Down By The Water

by Cruise, Anna

  I started to protest but he held up his hands in mock surrender. “Kidding,” he said. He slipped his feet into his flips. “I'll meet you at the truck. Just need to go grab the keys.”

  He opened the pool gate and jogged to the house.

  I slipped into the pair of shorts I'd worn down to the pool, not caring that my bikini bottoms were still wet. I picked up my phone and texted Jenna.

  Don't say a word.

  Her response was immediate.What?

  You'll see.

  NINE

  I glanced at the clock on the dash just as we pulled into the parking lot. We'd made it in fourteen minutes. Fourteen minutes since I'd told my sister I would be there.

  I saw Kyle's car right away. Jenna had parked diagonally in the side lot, the silver Ford Taurus taking up two spaces. I shook my head. Just like Jenna to do something like that. She didn't follow rules. Ever. I was surprised she'd made it to Minnesota without a slew of speeding tickets. But then again, maybe she hadn't.

  Ty parked the truck—correctly—in front of the ice cream shack. He left the car idling. A pair of teenagers stood at the order window, the girl already licking a chocolate dipped cone, the guy waiting with his wallet in his hands.

  “If you wanted ice cream, all you had to do was tell me,” Ty said. “We have buckets of flavors in the community room kitchen. For ice cream socials.”

  “I don't want ice cream.” I adjusted my sunglasses and took a deep breath. “I'm here to meet someone, actually.”

  He still had his sunglasses on but his eyebrows rose in surprise. “Oh.”

  I knew what he was thinking. I didn't know anyone here.

  “Yeah.” I uncrossed my legs. “My sister kind of freaked when she found out about the car. And even though I told her everything was cool, well, she sort of drove out here. To see for herself, I guess.”

  It was the best explanation I had because I didn't have a clue as to why Jenna would drive eight hours to simply check up on me. She wasn't the nurturer. None of us were. We'd all been too wrapped up in our own sorrow and guilt, our parents included, to give a shit about anyone other than ourselves.

  “Wow.” He nodded his head. “She must really be worried.”

  “I guess.” I reached for the door handle. “Anyway, I'm going to tell her I'm fine. Reassure her. Shouldn't take more than ten minutes.”

  In reality, it probably wouldn't take more than two.

  I stepped out of the truck before he could respond. Jenna was in the driver's seat, the engine humming, the windows rolled down, a cigarette in her hand. She spied me out of the corner of her eye and turned fully to look at me, a frown permanently etched on her lipstick-reddened lips.

  “What the hell is going on?” she demanded.

  Looking at her was like looking in the mirror. Same blue eyes. Same dark brown hair. Same aquiline nose, inherited from our dad. Rosie had been different. Blond like mom, her hair a mass of ringlets, blue eyes that veered more toward green.

  I opened the passenger door and slid into the car. I answered her question with one of my own. “Why the hell are you here?”

  She held the cigarette to her lips and took a drag. “Because I was worried about you.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Bullshit. You've never worried about me. Why start now?”

  Jenna exhaled and I tried not to choke on the puff of smoke. “Because you're here.”

  “And what does you coming here do about that?” I stared at her. “You have some way to magically fix my car? You gonna drive me to Madison and have my car shipped when it's fixed?”

  She sucked on the cigarette one last time before flicking it out the window. “That's not what I meant.”

  “Look, I know it's shitty luck that the car broke down here.” It really was. With hundreds of miles to travel between our tiny town in North Dakota to Madison, Wisconsin, it was nothing short of a miracle that the car had conked out where it had. Not a miracle, I thought. Miracles were good things. My breaking down was just really bad luck. Period.

  “But it's getting fixed.” She didn't know it wasn't being worked on yet and I wasn't going to tell her. Because all I wanted her to do was turn around and go back home.

  She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “I don't know,” she said, her voice wavering. “I don't know what I'm doing here. I just...when I heard where you were...I don't know. I just...panicked, I guess.”

  I felt a twinge of sympathy for her. It was exactly what had happened to me the day before. Multiple times. When the car had first died. When Ty had shown up and offered me a ride. When he'd pulled into the driveway of the resort. All of those things had sent me spiraling. But I'd stopped it. Remembered my time with Dr. Shepard and tried to collect myself. And it had worked. So far.

  But I knew my sister, my fucked-up middle sister who, for whatever reason, had been hit the hardest by Rosie's death. It wasn't as if they were close. Jenna wasn't close to anyone—never had been, even as a child. She and I were just two years apart so we should have been the ones with some special sibling bond. But we didn't have it. And the three-year age difference between she and Rosie could have been twenty, for all the time they spent together.

  “Everything is fine,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “Really. I'm planning on getting out of here just as soon as the car is fixed.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Soon.”

  She looked at me, her expression hard. “Have you seen it?”

  “What?”

  “The river.”

  I shook my head. My hair was half-dry and strands hit my cheeks. “No.”

  Her eyes bore into me. “Are you going to?”

  “No.”

  She nodded. “Good.” There was a pause and then, “Where are you staying?”

