Indigo (21 page)

I climbed carefully and tried not to seem like a clumsy moron. Rennick beat me over the side, and he was already pulling his shirt over his head when I hopped down. I kicked off my flip-flops. We both stopped, frozen for a second. Surely, he was thinking the same thing as me. What was I going to swim in?

I answered the question by taking a running start and diving right into the deep end, fully clothed. I gave a little war cry, and then I was in, the water hugging my tank top and jean shorts to my body. But oh it felt good, cool and calming. Rennick jumped in after me, but I was already swimming. The butterfly. He called after me, but I was in a groove, the water slicing around me, my body falling into the familiar pattern, my lungs burning. A relief to be so right here, so normal.

On the return lap, I switched to freestyle. As happy as
I was, I was aware that my episode with Seth had taken a toll on me, my nerve endings on fire and frayed. But with each stroke in the water, that feeling disappeared a little bit more.

A few more laps, and then I stopped and scanned the darkness for Rennick, and he was there, at the shallow end. I caught sight of his lanky form, the silhouette of his torso against the far reaches of a blue security spotlight shining on the pool. My breath caught in my throat. He was beautiful, the ropy lines of his shoulders, the V of his torso, the tilt of his head as he watched me swim toward him.

“It’s amazing what you can do.” His voice was quiet. Legato.

I sat on the step beside him, aware of his body next to me, aware of how my body responded to the proximity. I swallowed hard, wondered if it showed on my face. Because surely it did. This was a moment, one of those moments you think happens only in movies or only to girls like Mia-Joy. My stomach dropped in that oh-so-good roller-coaster way as he turned to me. And before I knew it, his hand had found my knee under the water. And his touch was hot, a question. Something inside me swelled and sang, a feeling like I’d never had before.

When he dipped his head forward, his eyes watching me, going slowly, so slowly, I held his gaze. My eyes gave him permission. His eyes closed, and then so did mine.
When his lips brushed mine, I was surprised by the softness. The gentleness. He pulled back, but I didn’t let him. I leaned into him.

I kissed him back, tasting the chlorine, his sweat, and before I knew it, my hands were in his hair, that gorgeous hair, and it was surprisingly soft, wiry silk. His hands were on my face, a palm against each cheek, and he stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. His lips were so soft and full, questioning and greedy, and I kissed him back hard, hungrily.

I had kissed three boys in my life, one being Cody back in Chicago, but none of those kisses had anything on this moment.

He broke from the kiss then, and he smiled, leaned his head on my forehead, his eyes still closed, the fringe of his eyelashes on his cheek. And he said my name,
Corrine
. Just my name over and over as his fingers traced the knobs of my spine. It became a song, my name, the rhythm like his laugh.

His lips found mine again, then the point of my chin, my neck, that spot right under my ear. He pulled me close to him, pulled me onto his lap. And I ceased thinking. It was just Rennick and me, his tongue in my mouth, his hands on my body. It was at once more than I could take and not enough. A hunger deeper and stronger than I’d ever known had woken inside me, and it was singular, only for Rennick, for his touch, for his taste, for his body next to me, the feel of his fingertips tracing my collarbone.

When I didn’t think I could take it anymore, when I
thought I would explode from the pleasure, I pulled him under the water. I opened my eyes and looked at him. He had done the same. I pulled away and just looked at him, letting my eyes soak up every inch of his face, his body. His eyes moved on me as well, and it made my skin prickle with life.

It was every bit as sensual as the kissing from a few seconds ago. But there was something else I wanted to do. Something he was waiting for. And so I did it. I reached out my hand and traced the beautiful structure that was his face, his jaw, down to his Adam’s apple. Then my fingers found his shoulders, and I flattened my hands, pressed them over his chest, moved them down over his stomach. I stopped there, my fingers running across the skin above his shorts.

My hands on Rennick. My
hands
.

He grabbed my hands then, and he held his hands up, in an obvious gesture. I placed my palms flat on his. A seal. A trust. All that I wanted to say to him was right there in that gesture.

