyes meet, and in that moment it’s like two streaks of lightning converge in the sky. My heart leaps out of my
throat and firmly attaches itself to him and I have a fleeting sensation that he read my mind.

He noticed.

“I heard he’s dreamy,” says Brynn, mouth stuffed full of Cool Ranch Doritos.

It’s just Brynn, Henry, and me at lunch today since Lydia’s switched over to her other group. It’s stopped raining for a second, which means the cafeteria is only half as
crowded as usual. I suppose we should be taking advantage of the “nice” weather in the quadrangle, too, only I guess I’m not as keen as the rest of my class to walk around the
rest of the day with the back of my khakis soaked through. After all, it’s still Seattle. Just because it’s not raining doesn’t mean it’s not wet.

“Okay, hold up. Do people say ‘dreamy’ anymore?” I ask while Henry makes a big show of pretending to beat his skull against the lunch table. “Drama. Queen.” I
poke him in the shoulder. “Cut it out before your forehead smells like ketchup and cheese fries.”

“They do when they’re talking about Levi Zin,” says Brynn, arching her eyebrows. “He’s brought dreamy back.”

Zin. Levi Zin. I roll the name over on my tongue. It has a nice ring to it. “He’s okay,” I say, staring down at the table and suddenly having an I-saw-him-first moment.

Brynn narrows her eyes. “You little liar!” She chucks a Dorito that I manage to bat away. “You totally want to jump his bones, don’t you?”

“Brynn, please.” I stuff a bite of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in my mouth to avoid answering her question..

She lifts one pierced eyebrow and crunches through another chip. “I’ll take
that
as a yes.”

The back of my neck is on fire. It’s not as if Levi would be a bad first choice.

“You’re totally picturing it in your head.” I jump when I realize she’s been staring at me.

“Am not.” I frown while at the same time deliberately avoiding eye contact with Henry. “Why do you have to”—I want to say
be so crude
but instead
say—“make such a big deal about it?”

She rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t. If I were trying to make a big deal out of it, I would have said you want to—”

But before she can finish Henry jumps in. “Enough! It’s not like Channing Tatum came to school. Can we please talk about something else? Please? Something of
mutual
interest,
maybe?”

“Touchy, touchy,” Brynn chides. “Jealous much?”

“Please. I’m just not quite as interested in the state of Levi’s pectorals as you seem to be.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t sit with a bunch of girls at lunch all the time. Ever think of that?” counters Brynn.

Henry rolls his eyes. The truth is that Henry has a bunch of guy friends, but all of them have the lunch period before us, so he’s stuck. Except I think that he actually likes it. Either
that or he likes me.

I feel my face go white. Well, first white. Then there is the burning rush of what must be bright, fluorescent pink as my neck and ears feel as if they’ve been shoved inside a
microwave.

“Shit, Stella. What? You look like you’re about to hurl.” Brynn looks at me and then follows my gaze up to none other than Levi-of-the-amazing-pectorals Zin. And he’s
standing right beside the empty lunch table next to ours with a lunch tray full of mini-carton milk, pizza, and two apples, smiling at us. “Oh, crap,” says Brynn, not in a whisper.

I force my face into something I sincerely hope captures a nonchalant-hipster-meets-Parisian-snob vibe, although I’m stuck with a sneaking suspicion that I look as soppy as I feel. His
beautiful brown eyes narrow to a squint. He’s squinting at me and I’m thinking, What does that mean?…until it dawns on me that there’s no way it can be good when a guy
squints at you, can there? This runs through my head all the while we’re locked in a grin-off until finally, he sits down at the other table and opens up his carton of milk. I let out a huge
sigh of relief.

“Um, what was that?” Brynn asks in a hushed voice, leaning over on her elbows.

“What do you mean, what was that?” I snap. “I had to cover for your big mouth.” I can’t shake the sense that looking at Levi brings on a very specific feeling of
déjà vu.

Brynn chances a glance in Levi’s direction. “Well, you looked like a snaggletoothed tiger.”

Henry laughs and I glare at him. “Sorry.” He wipes tears from his eyes. “Sorry.” Henry sniffles. “I mean, you did, a little.”

“Shut. Up,” I giggle, feeling flushed with embarrassment all over again. “And it’s
saber
-toothed tiger, you idiots.”

“Ohhh.” Brynn holds her palms up like she’s scared. “Somebody’s feeling feisty.”

“It’s your fault.” I glare at her, only half-jokingly.

“Hey, I’m not the spazoid.”