Girl Underwater (19 page)

“I don't want you talking to my dad after these appointments.”

Her brow relaxes a bit, but her eyes maintain that fierce intensity. “Our conversations are confidential. Your father is paying for these sessions, so he'll receive the bill, but that's it.”

Something about my father getting billed for a completely confidential service makes me smile—almost. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay meaning ‘we'll see.'”

“Fair enough,” she says as the clock chimes with the passing of the hour. “See you next week.”

•

Six weeks later, after a rare evening appointment, Lee intercepts me outside Dr. Shin's office. My usual routine is rushing in, running out, trying hard not to be seen—so this is a surprise.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

“It's March first.”

“Okay . . .”

“National Pool Day.”

“Is that a real thing?”

“No, but it should be.” He kisses my cheek. We've talked about National Pool Day, or at least some version of it. Dr. Shin encouraged it, thought it would be good to set goals. For me, National Pool Day is the first step toward swimming again.

It's after nine by the time we reach the steps of Naudler Natatorium. The layout of the facility never ceases to amaze me: a sprawling, glass-enclosed feat of architecture, with polished brick steps leading to a light-infused atrium. It's like stepping onto an indoor beach, with sand-colored floors and sky-blue walls. The ceilings are lofty and sloped, a transparent cathedral.

But the central focus, the grand finale, is the pool. A crisp, transparent blue filling the space like a shimmering sea. A strange blend of awe and terror grips me as we stand before it.

“We don't have to go down there,” he says. “But we can if you want to.”

“But you already spend so much time here—”

He turns toward me, never letting go of my hand. “Then I'll spend more.”

“But it's so . . .” I trail off, unsure how to complete the thought.

“Hard?” He gives my knuckles a squeeze. “I know. It's gonna be really, really hard. But you want to swim again, right?”

“More than anything.”

He watches me process the sight of the pool, devoid of swimmers for the first time in recent memory. Moonlight streams through the glass, scattering as it hits the water. I have to admit the pool looks hopelessly romantic at this time of night. There are no screaming coaches. No whirring kicks or thrashing arms. No exhausted co-eds stumbling out of the locker rooms and into the deep end. This is just a pool. A safe, sweeping, glorious pool, three times the size of the one I learned to swim in but otherwise just the same.

He squeezes my hand and pulls me into him. He smells good, like soap and spice, a blend that reminds me of earlymorning practices.

The squeeze turns into a caress; the caress becomes a kiss. My hands find the scruff of his neck as he works his way through my hair, sweeping the wisps from my eyes. I have always liked the way Lee kisses me: freely and fiercely, like he's going on instinct. It's a little rough, a little wet, and then it's a frenzy. We don't stop until we're gasping.

“You know,” he says, trailing kisses across my collarbone, “we can tweak the plan a little bit. Add skinny-dipping to the mix if you prefer.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, smirking. “Let's start slow, shall we?”

“Yes, ma'am.” He takes me by the hand and tugs me toward the pool. A low hum betrays the presence of the overhead lights and filtration system. Lee breathes it in with the gusto of a springtime frolicker.

“Nothing like it,” he says.

“Come on. You hate it sometimes.”

“Damn right. I hate it at five
A.M.
”

“But now's okay?”

“Yes.” He leans in, whispering against my lips, “Because now I'm with you.”

The words flood through me, warming me, bringing me to a place that feels altogether different, and wrong, and unexpected.

Colin.

I think of him then, those storm-blue eyes that seemed to reflect all the world. The team doesn't talk about him, which makes it easier. Forgetting about Colin and our five days on that mountain makes
everything
easier. And so, when his memory surges through me at the very moment I should be thinking of someone else, I push it away.

“Aves?” The wetness of Lee's lips on my skin tingles as he pulls away. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” I try to smile. “I'm just happy to be here with you.”

We step onto the pool deck, which, for the first time in months, doesn't fill me with instant dread. Instead, it's calming, almost restorative. I step out of my shoes, peel off my socks, and savor the cool dampness of the tiles underfoot.

“Still okay?” Lee asks.

“Great.” And it's the truth. Being here feels natural, like an unexpected homecoming.

Together, we take our time circling the perimeter of the pool. It's a first for both of us. My recruiting visit was rushed and pressured. Practices are always an exercise in efficiency and time management. Meets are crowded, chaotic affairs, with packed decks and swimmers scurrying from place to place. I never thought about how purely functional a pool could become, almost like a workplace. It's no wonder so many of us burn out after college.

