In Deep (11 page)

“You don't have to go. We can—”

“Yes, Charlie, I do need to go.” My voice is so sharp, his mom and sisters look up. “Okay?” I try to be softer.

He heaves himself off the couch, taking our bowls to the kitchen, and sighs. “Do what you have to do then.”

I don't know why I don't want to leave with him irritated, bad as I want to get out of here. I shouldn't care. But I follow him into the kitchen anyway, put my arms around his waist.

“I had fun at lunch,” I say into his back. “And this was really nice.”

He doesn't move. I rub my pointy chin into a knot of muscle just under his shoulder blade—the swimmer's spot. I press hard.

“Ow.” But at least he turns around.

“I just need to do some of this on my own, okay?”

“Yep.”

“We can talk more about it at lunch tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

I sigh. “I don't know what to say.”

He squeezes my hands. “Just say good-bye for now and go work on your paper. I should probably do some stuff anyway. So once again you're the tough one, all right? You win.”

“That isn't—”

“I know. It's okay.” He rubs his brow with the heel of his hand. “Let's just both go do some work, all right?”

I hug him close, pressing my cheek against his chest. I need to leave, need to go, absolutely right now. But I linger there, my ear on his heart, listening to it beat steady. Strong. Alive. Here with me.

“Okay,” I finally say, pulling away.

ONE SEVENTEEN IN THE MORNING
. I yank myself out of sleep—heart pounding—a rush of heat sweeping over me. I'm awake. It's okay. It wasn't real. I sit up. The dark of my room shifts into recognizable shapes. I take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out. The images of my nightmare dissipate, but not enough: Dad and me and one of my middle-school girlfriends on a drive in the country, listening to music and being happy. We follow a curve in the road, but it becomes broken gravel, rocks, and then deep black sand. The tires get stuck, spinning. Dad presses the gas harder. Black sand is flying all around us. My friend is panting with panic. The car sinks deeper into the sand. Dad starts to sweat, like someone's pouring a bucket of water over him. The engine makes terrible noises. We sink
lower and lower. The dark sand presses against the windows, and they begin to crack.

I've gotten used to these since he died. Before, I would go into Mom's room, get into bed with her. Most of the time she was out so cold, she never noticed I was there until the morning, but that didn't matter to me. I just needed some company. In the morning she would wake me up, stroke my hair, and ask if I was okay. She never made me talk about the dreams—just knew I'd had a bad one. Maybe she couldn't handle it, but that didn't matter then. I liked that she didn't need to know the details.

Now, of course, it's all different. After another minute or two of blinking in the dark, feeling my heart slow and the fear unwind from my veins, I go downstairs silently, turn the TV on, and pull a blanket over myself. It'll take some time before I fall asleep again. But I figured out a while ago that TV company is better than none.

WHEN KATE AND I GET
to Woodham's class the next day, there's a note on the door instructing us all to go straight to the library. The dream last night was exhausting, and the TV kept me awake more than it helped me sleep, so most of the day has sucked. I made myself smile and pay attention to Charlie and his friends at lunch again, which I guess is a thing now, but it's made me even crankier.

“So, don't you even want to know?” Kate says as we head back down the hall. “I mean, I'm trying to be cool over here, but you're barely saying anything and I kind of can't stand it.”

“Hmm?”

“Uh, class today?” She's blushing. “I just thought you might want to know if I talked to Connor or not. But, I mean, it's not that big a deal—”

“Oh gosh, no. I mean, yes, tell me. Sorry, I'm fuzzy.”

I knock myself on the side of the head, trying to be cute. But
fuzzy
is an understatement.
Fuzzy
implies warm. Something you'd want to cuddle down into. Not shards and spikes and a cloud of choking dust.

She looks at me from under those bangs, unsure.

“Seriously. I mean, I'm assuming something's happening this weekend.”

That smile. “Yes.”

She tells me about the acoustic performance he invited her to at a place where you can order dinner, too. Where John Mayer got his start, like anybody cares. I nod, I listen. She says he's going to call her after school, and I tease her about being old-fashioned. She blushes again. It's fun. Fun enough, I guess. She likes him. He likes her. He's still being a grandpa about it, but maybe that's what nice guys do. I feel a small smile, thinking of Charlie, and maybe trying another date with him, but then—

“Wait, say that part again?”

