by Amy Bright
I hadn’t touched him since I’d pulled him out of the ocean and heaved his unconscious body into the boat. I reached out my hand, inching it closer to Niall’s. The back was rough and puckered with scabs from where the IV had been passed in and out. I touched him on the back of his wrist. His skin felt wrong. It was transparent, too close to the things underneath. And scarred.
You couldn’t guess his height, not by looking at him now. No one would say that he was as tall as a tree, even though that was the first thing you would have said before. His hair was cut back, just shy of being buzzed.
"Hey, Niall." My voice sounded stupid, too loud in that little room with his parents. But I went on anyway.
"I’m sorry," I told him. "I’m sorry I didn’t know what you were really doing, going so far out on the ocean. I should’ve known. We never should’ve gone out. I never should’ve let you go so far out."
Even though I knew he wouldn’t answer, there was still a part of me that hoped he would. He was almost where he’d wanted to be all along. Not hooked up to a room full of machines, but in a quiet, silent place.
I squeezed his hand.
"Bye, Niall," I said.
My chest pulled my heart back into my chest, becoming a vacuum. It squeezed so hard that it hurt. A big black hole between my lungs.
I didn’t ask Niall’s parents about the funeral. I could only handle saying goodbye to him once, and it felt like enough to do it in person, where he had more of a chance of hearing and knowing that I was there than he would if he was on his way underground.
With the feeling of Niall’s papery skin still on my hands, I walked out of the room into the hallway.
Poppy wasn’t there.
I talked to a nurse, blonde hair, blue eyes. "Hey, did you see a girl wandering around?"
She tilted her head to the side, as if she was trying to remember. "No." She put a call for Poppy over the hospital intercom.
"Poppy Haynes, please come to the registration desk. Poppy Haynes."
The receptionist in the front atrium thought she had seen Poppy.
She lifted herself out of her wheelie chair and it skitted off behind her. She peered around the atrium, eyes squinting hard. "She looked a little lost. Is she your sister?"
"Yes," I lied, knowing it was a good one.
"She might have gone out there," the receptionist said.
My heart flip-flopped and then calmed. Poppy wouldn’t go far. She seemed tough as nails but there was something fragile about her, too.
Outside, it had started snowing, the sun collapsing into a sliver. The cold air from the ocean had moved in. The flakes fell through the air. It was almost as if we’d brought the weather from Alberta, carrying it all the way through the mountains and across the ocean to Victoria.
I found Poppy sitting on Josh’s wall. Low to the ground but high enough that her feet didn’t touch. I sat down beside her. Her permanent backpack gave her a hump, the look of a camel in the desert. I patted her on it. A way of saying she did good.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey. How was your friend?"
"Not so good," I told her. "They’re taking him off life support. This was kind of goodbye."
Poppy swung her feet. Her heels glanced off the wall, the stacked bricks propelling them forward. Her hands were clasped together, making me feel the opposite of okay. She held them fingernails first, half moons sinking into her skin.
"Poppy," I said, thinking it was now or never. "I shouldn’t have opened that box. That was private. It was really stupid of me to go through your stuff."
Poppy measured out her words. "What did you see?" she asked.
It wasn’t the question I’d been expecting. It curve-balled toward me, making me wobble off balance.
"Some stuff about your dad."
"What stuff?" she asked. She was working over her hands, covering them all over with half moons. It had to hurt. Shoving the tips of her fingernails into her skin. I put my palm on top of her clasped hands to stop it.
"Jesus, Pops, you know what I saw. Your dad stole all that money. That’s why he left, right? That’s why everyone’s pretty shitty to you and your mom. It’s probably the reason you’re homeschooled."
"Bzzzz," she said, an approximation of the call that sent me down to the high school office. "Wrong."
"It’s what I saw."
"Bzzzz." She made the sound again and tossed off my palm. She was a machine gun, shooting down my answers. "My dad didn’t leave."
"So, what, he’s still in town? You see him sometimes?"
Poppy’s eyes, when she dragged them up from the ground to look at me, were bright.
