Watergirl

by Juliann Whicker

  I hopped on then glided down the street, checking out the gear shifts, so smooth, like she was brand new. My bike was bought second hand and the gears had never worked right. I found myself on the familiar road out to the lake, pushing the pedals as hard as I could, I felt the wind whip my hair away from my face, so fast and free like I was flying. I stopped at the lake, standing with one foot on the pedal while I thought about whether to go back home or go check out my tree. I smiled as I pedaled my bike through the weeds, finding my new tires awesome the way they gripped the earth. I made it to the tree, huffing and out of breath. I collapsed beneath the willow fronds, glad that I couldn’t hear a motor on the lake to disturb my peace.

  I closed my eyes while I thought about my bike, my amazing thing then stopped smiling quite so much when I thought about where it had come from. Sean. I didn’t like owing him. I’d been saving up for a new music program, maybe it would be enough to pay for the bike. With that semi-bitter taste in my mouth, I listened to the water while the wind blew the long willow strands around me.

  I fell asleep. I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes I thought there was a face with black, moist, alien eyes gazing down at me, but after a blink it was just me, alone under the tree. I must have dreamed it. I heard a rustle but before I could sit up, the strands parted and there was Oliver, eyebrows drawn together while he stared at me.

  “What are you doing here?” We both said it at the same time.

  I shook my head while he looked past me, towards the water where it lapped against the bank.

  “Did you see something?” he asked, stepping over me and crouching down to peer into the water.

  “I was just… why are you here? You’re always here when I’m here. Are you following me?”

  He glanced at me, and I felt like an idiot. He didn’t have his nice guy smile on so it was only his apathetic hotness I was faced with. “I should be. I think it’s attracted to you. I’ve been trying to see something, and it only comes when you do.”

  “What comes? What are you talking about? There’s nothing there.”

  “Not now,” he said nodding.

  I got slowly to my feet, following him out from beneath the tree. “What do you think is in the lake? What did you see?”

  I stumbled over my bike. I picked it up, pushing it after Oliver where he walked quickly away from me.

  “Oliver, what’s going on? I mean, the floating in the lake thing was weird, but there wasn’t anything there, not really, was there? Oliver, stop walking, I’m talking to you.”

  He stopped, his back to me for a few seconds before he turned around. His smile was back on his face, his easy smile that made him seem accessible.

  “Genevieve, such a beautiful name.” He ran a hand over my handlebars like a caress with his strong fingers. “It isn’t what I’ve seen so much as sensed. I feel a presence; don’t you? What draws you to the lake? Something pulls you here, puts you under its spell.” His voice was soft, compelling. “A little bit like you, the way I feel drawn to you. You’re not like the other girls.”

  I swallowed as his fingers followed the lines of my bike until they slid over my hands where I gripped the handlebars. His hands felt cool on my skin making goosebumps pop up on my arms.

  “If you mean that I’m as susceptible to your foreign accent as other girls, I’m afraid I’m exactly the same. Are you trying to distract me?”

  His smile turned mischievous as his hands followed my goosebumps up my arms to my shoulders. “Not exactly. I have a lot of curiosity. You, the lake, they are things which seem worth pursuing.”

  I shivered as his hands moved back down my arms. “Until the next sparkly thing comes along, yes I know. Tell Sean thanks for the bike. I’d better go home before I fall into the lake or something.”

  I pulled away, but it was harder than it should have been, like he was right about there being a pull between us, holding us together.

  “He gave it back to you; that’s hardly something that requires gratitude.”

  I shook my head, smiling as I patted my bike. “No, he did an incredible job; it’s as good as new, better than new. I guess he couldn’t bear to see something that bad so he had to fix it, but whatever his reason…”

  Oliver moved around the bike so he was right beside me. He took my hand, gripped it firmly in his then leaned forward, as though he were going to kiss me.

  I pulled back at the last second, turning away while I tried to breathe.

  “Oliver, no. I can’t kiss you, or anyone. I’m not like other girls. I get obsessive about guys. Believe me; you do not want me to obsess about you. It’s not pretty. It’s not that I don’t want to kiss you, and if I could be one of those people who kiss different guys and compare technique, that would rock, but I’m not, and I can’t.”

  “Ah, Genevieve,” he whispered as he slid a hand through my hair, pushing it back, away from my face, “I’m afraid it’s inevitable. We keep running into each other, here, alone. I was meant to taste your lips.”

  I turned to him, whispered, “No”, as his lips came over mine, soft at first, but then something changed, the softness became hard, the taste became bitter, wild, fierce and uncontrollable. His mouth, dominating me brought me awake, aware of the strangeness of him, his taste, scent, motives, all unknown and foreign to me.

  I shoved against him, scraping his mouth with my teeth until I tasted his blood, felt him topple backwards, pressing against his mouth until he couldn’t breathe, until he struggled for air, for release.