  I looked away. It was the one question I'd hoped she wouldn't ask. She was never concerned with other people, always focused on herself, so I didn't think she'd even know how to muster up that kind of concern for me.

  “The guy that picked me up, remember? His family has a guest bedroom. I'm staying there.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Just some random guy? Jesus, you're beginning to sound like me.”

  “It's not like that,” I snapped and then instantly felt bad. It wasn't the time to sound judgmental or bitchy about her slut factor. “His parents are there. And I've known him for less than 24 hours.”

  She smiled at that. “That's never stopped me.”

  I tried to bite back a scathing response. Didn't I know it.

  She started to say something else but stopped, her gaze drifting past me, focusing instead on something behind me, out my window. She licked her lips and her smile morphed from playful to seductive.

  My heart sank as I turned around to see what she was looking at. Because I already knew.

  Ty was five steps away. Sunglasses hiding his eyes, his hair a tousled mess from our earlier swim, his biceps on full display in the sleeveless black tee he wore. He looked delicious. And I could tell my younger sister was ready to eat him up.

  “Hey,” I managed.

  He grinned and my sister actually sighed. “You know him?” she asked, her voice laced with disbelief.

  “Ty was the one who helped me out yesterday.” I took a deep breath and expelled it. “Jenna, this is Ty. Ty, this is my sister, Jenna.”

  He leaned into the open car window and lifted his sunglasses. “Hey.”

  Jenna smiled. “Hey, yourself.”

  “Sisters.” He glanced between me and Jenna. “Definitely a resemblance.”

  “I'm the better looking one,” Jenna teased. She pressed her lips together, then ran her tongue over her top lip, her eyes glued to Ty.

  I tried not to vomit.

  Ty somehow managed to tear his gaze away from her and look at me. “I got a call from my dad,” he said. “He needs help at one of the camp sites. I can pop over and come back, if you need more time...”

  “Camp sites?” Jen
na asked with narrowed eyes.

  “My family owns a resort here,” Ty told her. “Lake Land. Just up the road a couple of miles.”

  She opened her mouth to say something but I widened my eyes at her and shook my head no.

  “We're done,” I told him quickly. “She just wanted to make sure I was okay. She's leaving. Right, Jenna?” I stared at her, trying to convince her with my eyes that she needed to go.

  “The fuck I am,” she practically growled.

  Ty's gaze bounced from me to my sister. “Sounds like maybe you're not as done as you think.”

  “Jenna,” I began.The last thing I needed was for her to go off about the resort. About our connection to it. About what had happened there.

  She cut me off. “Shut up.”

  I looked away, bracing myself for the explosion.

  But it didn't come.

  “I'm beat,” she said.

  I looked up at her.

  “I just drove eight hours,” she said. “Left at the crack of dawn. There's no way I can drive home tonight.”

  Shit. I hadn't thought about that.

  She looked at Ty and smiled. “Any chance you'd care to rescue another damsel in distress?”

  TEN

  Jenna was livid. “When were you gonna tell me you were staying at the same fucking place our sister died?”

  I'd stayed in her car and we were following Ty back to the resort.

  “Never.”

  She shook her head in disgust. “Clearly.”

  “Look, it's not important,” I said.

  My sister gaped at me. “Really? Not important? Your car breaks down in the town where our sister died. And then what happens? You go and stay at the place where she drowned. I'd say that's pretty fucking important.”

  “Could you stop swearing? Please? It's so unattractive.” I didn't give a shit if she spewed cuss words like a sailor but I knew me saying that would piss her off. Any hint at her being defective in some way was like kryptonite to her.

  She took a deep breath. “Fine. I'll stop swearing. Only if you tell me everything. Every single thing that has happened since you've been here.”

  We were less than a mile from the resort. I watched the quiet residential streets give way to the short stretch of farmland that stood between Pelican Lake proper and Lake Land.

  “I ate taco salad. Rescued a litter of kittens. And borrowed a bikini.”

  She stared at me as if I'd sprouted another head. “What the fu—I mean, what the he—I mean, what are you talking about?”

  “Telling you what's happened since I've been here.”

  Ty's truck slowed as he approached the entrance to the resort and Jenna followed suit, the borrowed car jerking just a little as she eased her foot off the gas. “That's not what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant,” I told her. “But I'm telling you the truth. Nothing has happened. I'm waiting for my car to get fixed and then I'm outta here. And I'm never coming back.” I felt a pang of disappointment as I spoke those last words and I wanted to kick myself. There was no reason to be disappointed. None.

  “Okay,” she said, allowing for that explanation. “It's just weird that you're here.”

  “I didn't choose where my car broke down.” I frowned at her. “I didn't want it to break down at all. I didn't plan for this little vacation.”

  “I know that.”

  “So then stop acting like I did this on purpose,” I said. “Why the hell would I want to be here?”

  She didn't say anything, just followed Ty as he drove through the entrance to the resort. I wondered what she thought as we drove past the sign, past the flowers. I wondered if she was flooded with memories like I'd been the other day—some things vivid and razor-sharp, like they'd just happened and others hazy and vague, like a dream I couldn't quite remember.

