I sit up. “Good. Tough classes, but I’ll be fine.”
“You always are. I’m very proud of you, you know.” Gram sits down on her recliner and clicks the remote, turning off the television. “Are your friends in any of your classes?”
She takes a slow sip of her tea, staring at me over the lemonyellow mug with her eyebrows raised. These last two years, she’s picked up on the fact that something’s changed, but somehow, I’ve kept my biggest secret, even from her.
She is my father’s mother, and she’s totally normal, at least as far as I can tell. She doesn’t even know how to swim; she used to tell me stories about my father and his sailboat and how she refused to set foot on it until she had a life vest tied firmly around her.
And then one day he sailed away. I always imagined my dad would come back, eventually. That he’d realize it was stupid to leave us. But he never did. Never will.
So, since my Gram isn’t big on swimming, that means either I’m a total freak of nature or I got it from my mom. And I’m pretty sure I know which one it is. But my mom’s dead. I’ll never know for certain.
“Uh, yeah. Sienna is in my English class. Nikki and I have chemistry together.” I avoid looking at her and get to my feet. “Did you take your insulin today?” I ask. “What was your reading?”
Gram sets the mug down beside her. “I wish you wouldn’t worry so much. That’s my job.”
I stand in the entry to the kitchen. “I’m not worried, Gram. I just like to know that you’re not forgetting.”
“You set that blasted alarm. How could I forget? I nearly jump out of my chair every time it rings.”
I smile, then. “Okay. Good. I’m going to fix you up some more syringes. Want spaghetti for dinner?”
Gram nods, picking up the remote and clicking the television back on. “Sounds good.”
I open the fridge and pull out my grandmother’s bottle of insulin, then go to the cupboard and take out the box of syringes, a pair of scissors, and a roll of medical tape. I take them to the little dining room table, where my backpack is sitting. I reach into the small zippered pocket and pull out a laminated chart about the size of the average road map.
I lay the chart—the periodic table of elements—out on the table. I spent half the last month preparing for the start of my advanced chem class. We’re not required to memorize the periodic table of the elements, but I’m trying to anyway. I’m sure it will help me later.
Knowledge. Books. School. I fill up my head with these things, and it keeps me from going crazy. After staring at the table for a few minutes, I look away, repeating the elements over and over, whispering them under my breath. Nitrogen, phosphorous, arsenic, antimony, bismuth, ununpentium.
The fifteenth row.
Carefully, I snip pieces of tape. Seven of them. I label them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . . . until the whole week is listed out. Then I take the syringes and load them with 40 cc of insulin. My grandmother’s daily dose. I label each syringe and then get up. Nitrogen, phosphorous, arsenic . . .
I’ve already forgotten the rest. I walk to the old, almond-colored fridge, dropping the syringes into the empty box on the top shelf. I stare into the fridge, tapping my nails on the door. Then I reach in and grab some Parmesan cheese and green peppers, my mind turning to the simpler things in life, the things I can control.
I chop the peppers while I bring the water to a boil, listening as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire blares in the other room.
My feet are on fire, now, but it’s still too early to swim. I don’t understand why, but swimming while it’s still light out is pointless and unsatisfying. I glance up at the clock.
Three hours to go.
The drive to the lake is excruciatingly long. It’s a dozen miles outside town, which would take fifteen minutes to drive if the road were paved. Unfortunately, it’s gravel, a rutted, puddle-filled old logging road. My Toyota groans as I climb upward in the darkness, ancient cedar trees soaring out around me, the very trees our town was named for. A light sprinkle has picked up, and my wipers intermittently swipe across the dirty windshield.
The radio in my car doesn’t work, so I make the drive every night in silence, my only soundtrack the sounds of my tires crunching on the old gravel surface or the squeaking of the worn-out shocks. When I first started coming here, I used to think it was eerie, driving so far in the silent darkness. But I’ve grown used to it.