  I rolled off him, gasping in the grass, poked by dead weeds while the lake rustled angrily behind me.

  “What was that?” I demanded, glaring at him, daring him to have a reason for kissing me when I’d made it perfectly clear that I didn’t want it.

  He was still laying where I’d left him, staring at the sky with his eyes wide open, but his pupils, so dilated that I couldn’t see any green at all, only black.

  “Oliver? Oliver?”

  I shoved his shoulder, and his hand caught my wrist as his head turned, his eyes boring into me.

  “What are you? What did you do?” His voice was an accusing whisper.

  “What did I do? Are you crazy?”

  He dropped my wrist and rolled over to his knees, leaning over them like he was going to throw up.

  “Basium furoris: the kiss of madness.” He laughed—a sound that chilled me with its instability. “Caught with my own snare, how fitting. Sean would approve.” He looked at me, his eyes still terrifyingly black.

  His eyes. I felt a gnawing in my stomach that had me gasping for breath as need crawled out of the pit of my heart and filled my veins with poison. I closed my eyes as nausea wracked me, not the kind that made you throw up, the kind that made you wish that you could throw up, or die, something to make it stop.

  I forced myself to stand, leaning against my bike as I pushed through the weeds. I had to get away from Oliver while I still could. I could feel the sickness grow, changing into a throbbing ache that needed me to turn around, to find the originator of the pain so that it would stop. I moved faster. It took forever until I finally stumbled onto the pavement. I wobbled so badly I thought I would crash, but my instincts kicked in until I was flying over the road, scattering gravel behind me as I flew, as if the monster in the lake were coming after me.

  Chapter 19

  I slept, tossing and turning, as though I were in a fever, my dad’s voice coming and going until I finally woke up, unblinking in the dark.

  I looked at the clock, the 4:57 in luminescent green. At first I was mostly numb, but when I rolled over, when I pushed myself up in my bed, it all came back: the wracked agony that made me want to scream into my pillow. I knew that pain. That was the pain of watching Cole smile at someone else, the pain of knowing his eyes were on another, only it wasn’t Cole. It was Oliver, as though I was back in 7th grade, twisting apart with no idea what I’d done to make the one person I needed leave me. Had Cole been my friend for
a while after the kiss? A week, maybe, before he got weirded out by the staring, the calls, the constant need I had to see, hear, and touch him.

  I rubbed my face, trying to shake off the madness. It didn’t work, but that was okay, well, it would be okay in four years when I could finally look at another guy. Hopefully I could avoid kissing at that point though. I gritted my teeth and my eyes watered as my heart pounded. I went to the bathroom, leaning over the sink while I washed my face. When I looked up, there was something off, wrong. My pupils weren’t as dilated as Oliver’s had been, but they were larger than I was used to.

  There was no point trying to sleep so I made a playlist. I tried to make a playlist, but no song fit. The hard Euro stuff wasn’t weird enough. Maybe if it had been a blend of New Age, water sounding… I worked, trying to blend a couple of things together, which is where my dad found me when he came into my room.

  “Yeah?” I asked pulling off my headphones.

  “Are you going to school today?”

  I stared at him. Wasn’t it Sunday? Had I slept almost two days? My stomach twisted. Maybe that was real hunger instead of obsessive I-want-Oliver-right-now hunger. I smiled at him.

  “School, yeah, thanks.”

  I didn’t bother looking cute. It was enough to shove my books in my bag knowing that I hadn’t done my homework and that I might see Oliver in the halls and have a complete breakdown.

  No breakdown. Oliver didn’t show that day, but other interesting things happened, like getting sent to detention for fighting. It was kind of funny because I’d been under attack by Sharky for so long and no one ever sent her to detention. Kind of funny because she thought that she could torment me forever without me actually breaking her nose. Well, it wasn’t that great a nose.

  It was in the cafeteria. Of course it was. All bad things happened there. I’d been on my guard for the last few weeks so no one had been able to really get me, but that day, I was so distracted looking for Oliver that when Sharky tripped me then dumped her coke on my head when I was down, I grabbed her chair and jerked it out so that she hit her chin on the edge of the table. I punched her. Okay, I hit her a few times. She was going to be ugly for a couple of days at least.

  I wasn’t proud of what I did. At least not entirely but I could have done serious damage to her kidneys, broken a bone, done something that would require life flight, you know, bad stuff. I didn’t hurt her that bad, so when everyone freaked out about it, I didn’t get it. Junie was there yelling at me, following me to the office after the teacher dragged me off Sharky, Ghandi quotes the whole way. Seriously. They wouldn’t let Junie into the office which was a relief. I still had coke dripping down the back of my neck. I needed a shower. Obviously, looking at me, I wasn’t the one who started anything, but since I’d done so much damage, whether I started it or not…

  Well, I got a chance to have a shower. For the rest of the week I had the chance to hang out at my house taking as many showers as the hot water heater could support, all because of one little nose bleed. And a cracked jaw. Okay, maybe a loose tooth, but nothing serious. I didn't understand why my dad of all people would be so freaked. He had to come home early from work, which his boss would not appreciate, to pick me up at school. He rode his bike, actually my bike, the one Sean had made so nice. It reminded me of Oliver, and for some reason the anger flared up again, throbbing in my veins with the imbecilic need I had to find him, to know where he was, what he was doing and make sure that it was all about me. I wished Sharky was around so that I had an excuse to pound someone but of course she wasn’t. She was already at the hospital.