  “And I'm not really sure why you're so pissed at me,” I continued. “What do you think I'm going to do here besides wait for my car? Hold a séance? Call the newspapers and ask them to do a feature story? Why exactly are you angry at me?”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. She was a professional eye-roller, no matter who she was talking to. More often than not, the action was usually directed at something I said.

  “I'm not pissed at you, Lily,” she said.

  “You're acting like you are.”

  “I'm just...I don't know.” She shook her head. “It just freaked me out, I guess.”

  I knew how she felt. The last couple of days had been filled with freak-out moments for me. “Well, get ready to be freaked out some more,” I told her. “Because we're here.”

  We pulled in behind Ty's truck and Jenna cut the engine. She looked out her window and I saw her body go rigid as she took in the house, the campers shielded by the growth of trees, the road that led further into the resort, toward the river. “This is just fucked up.”

  I reached for the door handle. “You think?” I asked. I turned back toward her, keeping my voice low. “But at least we've got a place to stay. His family has been super nice to me. So be on your best behavior for once.”

  I was sure I got another eye roll but I was out of the car before I could see it.

  Ty came around behind his truck. “I called my mom on the way back. She's happy to have your sister here, too.”

  “I don't know why you're being so nice to me, but thank you,” I said. “I promise we'll be out of your hair as soon as possible.”

  He leaned against the back of the truck. I tried not to stare at his tanned arms, at the way his hair had dried, a tousled mess I just wanted to dig my fingers into. “I'm not looking to get rid of you,” he said. “Take your time.”

  “You haven't spent much time with my sister yet,” I said.

  He glanced at her, then back at me. He smiled and his dimple winked at me. “I can handle her.”

  Saying it and doing it were two entirely different things, but I didn't say anything.

  Jenna came over to us and looked Ty up and down again. I couldn't tell if she was doing it to annoy me or because she was really interested in him. Maybe both. Either way, I was tired of it already.

  “Why do you live at a campground?” she asked him.

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. You just don't seem the type.”

  He squinted at her. “What type do I seem like?”

  She leaned back on the hood of the car and I swear she was sticking her tits out as far as she could. “The right type.”

  He looked at her for a moment, then chuckled. “You make even less sense than your sister.” He winked at me. “Let's get you inside.”

  Daggers flashed through Jenna's eyes and I laughed for the first time since she'd shown up. She wasn't used to being dismissed. Ever.

  Ty introduced her to his mother and Sheila was just as kind to her as she had been to me. Jenna managed to tame her inner bitch, speaking politely and graciously. I wondered how long it would last.

  Ty excused himself to go check on the camp site and Sheila took Jenna up to Mary's room. I tried to stem the guilt building inside of me. I felt like our imposition was all my fault. I didn't feel nearly as bad when it had just been me staying there, but now that Jenna had been added to the mix, I felt responsible for her and for disrupting their household.

  After Sheila went back downstairs, I stuck my head in what was now Jenna's room. Mary's room was painted a soft blue, her walls covered with gymnastics posters, a long shelf housing a collection of bronze and silver trophies.

  “You settled?”

  She was stretched out on the bed, her hands tucked behind her head. “Not like I brought a ton with me. I wasn't planning on staying.”

  “Then go home.”

  Her dark hair spilled over shoulders and she shifted one of her hands so she could twirl a strand between her fingers. “I'm not driving all the way back tonight, Lily. And, Jesus Christ. I came to help you.”

  “I told you I didn't need help.”

  “You had me
call the tow truck.”

  “For all the good it did.”

  That earned an eye roll. “Yeah. Because that was my fault.”

  It wasn't and I knew that, but I was irritated with her. I didn't like the flirting with Ty, but it was more than that. The way she had come after me about staying here at the campsite, as if it had been my choice. She and I didn't get along—she didn't get along with anyone—but she knew me well enough to know that my aversion to this place was just as strong as hers. The memories had always seemed like a forcefield around the area for our entire family, preventing us from even getting near it. I didn't like the way she'd insinuated that it was something other than coincidence that I was stuck there.

  “They were here,” I said. “Ten years ago. They ran it then.”

  Her hand stilled and she locked her eyes on the ceiling. “They recognize you?”

  I shook my head. “And I didn't tell them my last name.”

  Her eyes narrowed, as if she was focusing on something and I glanced up, curious. But there was just a smooth expanse of faded white paint. “I don't remember them.”

  “Me either, really.”

  She chewed on her lip for a moment. “You ever feel like you don't know what you remember? Like you can remember that Rosie isn't here, but other that, you can't remember shit about it? Like what anyone said or what they wore or why we were even there?”

  I nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

  “Like, I could've talked to that lady—Ty's mom—or something back then and I literally have no idea if I did or not,” she said “Like there's this blind spot.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. Even though it seemed like my entire life revolved around that day, it felt like I couldn't remember much about it. It was like seeing something blocking your path, but not being able to make out what it was. There had been times where I'd tried to remember everything about that day and times where I'd willed myself to try to forget every detail that lingered in my consciousness.

  I always felt stuck somewhere in between.

  “Just wish it had never happened,” Jenna said.

  “Wish what never happened?”