I park under a big fir tree, my car engulfed in shadows. Tonight, the moon is blotted out by the clouds, and a fine mist drizzles down as I step outside my car. I pull on an old fleece jacket and zip it up to my chin, then set out down the trail.
Even without a flashlight, I have no problem navigating the familiar path. Leaves and sticks crunch beneath my worn-out hiking boots. My knees ache as I climb over the trunk of a fallen pine tree. A few more minutes and the pain will go away.
Under the canopy of the evergreen forest, the rain disappears. I unzip my jacket a little and take in a few deep breaths. Looking up through the limbs of the trees, I spot the few stars that aren’t hidden by clouds. The slightly sweet, decaying scent of a fallen nurse tree greets me.
Finally, I emerge into the small clearing that surrounds my lake. The instant I see the water, my desire grows. After a night without swimming, it’s nearly impossible to keep myself from racing straight to the edge and diving in.
The rain drizzles down, moistening my skin when I step out from under the limbs. I pause at the edge of the shore and look around, straining to hear any snap of twigs or rustle of leaves, but I hear only the sound of the forest. I pull my clothes off and hang them on the same limb as always, and then I walk to the edge of the water. A frog picks up its chorus, and I sigh as I ease into the icy lake. The cool liquid laps at my ankles, and already the pain is melting away.
Maybe Cole didn’t like the lake. Maybe he’ll never come back.
I wade deeper, then dive into the freezing water when it reaches my waist. Immediately, the muscles in my limbs unwind, my back relaxes. The glacial water is like a warm bubble bath for my body. Everything that happened today is carried away with each kick, each paddle.
I always begin my swim with a few long underwater laps. I can handle nearly ten minutes under the surface, back and forth, before I need more air.
If someone were to see me at exactly the right angle, or if the moonlight hits me just right, they might be able to make out the shimmer of my skin, an almost iridescent glow as I glide through the water. I’m not like Ariel in The Little Mermaid. I don’t have a tail or anything. Sometimes, my hands brush my legs when I swim, and my skin feels slick, like fish scales. Other times, it feels just like it always does, smooth, regular skin.
It’s different during the day. I can still hold my breath for a long time, but my skin doesn’t get slick, and I don’t get the same relief.
I wish I knew why I crave the water, why I am what I am. But I don’t. And I’m not sure I ever will. The only person who could have told me has been gone for six years. At the time my mother died, all I knew was that she’d drowned. That was all my grandmother would tell me. In the years afterward, the ocean’s call grew stronger, and I thought it was because my memories of my mother were innately tied to the sea.
I used to spend hours walking the beaches, not sure why I wanted to be so close to the surf. And then came the devastating events of my sixteenth birthday. That’s when I finally questioned the story behind my mom’s death. After I swam for the first time. After I killed.
It wasn’t hard to find out what really happened. A quick search on Google, and everything I’d thought about her changed.
It wasn’t an accidental drowning, like my grandma said. Her feet were tied to a cinder block. Most of the articles said it was a suicide, and even though I’ve never wanted to believe it, I don’t see how it could be anything else.
The articles always mention another unusual drowning: Greg Roberts, her boyfriend at the time. But Greg wasn’t there with her
. He died at least twelve hours before she did, a half-mile down the coast.
I knew Greg, but not well. Until I read that article, I’d always thought he’d left town the day my mom died, in some kind of emotional fit. He’d only been with my mom for a year, but their relationship had seemed intense, even to me, a twelve-year-old. My mother could never stop talking about him.
I don’t know for sure how he drowned, but after what happened with Steven . . . I have my suspicions. I wish she were still around. I wish she were here to tell me what I am, what it will be like for me in the coming years.
Tonight, I don’t think of her for long, because at some point during my swim, my mind goes blank. I surface, and the song—the one I sing every night—bursts out, wrenching free from my throat like I’ve twisted the cap on a shaken-up bottle of soda. It’s a haunting wordless melody that comes from somewhere inside, and I can’t control it. My arms paddle steadily, my limbs working together until I’m propelling myself at a pace that would probably trump an Olympic swimmer.