Hunter, how could you be so stupid?
"He didn’t walk out on us," Poppy said. "He jumped."
I almost laughed. I was this close. He jumped. It sounded like: Ha-ha, joke’s on you, Hunter Ryan.
"Off the bridge," Poppy said. Her feet were swinging. It was so little-kid, I couldn’t handle it. Her dad had jumped off a bridge and I had almost laughed. What kind of reaction was that?
That high-level bridge me and Aunt Lynne were always driving by. The bridge, the bridge, the bridge. That must have been the one he jumped off. And she never said a thing. And Aunt Lynne didn’t give me a clue about what had happened to Poppy’s family. I never would’ve guessed.
"So . . ." Poppy cocked her eyebrow at me. "I guess we have something in common." It was like she was trying to make it into a joke. But her eyes were so shiny and bright. This close to crying.
"It was pretty bad for you guys after the money thing?"
Poppy nodded. "Especially for dad. He couldn’t stay."
"When did you stop going to school?"
Poppy let out a horse snort. "After those girls broke my arm."
That trio of teens who pointed me in the right direction—where to score some weed—had done it. Those two girls with her dad’s jacket. Clean break, snapped her arm. Poppy told me the story while she swung her feet on the wall.
Two weeks after Poppy’s dad jumped, they cornered her at school. They took what people were saying about her and got her back for it. They came after her because they couldn’t go after him.
"I puked," Poppy said.
"Exorcist-style?" I asked. There I went. Trying to make it a joke, just like she was. When, really, it was devastating as hell.
"They pushed me down into it. I got throw-up all over my favorite jeans."
"Jesus."
After a minute, she said, "It should’ve been me and my mom up there."
"Poppy, no."
"All three of us, lined up on the rails, holding hands and jumping together. Dad jumped all alone."
"Shit, Poppy. No one told me. I didn’t know."
My breathing was so loud, a hhehh hehhh hehhh that was louder than life. I was like Lee and her asthma. My heartbeat was in my head, and it was in my chest and my left arm.
"They hated him so much," she said. "Now they hate us."
"They don’t know you," I told her.
I didn’t know if she believed me but I hoped she believed me enough.
"Are you coming back?" Poppy asked me.
"I don’t know," I said.
"I want to go back home," she said. Her body was shaking. Just vibrating away.
I knew she had to go back, but part of me wanted her to stay. Because I think a small part of me knew that I might stay.
"I know. Come to my house first. We’ll figure out how to get you home after."
Poppy nodded. I helped her off the wall. I wrapped her up in a hug, like she had done for me in the hospital. She was an earthquake, making my shoulders shake up and down.
We took a cab to my place. Poppy shadowed me through the front door and hung back when I saw my parents for the first time in three months. Mom and Dad rushed toward me, almost bulldozing me off my feet.
"Hunter," Mom said. "You’re home."
Mom hugged me tight. Dad ruffled my hair, putting his arms around me when Mom finally re
linquished her hold on me. Maybe shipping me off had been an off-the-cuff decision, something made in the moment and hard to take back.
I backed up to introduce them to Poppy, who was trying to make herself invisible in the living room. Mom and Dad were real champs about her. Mom called Mrs. Haynes in Lethbridge, only handing Poppy the phone after she’d explained everything that had happened. Dad took her into the kitchen and, a couple of minutes later, there was that telltale smell of bacon in the air.
"Have you talked to Aunt Lynne?" I asked Mom.
"I called her as soon as we heard from you this morning."
"Did she know I came back?"
Mom nodded. "She knew."
"And Poppy’s mom?"
Mom squeezed my arm.
What if her and Dad had been like this when I came home from the hospital last summer? Talking to me, caring about me, giving out easy hugs. I might not have needed Lethbridge at all.
"Hunter," Mom said, "Poppy’s mom called the police. Lynne calmed her down but she’s still pretty worried. There’s a ticket waiting for Poppy at the Greyhound station. The bus leaves this evening."
"She can’t go back by herself," I said. "Not all that way."
"Her mom will meet her in Vancouver. They’ll fly back to Alberta together from there."