Kate's face clouds. We're at the library now, where almost everyone else is scattered at tables in the front. She speed walks us over to one in the back and then ducks down in her chair so low, it's almost embarrassing.

“I said I just hope he doesn't expect me to, you know. . . .” she whispers.

“What, kiss him?”

“Shhhhhhhh. God.” Her whole face is red. Even under those bangs. “It's not that. It's just, you know, the other.”

I can't help laughing. “Do you mean you haven't—?”

“We'll talk about it later.” She points at Woodham. “Pay attention.”

I blink, not believing, and then not believing my own disbelief. Of course Kate hasn't done it. Who on Earth would she have done it with? Her parents had to drop her off at their date last weekend. From what little I know about Kate, it wouldn't surprise me if this were the first time she's ever gone anywhere alone with anyone, especially a guy. Maybe he's even the first person she's kissed. It makes me picture my own first kiss, back in—what? Seventh? That guy Gordy. The back of a dark van, coming home from a meet. I guess my little girlfriends had been in awe about it when I told them, though it hadn't felt like anything special to me. Kate's going to need some serious advice.

A thought of Gavin swims up in my brain, but I clamp it down. It's important to at least fake-listen as Woodham explains the importance of actual texts in this paper. But as he goes on and on, I start to I feel more and more like a bag of sand again. Black, gritty. The kind that sticks to your skin and gets in your throat. When he releases us to do our research, I want to lie down in one of the aisles and cover myself with a pile of books. Maybe the information will just seep through my skin.

Kate's all business though, pulling out her binder and
smoothing open a blank page in her notebook. “So, what did you decide you want to focus on?”

Clearly, Connor and necking are not suitable topics.

“I don't know,” I grumble. “Civil War?”

Her brows come together. “Well, that's an awful lot to cover.”

“Doesn't that mean it'll be easier?”

“Um, you can't exactly cover the entire Civil War in one eight-page paper. Woodham'll knife you for even trying.”

“Woodham's going to knife me no matter what.”

Her face is both impatient and determined. I watch, unmoved, as she writes out a list, trying to show me how one preps for a paper like this. My eyes are almost too bleary to concentrate on her writing. But we have to have a subject turned in by the end of class.

“What about this one?” I point.
Death of Lincoln.

Her eyes light up. She goes on for almost five minutes about some actor and his crazy multiple-murder plan, the long chase through the country to catch him and what it meant, the first president to be assassinated.

I try to blink away the gritty feeling. “You seem pretty charged about the topic. You should take it.”

“I already have most of my paper outlined already. I just think it's interesting.”

Of course she has her paper outlined. “Sure. Conspiracy. Revenge. Sounds great.”

She grins. “And then he really gets it in the end, too. You'll love it.”

•  •  •

Twenty minutes into trying to read some of the books Kate's pulled for me—way more than I need or could even carry—I hear the low, distinct
bzzzzzz
of my phone vibrating in the side pocket of my bag at my feet. I look around to make sure no one else heard it, especially not Woodham, who'd take my phone away from me just for having it on during school hours. I pretended this morning to forget to turn it off, figuring my battery might die anyway, struggling to find a signal under the iron curtain that surrounds our school. I wasn't really hoping Gavin would text—I just wanted to know if he did, so I could keep track and not be caught off guard like yesterday. If things are really cooling off between him and Grier, I need to be ready for what might be coming next.

Even just the small idea that maybe he's finally made a move again does make feigning interest in Kate's research a little easier, I admit.

EXCEPT, WHEN SCHOOL'S OVER AND
I'm finally allowed to check, the message isn't from Gavin. Instead it's some spam text from our cell phone plan telling me about some stupid upgrade. This means the last thing I heard from Gavin was his text after practice yesterday:
you are a powerhouse.
I got it when I got home from Charlie's. Two minutes later there was also a message from Grier saying Gavin still hadn't called her and what should she do. I ignored Gavin and told Grier to keep ignoring him, too. It wasn't out of any kind of strategy, either—I was just still feeling strange about how I'd left things with Charlie.