I’m totally checked out as I find my rhythm, switch into autopilot. It reminds me of how it used to feel to sleep, the way the hours pass without a conscious thought. I simply dip into the water and start swimming; and by the time I know it, it’s dawn, and I feel refreshed and exhilarated, ready to greet the day.
At dawn, I climb out of the water, my toes sinking into the muddy shore. The soft, squishy earth feels good beneath my feet. The urge to sing is gone, and it won’t return for hours. I’m alive, rested, eager to find a way to outsmart the hand I’ve been dealt.
But moments later, my toes are cold. The chill has seeped into my bones, and reality screeches back. It’s unseasonably cool for September. The temperatures in Cedar Cove tend to be mild—although almost constantly rainy and windy—because we’re practically in the Pacific Ocean. But today, it’s barely in the forties.
I’m not ready for the winter. I’m not ready to make it through yet another season of darkness, of long nights and cold mornings with damp hair and even damper skin.
I shiver and for a moment I think about getting back into the lake, but it’s dawn, so the water will have no effect on me. I’ll just be a normal girl in freezing-cold water, who should be at home in bed.
Even though I never get sick, I don’t care for the bone-chilling cold that I feel when I climb out of the water at dawn, my hair dripping down my bare back.
I find the towel I hung on a branch and dry off, then slip back into my clothes. The walk out of the woods takes twenty minutes. The sun rises slowly behind the hilltops, steadily lighting my way. By the time I make it to the road, it’s emerged from behind the mountains, full and round and ready for another day. It will take me thirty minutes to drive back to town. So much wasted time, every day, driving and hiking. So much wasted money, filling the beater car every few days. My allowance barely covers the gas.
When I make it to my rusted-out brown Toyota, I turn the key. It sputters briefly, and my heart sinks. But then the engine catches and whirs to life. I promptly crank the heat. Cold air blasts out at me, and I flinch, waiting for it to warm. I sit in the dawn light, the car humming, as my body thaws.
Finally, I shift into gear and begin the descent into Cedar Cove.
Chapter Three
If there were thirty minutes of every day that I could strike from existence, it would be lunchtime. Unfortunately, I have to use the cafeteria scan card to pay for my meals. If I could get my grandmother to give me cash, I would stop at a gas station or the grocery store. I would buy something, anything, to avoid those agonizing minutes in the lunch line.
Today, I tap the scan card against the stainless steel countertop, anxious to get my turkey sandwich and leave the cafeteria. The lunch lady is almost done—she’s cutting my sandwich in half and putting it on a paper plate.
I grab the plate as soon as she holds it over the counter. Then I take it to the cashier, who quickly scans my card and hands it back. I tuck the card into my back pocket and then head for the door, relief beginning to fill me that the ordeal of getting lunch is almost over.
I realize belatedly that my route may not have been the best choice. Sienna’s crowd—all my old friends—claimed a different table this year. My heart climbs into my throat. I’m going to walk right past them.
I slow down and contemplate spinning around, running away. But then I watch as Nikki elbows Kristy Eckly and nods in my direction. In a matter of seconds, they’re all staring.
I won’t run away. I won’t let them see me sweat. I square my shoulders and walk faster, staring straight ahead, focusing everything I have on a vacant look that won’t betray my emotions. Fifty feet to freedom. The door beckons in the distance. So close.
But I’m so busy trying not to look at them, I don’t see something in my path, and I trip. I throw my hands up to catch my balance and my plate slips from my grasp. I manage to keep from falling, but I can’t say the same thing for my sandwich—it tumbles to the ground and scatters on the dirty floor.
The whole table snickers and laughs. I refuse to look at them as my face burns and I rush for the door, more careful this time about what’s in my path. Just as I reach the exit, I wrench around and glance back. It was a paper sack. I nearly hit the ground over an empty paper bag.
I glance at their table, and my eyes zero in on the one person who isn’t laughing. Cole. His face is completely blank, and he’s sitting there, perfectly still. As always, girls surround him.