"Oh," I said.
Poppy’s mom must hate me. Police, bus rides, plane trips. All because of me.
"Are you staying?" Mom asked me. She had her hand on my arm, like she’d pull me right back if I tried to leave again.
"I don’t know," I said.
We joined Dad in the kitchen. I watched him turn a couple of over-easy eggs, the fat yellow yolks perfect circles. Poppy fit in here just as easily as I had fit in at her house.
Lee came over just as we were sitting down, joining in on the afternoon brunch spread across the table. She had showered, her hair still wet. Dad slid an egg onto her plate and she built a bacon fort around it.
"So, Poppy," Lee said, "you finally get to see where Hunter’s from."
"I like it," she said. She looked at me over her glass of orange juice. "It seems like a good place to stay."
I ate my eggs and left my family in the kitchen, all of them making the good kind of small talk. I went up to my bedroom for the first time since I’d left it.
My bed was made tight, all of the edges tucked under. The blinds were open. I could see the backyard through my window. It had started snowing, more sleet than anything. It was pretty white out there. The only sign that anyone had been in my room was a crease in the center of my bed, like someone had sat down right there.
I crossed the room to my closet and reached for a duffel. I was on autopilot, going through my drawers and taking out clothes I had left behind the first time. I stuffed them into the bag, not worrying about folding them or making them look neat. My hand hovered over a framed picture propped up on my dresser. The four of us, Mom, Dad, me, and Bridget, sitting on the couch a couple of Christmases ago. I don’t remember who took it. It could have been Aunt Lynne, when we were all together for Christmas dinner. It was a candid shot, not really posed, but we were all looking up at the camera and it was a miracle there was no red eye. It was similar to the one Poppy kept in her book, the family portrait in miniature, taken on a random sunny day.
I almost shoved it in the duffel bag. I might have. But then I heard Lee’s voice mix in with my mom and dad’s, all of them talking together in the kitchen. Poppy chimed in, her twelve-year-old way of talking carrying up the stairs. It sounded like home.
I stopped filling the duffel.
I sat in the center of my bed, right in the middle of that crease. It was all catching up with me. Niall, the bus ride, home. I closed my eyes and leaned back.
"Hunter?" Poppy knocked on the doorframe, inching into my room.
"Yeah, Pops?"
"You staying?"
I bobbed my head. "I think I’m staying."
"I thought so," she said. "I have to go home. Your dad’s driving me to the bus station in a sec."
"You talk to your mom?"
"I think I’m grounded," she said, smiling.
"Grounded and homeschooled," I said. "What a combo."
"Well," she said. "Maybe not homeschooled anymore. I might go back to school. I’ve been thinking about it."
"Me, too," I said. "Gotta graduate sometime."
Poppy looked around my room, taking in the surroundings. I saw her linger on that family photo. Then she blinked and nodded her head at the door.
"Come on," she said.
"I wish I could take the bus back with you," I said, following her down the stairs.
"Nah," she said. "I’m not even going all the way back. Save your bus trip for when you come to visit."
I grinned at her. "Sounds like a plan."
Dad loaded me and Poppy in the car and drove us to the bus station. The snow fell thick and heavy, the windshield wipers working overtime. Me and Poppy got out of the car at the station and went inside. Poppy was always flickering in front of me, reminding me of a hologram. Young and old all at once. Tall and short. Kid and teen. I straightened the straps of her backpack. We stood off to the side of her bus, trying to figure out how to say our version of a goodbye.
"Was it what you thought it would be?" Poppy asked me.
"No," I said, thinking of Niall. A small part of me had hoped for a movie ending. That I would sit down beside his bed and say the right words, something like a magic spell or an incantation that would wake him back up. "And, Poppy, I’m so sorry about your dad."
"Don’t be."
"It’s just an expression," I said. "Means I feel you."
"Well, I feel you, too," she said, "even though that sounds kind of pervy."
The line was tapering. Three more people before it was Poppy’s turn.
"I’ll see you again," I told her. "I should be here for Christmas. But I’m not done with Lethbridge."