Now it's almost a relief to see this new message wasn't Gavin. Because it means he really is a puss. Obviously, he's already tired of both Grier and me—which I knew was going to
happen the whole time. All it took was a few hours of ignoring him. That it happened so fast is a little disappointing, but it doesn't matter. Now Grier can get over it, and we can go back to normal. Dealing with Gavin in the pool for the rest of the summer will be the same as not dealing with him at all. I was right, and it didn't even take that long.

When I get to practice, though, Grier's actually on time—and standing right next to Gavin, chatting with the other guys on the team like they're all best pals. Like my teammates weren't all chicken of Gavin and his friends just last week. Like I didn't firmly tell Grier to ignore him not even twenty-four hours ago. It's more than annoying—it's weak, the way she has no discipline. I twirl my arms in their sockets and smooth my cap, trying to remember some of the Lincoln crap I was reading up until the last bell, instead of wondering what happened to the girl who once took a dump in her prissy neighbor's yard just because I dared her to. Trying not to feel the sand underneath my eyelids. Definitely not being joiny-joiny with all those hose-weeds over there.

Grier's palm on my back makes me jump.

“Hey”—she laughs—“you okay?”

“Sure. Just focused. Only a few more—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” That mocking, bored tone in her voice. “Blah, blah, blah, qualifiers. But listen”—her eyes go over to everyone on the bleachers—“my dad's coming back into
town this weekend, so I thought I'd invite some people over before I'm quarantined, you know?”

Both she and I know that even when both her parents are in town, she's never really quarantined in the way the rest of us are, but it's clear all she wants is for me to say yes. Without meaning to, I glance over at the boys on the bleachers. Gavin is very not purposefully looking over at me and Grier, and is instead pretending to be very interested in whatever boring-as-hell story it is Shyrah's trying to impress him with. Gavin's spine is straight, his abs all fully sucked in so that you can see every hard-earned ridge. Thighs clenched, tendons taut. I think of my hand in his hair, his mouth on mine. All those texts. I should say no. I should just go home, work on this damn paper. It would be better for all kinds of reasons. But then his shoulders shift and his chin tilts and I catch him sneaking a sideways glance over.

Still, I can't make it easy.

“I've got a big paper for Conflicts, so I don't know.”

Grier's eyebrows pull together. “You don't really care about that, do you?”

“No. But my teacher does. It's basically the whole exam. If I fail, I have to take summer school.”

“Well, that would suck. But you could come over for just a little while. Eat something, hang out. You could work on your paper later. Relaxing after practice a little might help, right?”

Van comes out of his office then, and Grier gives me a panicked look.

“I just thought,” she says, “some kind of thing with everyone would make things . . . I don't know . . . less serious feeling for Gavin or something. More fun. But it won't be fun if you're not there.”

I feel my mouth wanting to twist into a smile. I have to fight it. Hard. “Okay, but I can't sleep over or anything. It can't be that wild.”

“Oh, no,” she promises, doe-brown eyes wide. “Dad's back from Japan around nine, so everyone has to be out. It's just a get-together, you know? Just everyone hanging out for a little while. Gavin can drop you home.”

I shouldn't be doing this. I'm way too tired today, and the stuff about Woodham's paper isn't exactly a lie. But Gavin is fully looking at us now.

“Okay. But you have to be the one to explain to Louis.”

She squeezes my hands in hers. “You're the best.”

•  •  •

You'd think the water would be the last place a bunch of swimmers fresh out of practice would want to be, but at Grier's it's as if it's the only place we can be comfortable with one another. I'm surprised at how many people are here: Gavin-Linus-Troy, of course, and Shyrah and Megan, but also Dylan, Sam, Kelly, Lucy, and Siena—people we hardly talk to or hang out with at
all. I don't know what Grier told them, or what she told Louis about this afternoon either, but it doesn't matter. Louis just said to be home at a reasonable time. I texted Charlie and told him I was working. He texted back that he was proud.