“It looks different at night,” I say as we round the third corner. Above and beyond us, the moon and stars and California sky loom over the bay.

“I know.” He stops and looks up. “I feel like I'm on a lake.” He flinches. “I mean, not like . . .”

“It's okay.” I lean into him, finding sanctuary in the crook of his arm.

“Aves,” he says, turning toward me. “The sessions with Dr. Shin . . .”

“Are helping.”

Which is true. They
are
helping. The flashbacks are less frequent, the triggers less random. Some nights, I don't dream at all.

“It was her idea to try the conditioning therapy, and I thought maybe I could help . . .” He rushes on, “Was that out of line? I swear I didn't ask about—”

“No, no. It's okay.”

“You sure?”

“Totally okay.”

“I know I don't have much training—”

“Much training?”

“Okay,
any
training. But I told her you trust me.” His smile falters. “You do trust me, right, Aves?”

“Of course.” I loop my arm through his and sit down on the deck. We dangle our bare feet in the seventy-nine-degree water, a temperature that feels just right when you're swimming hard. Even now, it's a luxury—brisk but refreshing. Designed for human comfort, tuned to the finest degree.

I lift my feet, watching the water stream between my toes and return to the pool. A ripple of unease courses through me, as unwelcome as it is fleeting. It's gone before Lee can see the tension in my jaw, the smile struggling to stay there.

“Aves?” he asks. “You okay?”

I drop my head on his shoulder and close my eyes. When I open them again, the world isn't spinning anymore. The pool glistens and hums, and the humidity warms me everywhere. It all feels so safe, and natural, and right.

So right, in fact, I almost forget about the dangers lurking beneath the surface.

D
r. Shin waits until the first of April to ask about Colin.

It's our tenth appointment, the middle stage of a relationship that starts to feel like it needs to
go
somewhere. And Dr. Shin isn't the type to stall out. So I start with a tidbit about my family (one of her favorite subjects), which I'm hoping is enough to sustain her until the appointment ends. Next week, I'll think of something else to blabber on about.

“My brother offered me a job,” I say, picking at the tuft of gray threads under the armrest.

“Which brother?”

“Edward.”

“The professional baseball player who lives in LA? You've never mentioned him by name.”

“That's Edward.”

“I thought you said he was moving back to Boston.”

“He is.” I return my hands to my lap. “The job is in Boston.”

A long pause.

“I see,” she muses. Dr. Shin doesn't like to prompt me with too many questions. Sometimes we sit in silence for ten or twenty minutes while she waits for me to say something.

“Anyway, I said no.”

“May I ask what the job is?”

“He's trying to rejuvenate athletic programs for inner-city schools.” I pick at the threads until three more of them give way. Maybe she stocks these couches because she knows the crappy fabric is therapeutic.

“You told me once you didn't think he'd actually leave professional baseball.”

“Well,” I say, looking up, “I was wrong.”

Her intense stare makes me want to rush on, to say more than I probably should. This is part of her effectiveness as a psychiatrist, more a weapon than a tool of the trade.

“I can't go back to Boston,” I say.

She doesn't even bother to express the long
mmm
that usually follows such a statement. With no more threads to unravel, the only thing left to focus on is her eyes, reaching into me like a pair of hands.

“Why not?” she asks.

“Because my life is here. I've got the team, and Lee, and swimming . . .”

“But you're not swimming,” she says. “The conditioning therapy hasn't worked.”

She's right, of course. I'm sure Lee has been hounding her with e-mails, begging for advice. After that first “lesson,” I wore my favorite suit for the second one, all decked out and ready to swim. I couldn't get in past my knees.

“Did Lee tell you what happened?”

“A bit.” She folds her hands together as she gathers her thoughts. “He couldn't speak to what it was like for you, though.”

“Well, I can't really describe it. It's like some other part of my brain takes over.”

“Similar to the episodes you've had before?”

“Yeah.”

“So you feel afraid when you're in the water. Not around it, but in it.” She directs her gaze upward for a moment, thinking. “What else do you feel?”

“Helpless. Fragile.” My voice trails to a whisper. “Out of control.”

“Have you ever been able to regain control?”

I shake my head, conceding the obvious. “The feeling passes after a few minutes, and it takes a while for me to feel like myself again.”

“How so?”

“I just feel lost.”

She crosses her ankles and studies me for five, maybe ten seconds. It feels like an eternity, but in the scheme of our frequent drawn-out silences, it's really not that much.

“How do you feel about spending the summer in Boston?” she asks.

