A Cold and Quiet Place

by Alison DeLuca

  Talking to her boyfriend is like a cliff dive into a deep lake. Lily doesn’t understand him – he’s a mystery. He’s not an open page, like James.

  However, Lily begins to see they need to have a talk about their relationship before he goes off to college.

  She looks at him, wrists hung over bent knees like an American Eagle model. If she launches into a discussion about Rosemont and her girlfriend status, he’d blow up in her face. Lily senses the tension simmering under Tyler’s skin. He would freeze her out and destroy their golden moment in the pool. In the end Tyler would make it all seem like her fault.

  So it’s easier to talk about New Jersey instead. “Never got the chance to tell you about Erica,” she begins, but Tyler interrupts.

  “See, this whole thing is messed up. This girl sent you nasty texts, made you all depressed, you can’t tell me you weren’t because I know you were, and now you’re just friends again. Simple as that. It’s like you’re happy to trust her again. You know what happens to people like you? Bad shit, that’s what. ”

  “But it wasn’t her after all. I told you already.”

  “She could have lied.” He emphasizes the final word with extra syllables: Lye-ee-duh. “Don’t you see? You’re clueless, no offence.”

  It’s not the first time his ‘no offence’ means ‘what I just said is really offensive, so just suck it up.’ Tyler doesn’t understand, and Lily scrambles for words to make him see the truth. “Erica’s been my friend since first grade. I don’t know what happened with the weird texts – we have to figure it all out. She uses a different phone now, anyway.”

  “Sure, since I blocked her from yours.” Tyler holds up the end of his sub roll and throws it at one of the fat campus squirrels. “I just don’t like the thought of you hanging out with her, but whatever. You gotta make your own mistakes. Don’t blame me if it all gets fucked up and you get fucked over in the process.”

  The entire conversation has gone like a car sliding off a wet road, like a bad freestyle event, like an argument. What he’s said bugs Lily, but she can’t quite put her finger on it to call him out. Instead, she tries for another distraction. “I have to read Pale Horse, Pale Rider for Lit.”

  “Say what now?”

  Lily laughs. “My book for Lit class.” She fishes it out from her swim bag and waves it under Tyler’s nose.

  “You’re gonna sit there and read while we’re together? C’mon, that’s lame. Throw away the book. Burn the book. Tear up the book.”

  Tyler reaches for the volume, and she snatches Pale Horse, Pale Rider from his outstretched fingers. “Cut it out!” Lily laughs. “I have to finish it tonight, and Yasmin’s already mad at me from last night.”

  “Oh yeah, last night.” He props his head on the book and bares those sharp, white teeth in an exaggerated grin. “Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

  But his hair, still damp from the pool, makes Pale Horse, Pale Rider’s pages frill on the edges like romaine lettuce. Lily sucks her teeth and gives up after a few paragraphs.

  “Good,” Tyler purrs. “You’re done. Now we can go get ice cream.”

  ◆◆◆

  The room is dark when Lily sneaks back into the dorm. It’s a relief to strip out of the wet suit and damp sweats and get into dry pajamas. Her gym clothes, as usual, flop onto the floor. I’ll pick them up before practice, she promises.

  Exhaustion makes her arms shake as Lily gets ready to catch up on homework. Her flashlight is under the pillow, the sheet a thin, cotton shell over her head. She feels like a fragile snail in the grass, as though she tries to escape a descending Doc Martin boot before it crushes her.

  Lily flicks Pale Horse to the right page and starts to read. She reads a few pages before the phone vibrates: Hey. Asleep?

  Homework, she texts back. You wouldn’t let me do it earlier, remember?

  His only response is I’m bored. Entertain me.

  Lily knows he’ll bug her until she throws him a bone, so she pulls up her pajama shirt with one fist to reveal her chest, smiles, and snaps a quick selfie. From under her sheet-cave Lily hears an aggressive pillow thump followed by an aggrieved turnover from Yasmin’s bed. Got to go – roomie’s pissed. She adds several x’s and o’s and gets back to her book.

  When the work’s finished, her eyelids are heavy and itchy with sleep. Already midnight has come and gone. The morning alarm will be dreadful, but Lily sets it anyway and lies down.