"What if it’s done with you?"
I cracked a smile. "It’s not."
I put my arms around her before she could stop me, or change her mind, or get on the bus. There was nothing bird-boned about her. She was someone to hold onto, tight as I needed.
"Bye, Hunter," Poppy said.
She kissed me on the cheek. Soft as a feather and then she was gone.
Back in Dad’s car, I watched the snow through the windshield. I ruffled my hair, making it stick on end. I was rough with it. It felt good to get in there and massage my head.
"Is she going to be okay?" Dad asked.
"Yeah," I said. "She’s going to be fine."
His voice quieter, he said, "What about you?"
I turned the radio on and let it fill up the silence.
When we got home, Mom was out front, shoveling the driveway. The air smelled like snow, cool and cold and icy. The clouds had rolled in, dropping snow all over the place. But right then, there was a sliver of sun sliding through the clouds.
Me and Dad grabbed a pair of shovels from the garage and helped her with the rest of the driveway. It was just the scrape scrape of shovel, snow, and cement.
"Okay, Hunter?" Mom asked me.
"Yeah," I said. "I’m okay."
I tossed the snow over my shoulder and knew that, for now, I was in the right place.
Acknowledgments
This book could not have been written without the thoughtful support and friendship of so many people. First, to my editor Kathy Stinson, who consistently asks the kinds of questions that challenge me to make my writing better. I am so fortunate and grateful to have such a gifted editor and author working with me! To Peter Carver and Richard Dionne at Red Deer Press for their kind emails, guidance, and support from the beginning to the end of my work on Swimmers. To the amazing advocates of children’s and young adult literature in Lethbridge: Richard Chase, Kari Tanaka, Becky Colbeck, Leona King, Michael Pollard, Robert Runte, Ruth McMahon, and Margaret Rodermond. To Franny Stephan, for letting me share an apartment in Boston fo
r six months, where much of Swimmers was imagined. To Kerrie Waddington and Caitlin Tighe for their friendship, book talking, and My So-Called Life. Finally, to my family: my mom, dad, and my sister Erin (and Finn!). Thank you so much for everything you’ve done to encourage reading and writing, and for being the first readers of all my writing.
A N I N T E R V I E W W I T H
T H E A U T H O R
1. Readers are always curious to know where writers get their ideas. Where did you get the idea to write Swimmers?
I wrote a short story called "Look at it This Way" a few years ago, about a teenage boy who is asked by his psychologist to write four letters to a recipient that he chooses. The letters are addressed to a woman named Mrs. Shipman, whose daughter was killed in a car crash by the protagonist’s older brother. His brother goes to jail and the protagonist has to deal with the aftermath. The short story, being a short story, was not very long (I’d really like to return to that short story again and turn it into a much longer book) and, when it was finished, I realized that I missed writing about the relationship between a teenager and his psychologist, as well as writing about a teenager trying to deal with the repercussions on his life of someone else’s actions. Hunter and Swimmers came out of those ideas—how to deal with what his best friend Niall has done, and how he has a chance to work that out with Mr. Penner in weekly meetings in the high school office.
2. The main character of Swimmers is a 17-year-old male, and this is not the first time you’ve written from an adolescent male perspective. Did you find any particular challenges to getting inside Hunter’s head that were different, say, from getting inside the head of your female protagonists?
Some of my favorite male characters in YA books were written by female writers, like Cameron in Libba Bray’s Going Bovine. Conversely, some of my favorite female characters were written by male writers, such as Cait in Kevin Brooks’s Lucas, Lyra in Phillip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, and Tiffany Aching in Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men. Even though there are definitely differences between female and male characters, I think there’s a lot about being a teenager that is fairly universal. I think in terms of identity, self-consciousness, loneliness, that feeling of invincibility, and elation, all teenagers have some experience and understanding. I think more than trying to write a female or a male character, I was trying to write more about these things, and what it’s like to be a teenager who is going through these things. I don’t think I went into writing this story too worried about writing a male rather than a female character. Hunter was the best character to tell this story.