I fling open the door and scurry to the bench in the far corner of the courtyard, the one mostly surrounded by shrubs, where they won’t be able to see me from their A-list table in the cafeteria.
Then I pull my legs up on the bench with me and hug my knees. I rest my forehead on them, closing my eyes and taking in deep breaths to steady my aching heart.
I know they all blame me for killing Steven. I know this is my punishment. Just as I know I deserve it. They blame me because they think I should have saved him somehow, stopped the senseless tragedy. If they knew I outright murdered him, I wonder what they’d think, how much worse their taunts would be.
My stomach growls as I sit alone, hoping no one is looking at me but unwilling to glance up to confirm it.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting there when a guy clears his throat. I freeze for a second, and then reluctantly uncoil.
Cole stares me straight in the eye. The look he gives me is so different than the ones from the rest of my old friends. His says he doesn’t hate me like they do. He sets the plate down, and I stare at the sandwich.
“It’s not right.”
I swallow. “What?”
“What they do to you.”
I tip my head to the side. “They didn’t do anything. I’m the idiot who tripped.”
“I don’t mean just now. I mean . . . every day.”
“Why do you even care? It’s just the same joke, new year. Nothing I can’t handle.” I jut my chin up.
“Why do you let them do that? Why do you just take it?”
“Because I deserve it.”
He crosses his arms at his chest and looks me dead in the eye. “No one deserves to be treated like dirt.”
I glare at him, wishing he’d leave well enough alone. “Yeah. I do. What happened is my fault, and they know it.”
“You really blame yourself?”
The silence stretches a beat too long. And then, “Yes.”
“Huh.” He sighs but doesn’t seem to know what to say to this. He shifts his weight, glances back at the cafeteria and then at me again. “Well, enjoy your sandwich.”
I want to say something, but there are so many things I want to say that I can’t seem to articulate anything at all. And then, before I’ve even had a chance to get a word out, he’s stepping away from me, leaving me alone with my guilt. I open my mouth to call out to him, but then I just snap it shut.
No friends. That’s my number one rule, the only thing that keeps everyone else safe.
&
nbsp; I put my feet back down on the ground and watch him as he crosses the courtyard. A lanky dark-haired girl stops him at the door, giving him a big hug that lingers too long. She says something, and he laughs, and then she walks away, her hips swinging.
He watches her go. I narrow my eyes. He reaches for the door, glancing back at me. He catches me staring and his lips curl into an easy smile.
I look away, down at the sandwich as my stomach growls again. It’s the same turkey-on-wheat that I dropped on the floor, except this one isn’t wrecked and dirt-covered. I glance back at the cafeteria, but, just like I planned, I can’t see their table from this angle.
With a sigh, I pick up the sandwich and take a big bite. I’m so famished that it tastes better than anything I’ve ever had. The sun warms me through my black shirt as I sit there, chewing quietly on the pity gift from Cole.
I hope the weather holds out for another month or two. It rains almost constantly from October to May in Cedar Cove, Oregon. We’re right on the ocean, but the mountains that surround the town trap the clouds right above us.
Then again, when it really pours, there are fewer people up in Tillamook Forest; and I don’t have to worry as much about someone finding my lake. Today, the sun is out, the sky cloudless. We’ll only get a few more weeks of this weather, and then fall will be here, announced by all the leaves turning vibrant shades of crimson and gold, the same as our school colors. By the time football season is half over, it’ll barely be forty degrees out, even by midday. I hate the winters, when dusk begins to fall just a couple of hours after school lets out.
And I dread the dusk. The second the moon rises in the night sky, begins its pull on the tides, I’m drawn to the water. In the summer, I only need to swim seven or eight hours per night, but in the winter, when the nights seem to stretch on forever, it’s closer to twelve.
I take another bite of the sandwich, staring at the ground.
Nine hours to go, and it’s back to the lake.
Chapter Four
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