  Sleep waves over her, silent and immediate. Her dreams are filled with worry and the threat of danger. Lily squeezes her eyes shut and drowns in the darkness.

  ◆◆◆

  The edges of the morning are already streaked pink and gold when the phone alarm blares in her ear. Lily drags on her last dry bathing suit, kicks the wet stuff from the night before under the bed, and tiptoes to the door. Yasmin is a motionless lump in the other bed.

  Lily closes the door as quietly as she can on the peaceful sound of her roommate’s soft snores and sneaks down the stairs. Outside the air is soft with dawn and pollen. She takes in great gulps of oxygen untainted with chlorine and reaches for her phone in the front of her bag.

  Nothing. The phone is missing.

  Lily curses, sets down her swim bag, and pulls out all her gear. She’s got shampoo, goggles, swim cap, towels, extra clothes – but no phone. It must still be in her bed from the midnight conversations with Tyler, maybe under her pillow or tucked in the blankets. He likes her to leave the screen on Facetime, says he wants to watch her sleep.

  If she runs back, she’ll wake Yasmin and be late for practice. With a growl of disgust at her own forgetfulness, Lily slams the stuff back into the bag and jogs to practice. She ignores her empty stomach. As usual, power bars will just have to be her breakfast.

  Staci’s in the water when Lily walks into the pool, and Haddigan hangs on the wall to push stubborn strands of brown hair beneath her cap. Tyler is nowhere to be seen. The girls wave at Lily and tell her their practice is almost ready. Even though the coach still writes on his omnipresent clipboard, Lily knows the first line will be a 400 warm-up. There’s no reason not to step in and get started.

  Tyler will understand. People leave their phones behind all the time. Her thoughts dart like minnows, trying to figure out a covert way out of the pool and back to the dorm. Deep down, she knows the opposite is true – if she doesn’t call him, he won’t understand, and she’ll have to spend days making up for it.

  Staci would ask her where she’s going if Lily sneaks off. Yasmin would wake up and be pissed. Robert would make her pay in push-ups.

  Lily’s stuck at the pool with no way of reaching Tyler.

  The water slicks her thighs, an embrace from a cold lover. In the lane next to hers, Staci turns in a tight underwater flip and heads back down the pool. Her strokes chop up the surface for Lily and Haddigan. The laps are always rough for the first swimmer in the pool, and the three of them try to draft off the first swimmer.

  By the time Lily nears the end of the warm-up, Robert’s got their practice sheets on the kickboards. A few other team members join the group at the edge to check the practice.

  “5 100’s on 110?” Staci says in dismay. “Did I mention I have to leave early?”

  “Did I mention I don’t care? Get your butt back in the pool.” Robert glares at his clipboard and marks a line item in red sharpie. Staci dunks her head underwater before she pushes the wall.

  Practice proceeds as usual. Time speeds by when they swim 50’s, yet slows to a glacial pace when they have to swim 300’s. Lily’s worked her way down most of the practice sheet when Tyler enters the pool area.

  “I know he’s your boyfriend,” Haddigan mutters into Lily’s ear, “but holy shit. He’s like a Greek statue.”

  Robert’s obviously about to launch into his ‘Nice of you to show up’ speech. Tyler doesn’t look at Lily or the coach, before he climbs on the block, launches into the air, and hurtles through the water with powerful dolphin kicks. When he comes up,
he starts his freestyle stroke.

  Lily’s jaw drops, and Staci gasps. “What the hell is he doing? He didn’t even warm up yet! He’s gonna to blow out his shoulder…”

  “Hey!” Robert yells. “Hey!” When Tyler doesn’t respond, the coach blasts his whistle several times. Staci claps her hands over her ears.

  Tyler reaches the end and rests one broad palm on the edge of the pool. “Whaaaat?” It’s like he wants to annoy the coach.

  Robert runs to the end of the pool, squats next to Tyler’s wet-otter head. The girls can’t hear what they’re saying to each other.

  “Guess these laps won’t swim themselves.” Lily turns away, knowing if she watches any longer she’ll go out of her mind. Is Tyler annoyed again because she didn’t answer his morning texts? He knew she was going to practice. Maybe he’s just sick of getting up early.

  Still, she should have remembered her phone. It’s all her fault.