We stayed that way until we had to break the surface. Annoyed that we had to give it up for something as mundane as breathing.

A flashlight shone on us, bright and unforgiving. “Get out of the water, kids.” The guard’s voice was bored and annoyed.

I heard Rennick suppress a chuckle behind me as I
pulled myself up the aluminum ladder, but I couldn’t help it, I laughed. And then Rennick couldn’t stop himself. We didn’t win ourselves any points with the crabby guard. He gave us both a squinty-eyed shake of his head, but then he threw us each a worn white towel. “Just get yourselves home.”

I couldn’t be sure, but I think I heard him chuckle too.

I woke up with a start, knotted and tangled in my sheets. I could feel the tension in my throat, the one-note sound of it echoing in my ears. I must’ve just screamed.

I rubbed at the back of my neck, where there were new balls of stress in my muscles. Every part of me seemed to be sweating. I threw the sheets off, just as Dad knocked on the door. He came in, a look of concern knitting his brow.

They hadn’t been mad about my sneaking out of the hospital or my trip to the Kranes’, and I had sort of left out the detail about the pool, but still, I had thought they would be ecstatic, knowing I had saved Seth, knowing what I could now do.

I mean, their words were the right ones. It wasn’t that. But the worry lines on Mom’s forehead, the way she rubbed her knuckles across her lips, said otherwise. But I had been
exhausted and had excused myself to bed. I hadn’t been up to hashing it out.

Dad settled his large frame into my desk chair, the back of his bed head standing up straight like a silver cock’s comb.

“So this touch is real, huh?” He scratched at his stubble and looked toward me with a mix of emotions on his face. Concern? Fear? For me or
of
me? Both?

I just nodded. I really wanted to take a cold shower, I was so hot. And drink a huge glass of water. Ice water.

“Corrine, we’re with you on this. It’s going to get huge, though, I think.” He held my gaze for a long moment. “Are you prepared for that?”

“No,” I said. “But I still have to do it.”

“You don’t have to,” he answered, and his voice was serious. He leaned forward. “We can leave, just disappear, if you need to, Corrine. If you don’t want this … if you want another choice.”

I nodded. I tried to picture that. It seemed an over-reaction, a parent’s worry. For me, I finally felt like I was on the right track, finally getting somewhere, moving forward, and I could’ve explained all this, but my throat was sandpaper. I had to get a drink, so when Dad got up and ruffled my hair awkwardly, I didn’t stop him. I didn’t explain that I had high hopes for my touch, that I thought Sophie would want me to make up for her death, to help others, to reach out. I just let him leave, and I quickly went into my
bathroom, started the shower on cold, and drank for a long time, straight out of the showerhead.

Mom was jittery and talking constantly as I sat down with coffee. “Dad left already to check on the Kranes, see if he could get them to downplay what happened. Keep it quieter.

“I have to go to Chartrain today,” she said, tossing me a granola bar from the cupboard. “You look flushed.”

I shrugged. “Who do you think I should help first?”

Mom stopped washing her mug in the sink, turned slowly. “I don’t think we can do it that way, can we?” There was a little sense of panic in her voice. “I mean, we can’t seek people out, babe. If they seek you out, okay. But I just don’t know …”

“Okay,” I said. I had been thinking about this, and it did seem to make sense. “We don’t want anyone suing us or anything,” I chuckled. But Mom’s back straightened, and she stood very still for a moment.

She turned to me. “Dad is checking with his lawyers today. I mean, I don’t know, Corrine. Who do we talk to about this? Especially if we don’t want your life to, well …” She shook the thought away with a wave of her hand. “I would feel better if you would let me know when and where you were going to do this, so that I don’t have to worry that you’re off somewhere, needing me, or needing … I don’t know. Is there anything you need when it happens?”

“Water. I get hot.” I stood up, walked to where my mom was standing. She looked older to me, so scared. I hugged her. It had been a long time. Such a very long time. I just hugged her close. She grabbed my hand between hers, held it there. “Corrine,” she said, and she smiled. Then her expression changed.