“I'm indifferent.” I look up, registering that telltale frustration in her eyes, colored with disappointment. She always seems to know when I'm lying.

She waits patiently for me to revise my answer.

“I'm uneasy about it,” I admit.

“Why is that, do you think?”

“Well, they all live in the Boston area. The boys, I mean.”

“Have you seen them?” she asks.

The answer comes haltingly, guilt welling up as I say, “No.”

Their voices. The lilting sounds of their laughter. The details of who they were under those merciless gray skies have faded, but my mind still wanders. Sometimes it finds them sitting under the stars, begging for candy canes. I've dreamed about seeing them again, and each time, I wake with tears on my face and a lurch in my throat.

“And Colin?”

“What about him?” I choke out.

“Have you spoken with him at all?”

The sudden change in tack takes me by surprise; only in rare cases will Dr. Shin go straight for the jugular. It throws me off my game. Makes me less likely to bend the truth. At least this time, I manage to suppress the first thought that comes to mind.

“I don't want to talk about him,” I say.

She leans back in her chair but doesn't look away. Her hair is tied into a tight bun, which accentuates the tautness of her features, the depth of her eyes. The truth is, I
never
want to talk about Colin. Because if we don't talk about him, maybe he won't haunt me in ways that confuse my emotions and sabotage my attempts to move on. Maybe the truth will never come out.

I put my head down and inspect the tiny knots in the carpet, as if willing myself to sink through it. “I just want to forget about him.”

Her voice is gently inquisitive. “Why?”

“Because he reminds me of everything that happened out there.”

Shit.
I walked right into it.

“I thought you said you got separated early on.”

“We were. We did.” The media refused to accept the “I don't remember anything” excuse when they got wind of Colin's floss sutures. I told them we'd been together five hours instead of five days—just enough time for me to stitch up a wound. “That's what I meant.”

“You said ‘everything.'”

“‘Everything' is a vague term. I meant Colorado. The plane. Whatever.”

“I'm not sure that's what you meant.”

“Of
course
it's what I meant.” I don't realize I'm screaming until someone knocks on the door and asks if everything is all right.

“Yes, fine,” Dr. Shin says. She waits for me to go on, but I can't. I won't. The person at the door gasps as I wrench it open and burst into the waiting room.

As it turns out, my abrupt exodus from that office isn't as freeing as I'd hoped.

It's damning.

•

The media wanted a hero, but more than that, they wanted to know about Colin and those three little boys. They wanted to know how we'd ended up so far apart, a logistical anomaly given the fact that there were no other survivors. The only reasonable answer was to say nothing—and later, when the floss sutures called into question the whole “amnesia” story, I came up with an abbreviated version of the truth. I told the world we'd gotten separated early on, which made for a very bland story.

The boys were never interviewed; the media assumed they were too young or sick or traumatized to remember anything. And then, of course, there was the question of taste. No one wanted to torture little kids by dredging up bad memories.
Avery Delacorte, though—she could handle it.
Except I couldn't. So I lied about what happened, and the interviews stopped.

By the time Colin recovered enough to speak to the media, he didn't challenge the details I'd provided, sparse as they were. He did this for me, of course, just like he did everything else.

For some reason, the world was kinder to him. Headlines painted him as the quiet hero. The photos recycled by all the media outlets over and over again were actually flattering. Most were taken in and around Boston, after his discharge from the hospital. And then, of course, there was that parking lot footage. The tabloids had a field day with that one:
Has Avery Delacorte been holding back about what
really
happened out there?
For weeks, life felt like a reality show.

But I could cope with the media firestorm. I learned to navigate it in my own way, sheltered by the cocoon of a college campus. The public has a short memory. People forget. They move on. Other stories, other tragedies, steal their attention. And I let it happen because being
normal
meant more to me than being
me.

Colin never said anything about the notebook in our brief hours together on New Year's, though I sometimes wondered if he intended to. The recovery personnel never found it, not like I made any effort to track it down. I didn't want to relive those harrowing five days, nor think about them at all.

The truth was, the boys deserved better.

“Aves?”

I look up to see Lee sitting on the steps of my dorm. He has flowers in one hand and a brand-new Nike suit in the other.

“Hey.”

“What's wrong? Did something happen?”

The silence expands until it's everywhere, all at once, torturing me in ways that words never could. I've exhausted my ability to lie. There is only the truth, embedded in memory. Haunting memories, beautiful memories.

This is who I am now.

“Yes,” I say, wishing the answer were different.