  Only her fierce concentration on the black line below her and the warning stripe for the turn keep Lily’s mind off Tyler and his obvious anger. Wind up, shoot forward. Reach your limit, and push past it. Quick break of air. Lily sucks in chlorine-tinged oxygen, feels the endorphins flood her brain and body as she breaks the laws of gravity and physics.

  Robert’s by the end as she finishes her laps, tapping the red pen on his chin. She shields her eyes to look up at his silhouette against the overhead lights. “Your last lap didn’t suck, Batista,” he comments. “Keep this up and you just might become a real swimmer.”

  ◆◆◆

  “I texted you all night.” Tyler’s voice is low. He doesn’t look at Lily where she sits next to him on a campus bench. No one’s out this early besides swimmers and a few hell-bent track stars. “You didn’t answer. So I thought you’d text me before practice. Obviously I was wrong.”

  It explains the buzz she heard all night. “I left my phone in my room this morning. There was no time to run back for it or I’d have been late to practice, you know? And last night I was asleep. I finished the book you wouldn’t let me read yesterday and passed out. Plus Yasmin isn’t too thrilled about our midnight conversations.” Lily waves away the cronut he holds out. She’s eaten too many of the fat-and-sugar-laden sweets, and it’s time to stick to egg whites and protein for a while.

  “Why should I care what she thinks? She’s nothing to me. Should be nothing to you, too. And how dumb is that to leave your phone behind? What, are you an idiot? How did you even get into this school in the first place?”

  “Yasmin’s my roommate. I have to care what she thinks. It’s unfair to just expect her to put up with my shit. Bad enough my clothes are all over the floor, not to mention the wet swim stuff and my early hours.” Lily finishes her egg sandwich and tosses the crust to one of Prescot’s enormous squirrels. It catches the food, darts up a tree, and disappears among young leaves and arrows of sunshine.

  The golden morning light touches Tyler’s scowl, and Lily tries again. “Look, you’re about to graduate. You’ve got everything you wanted – a secure spot on a great swim team and a scholarship. I’ve still gotta make it for three more years.”

  “See, this is my point. We don’t even have a summer together.” Tyler wads up the grease-stained bag and throws it into a nearby trashcan with a clang. “I wanna max out each minute, or whatever. But if you don’t want to, hey. Just tell me. I’m out, no problem.”

  Lily stops him with one hand on his arm and feels the muscles tense under the thin fabric of his shirt. “Of course I want to be with you all the time! But it doesn’t mean I can skip homework or get bad grades. We – we just have to find a balance?” Her anxiety turns it into a question.

  “You have to. I’ve gotta do nothing but slide through graduation.” Lily’s about to argue, but he pulls her close with one palm at the small of her back and bends over her mouth with parted lips.

  His breath is sweet with sugar, edged with coffee and warm male scent. “Just a joke,” he mutters between kisses. “Don’t you see? You’ll lose me if you don’t wake up and get a sense of humor. Anyway.” Kisses and more kisses in between each whisper, down her jaw to the sensitive flesh on her neck. “Make sure you text me back tonight when I text you.” The whisper is intense, right in Lily’s ear.

  “But if I’m already asleep…”

  “Figure it out.” One last biting, sucking kiss, and Tyler pulls back to touch the side of her neck with a satisfied grin. “Nice. You’re marked. Now everyone knows you’re mine.”

  ◆◆◆

  Through the rest of the day, Lily feels as though she swims a mile-long pool lane. There’s no time for rest and a gulp of oxygen, no wall for a turn to give her aching body a burst of speed. The day will be scheduled with nothing but chores, school, and practice. Lily wades through classes and takes time for a quick lunch with Staci and Haddigan. When school is done, Lily bolts to the library to meet with a tutor before she heads to the pool. Each time she checks her phone she gasps at the time and how quickly the day slides past.

  Practice is a rush of dry land in the same clothes she stuffed into her bag in the morning. “You’re marked,” a voice says in her ear, and Lily whimpers before her head jerks up. She’s fallen asleep against the shower wall. Under the pulse of hot water she misses Erica so fiercely it makes her stomach ache.

  When she’s done, Lily runs out of the gym and eats a few power bars on her way back to the dorm. She has to get back and clean up the room so Yasmin won’t be mad.