“Do you have a fever?” She pressed her hand to my forehead. I shook my head. Mom held my gaze. “You feel all right?”

“Yeah.”

“And what are you doing today?”

“Hanging out with Rennick and Mia-Joy. We might go to the carnival over in Woodmere. Might be far enough away that people don’t know me.”

“Be careful.” Mom cupped my face in her hands. “I’ve missed you.” And she pulled me to her again. “Take your phone.”

And then she left for work, and I felt so very normal, so very seventeen again. I swallowed back the lump in my throat, pushed back the urge to pore over the pictures of Sophie upstairs. This was me. The new me.

If the past few days had been a new beginning for me, a new window back into life, arriving at the carnival with Mia-Joy, Jules, and Rennick was like baptism by fire—all the sights and sounds and smells. The Mardi Gras paper lanterns strung around the park, the sweet aroma of funnel cakes and cotton
candy, the zoom of the salt-and-pepper-shaker rides, the ringing bells of the carnival games. The music was loud with a
boom-boom-thwack
bass beat that I could feel in my teeth. And the people.

So many people, their shoulders brushing mine, their laughter a little too loud, but everyone was so happy, so in the moment. Mezzo forte. I had missed being in a crowd like this.

Being so very alive.

From the second they picked me up, I could tell that Rennick had pulled out all the stops for me. His hair had a new, combed look about it, and he smelled fresh and clean, a soapy scent mixed in with the smell that was just him, his skin, his sweat. The confident smile, the easy way he laughed with Mia-Joy; he reminded me of my old black-and-white movie heroes. And I had dressed up too, my favorite summer dress, white, short, and flirty. I had knotted my hair at the nape of my neck, stuck a daisy from Mom’s garden in it on a last-minute whim.

But I knew I was hanging back a little. It was one thing to act boldly in the dark of the night. Everything seemed a little more possible then. But now, here, in the stark sunlight of the carnival, I didn’t know how to act. It felt a little like last night hadn’t counted. It had been such a crazy time, with saving Seth and jumping into the pool.

Mia-Joy and Jules rode in the back of the Jeep. Jules’s arm swung around Mia-Joy, their heads together, talking,
giggling. Jules was a big guy. I knew him from school, a little too popular. But Mia-Joy seemed to think he was better than all right. He paid me no attention, but that was fine with me.

As we walked into the carnival, Rennick saw me watching them ahead of us. They had skedaddled right for the Tunnel of Love.

“You don’t mind if we disappear, do you, Corrine?” Mia-Joy had asked. I shook my head.

“Jules is all right,” Rennick said, motioning ahead.

“Yeah?” I said, watching them, wishing I didn’t think that Mia-Joy only went for the lookers.

“Isn’t that what you’re worrying about? He’s got an ego, this whole cool thing going on, but he’s okay.”

“It’s not just that,” I said as we stood in line to buy some tickets for rides. “I just keep wondering when she’s going to have a … problem. The rip in her aura.”

“So you believe me,” he said with a grin. “Twenty bucks’ worth,” he told the ticket taker.

“I can pay too—”

Rennick shook his head, one curt little shake. I watched that gravity-defying lock of hair move back and forth.

A group of teenagers came at us then, laughing, sharing popcorn, and they weren’t looking where they were going. A short kid with a ring in his nose came stumbling right at me, and I tried to get out of his way but he ran square into me.

“Whoa!” he said, spilling his popcorn.

“Sorry.” I backed away from him, hands up in surrender.

“Sorry, dude!” he apologized, but the unwanted physical contact unnerved me.

“No problem,” Rennick said, but he was eyeing the kid.

Rennick grabbed my hand then, held it for a second, pulled me closer to him. “Okay?” he asked as he pressed his palm into mine. It was much rougher than mine. I let my palm press against his. My hand fit so perfectly in his, and my stomach flipped when he squeezed.