  As Lily runs up the stairs, she hears lowered voices from her doorway. “I’ve tried to get along with her,” Yasmin says. “I really have. But…”

  The other person shushes her as Lily walks into the double room with its low ceiling and blue curtains framing the tiny, dormer window. Ms. Haskins, the teacher who lives downstairs with her partner and two adopted kids, leans against the beige painted wall. “Hello, Lily,” she says. “We were just talking about you.”

  The frustration of trying to catch up, not enough sleep, and Tyler’s possessive attitude spills over. “Nice,” Lily spits out. “Talking about me? Behind my back? What the hell? Whatever Yasmin accused me of isn’t true. I’ve worked my butt off to catch up on grades, and now I’ll get punished for it.”

  Yasmin starts to speak, but Ms. Haskins interrupts. “No one will be punished. However, it does seem the school has paired you with the wrong roommate, and we accept the blame. You have to understand Yasmin’s concern – grades are very important to her and to her family…”

  Lily slings her filthy workout bag on the rumpled bed, plops onto the mattress, and pulls one knee into her chest. “They’re important to me too.”

  “Could I just explain for a second?” Yasmin spreads out her arms. “I know you’ve had to catch up on your work, Lily, but when you stay up late it keeps me awake. If I can’t sleep I won’t do well on exams. I just – it makes me panic just to think about it.” The girl’s chest rises and falls rapidly. Either Yasmin’s a great actress or she’s genuinely upset. “Not to mention the mess on the floor and the desk, chairs heaped with dirty clothes, and the smell of chlorine. It makes me sick.”

  With a great effort, Lily manages not to shout, “You make me sick!” It would get them nowhere. Control, she thinks. Instead she ignores Yasmin and looks at Ms. Haskins. “So what happens now?”

  “Actually, we’re in luck.” The dorm advisor stands and adjusts her Oxford shirt so it sits neatly over slim stomach and wiry arms. “I’ve got an empty room on this floor, so Yasmin can move out tonight. You’ll have this double all to yourself.”

  Lily looks around. The chipped, beige walls are already bare. “Did you start the process already? All your stuff’s already gone, right?”

  “Look.” There’s a pleading note in Yasmin’s voice. “You don’t understand. My father gets furious when I don’t get perfect grades. My grades slipped last week, and he … well. I have to do this. There’s no other choice.”

  “Can you give us a minute?” Lily as
ks Ms. Hankins. The woman frowns, tells Yasmin to be quick, and slips out of the room.

  When the door closes, Lily explodes. “Really, Yasmin? Do you think you could have talked to me first? You have no idea how terrible this term has been.”

  “No, I do! First you were sick, and then you got involved with Tyler...”

  “Wait, what?” Lily’s confused. “He’s the only good thing that’s happened to me lately.”

  Yasmin looks at her for a second and closes her mouth. “Okay. It’s your business, and this is all beside the point. Uh, not to make it all about me, but like I said, my dad pitches a fit at the least thing. I’m not even talking about straight A’s. If I don’t get every single question on every test right, he takes it out on me, on my brothers, on my mom as well.”

  Lily slumps onto the bed, unable to think of a response. Yasmin’s brown eyes seem about to overflow with tears.

  “There’s no other option,” the girl says softly. She turns away to swipe her face in one sleeve of her sweatshirt and pick up the last of her books.

  “Maybe you need to talk to, I don’t know, a counselor about what he puts your family through.” Lily’s words slip out.

  “Really? You’re the last person who should give me advice. Start with yourself before you tell me to look for help.” Yasmin’s eyes narrow as she spits out the words.

  Before Lily can ask what she means Yasmin leaves the room and closes the door with a firm click.

  9

  With Yasmin gone Lily has the largest room in the dorm and the most flexible schedule. She can stay up until midnight if she wants with no one to yell at her or be disappointed. “I’m so jealous!” Staci declares from the next shower stall as they stand under the stream of scalding water and scrub chlorine out of their hair. “I mean, my roomie is understanding, you know?” she adds. “But no one’s happy about the 5 am alarm.”

  “Plus they just don’t get it.” Haddigan pops her head in around the tiled wall to talk. “They’re all ‘Just sleep in for once,’ and I’m all ‘No way. Not an option.’”