  My dad stayed home with me on Tuesday and made me quote the whole peace, duty, respect crap in Japanese over and over and over until I wanted to kill someone. He was worse than Junie. Not what I’d call effective. I wasn’t even allowed to work. My manager would have given me a hard time but my dad didn’t give him a chance.

  While my dad spouted the whole peace, duty, respect crap, people took one look at his steely gaze and backed off. No one messed with him. Sheila would hassle me for making her pull my shift. Off work for a week. No school, no work, no friends, no tv, no internet, no iPod, nothing but me and the shaking.

  When I closed my eyes, Oliver’s looked back at me. I saw all the different expressions from sweet and funny, to serious, cold and accusing. Who was he? Not that it mattered. There was no chance he’d want to be with me, that he’d be able to focus on one person for any amount of time, no way that being with him was an option, but it felt like the only possibility, the only reality that I could possibly survive. It was like drug withdrawal. The shakes, the outbreaks of irrational anger, the inability to stay still while I grew more and more exhausted. I ate, because my experience with Cole told me that not eating would only make it worse. I did homework badly. I couldn’t focus on anything, not when the world was coming to an end at any moment, when it felt like it already had. The only thing that saved me was knowing that it would end. Four years was a long time, but maybe it wouldn’t be so long if I could play it smart, avoid starting a stalker cycle, nipping the obsession in the bud before it could really bloom. I certainly couldn’t stalk anyone cut off from the rest of the world.

  On Thursday I broke my dad’s house arrest and rode my bike to the lake. Oliver would be in school. Oliver had to be in school. If Oliver came, who knew what stupidity I might attempt. I might try to kill him, or kiss him instead. My mouth watered at the thought. How pathetic.

  I sat on the rock, perfectly aware that I could fall in, but I didn’t care. I wanted there to be a monster who might drag me under until I stopped seeing Oliver, stupid Oliver every time I closed my eyes. It made me want to stare unblinking, but my eyes watered and there was Oliver. I wondered what he was doing, then shook my head, staring down at the reflection. I was a blurry blob, not particularly human looking, more like an outcropping on the rock than a person. I felt so tired, so stupid, so crazy and just out of control. I started to cry, you know, graceful quiet crying like all the heroines on movies did. Yeah right. Blubbering, howling, messy, snotty crying that felt really good when I’d worn myself out. I laid there like a soggy dishrag trying to breathe. At least I felt better than I had since the moment when Oliver decided to kiss me. I felt my heart settle a little, not as though the pain were lessening, but as though I had accepted it, and it were somehow less potent after that.

  I lay there listening to the wind rustle through the dry grass and reeds, to the lap of water on the shore and another sound, a whistling hiss that must have been the wind. This last sound was so soothing that I fell asleep, drained, numb and weirdly content.

  Chapter 20

  Monday, I was back in school. Awesome. Everyone stared at me, voices kind of hushed and nervous when I passed, like I was dangerous or something. Dean and a bunch of people from his group nodded at me like we were friends. Junie completely ignored me, and at lunch when I sat down, got up and left. I barely noticed because I was trying hard not to stare at the swimmer’s table and see if Oliver was there.

  “Hey Gen,” Tuba said, smiling at me. “Don’t mind Junie. She’s having a mild crisis.”

  Flop shook her head. “So Gen’s supposed to be cool with Junie’s freak-outs, but where’s Junie’s support when Gen goes nuts? It’s not fair.”

  I forced myself to focus on the conversation but decided I didn’t want to talk about going nuts.

  “How is Sharky doing? I didn’t seriously hurt her, did I?”

  Flop shrugged. “You know people like her. She’d rather have a broken leg than a messed up face. I think she’s staying low until the swelling is all gone. I’ve heard a rumor that she’s taken this chance to get a nose job.”

  “Awesome.” I bit my lip then the name came out unbidden. “Have you seen Oliver? I had to tell him something, but I haven’t seen him all week. You know, house arrest and all that.”

  “Sure. He came back to school Thursday, but he was out for a while. With the flu, I think.” She turned h
er head to look at the swimmer’s table. The table I hadn’t looked at yet. “He’s sitting there eating. Maybe he still feels sick. He’s not talking to anyone.” She turned back to look at me, frowning a little bit. “He’s right there. Why didn’t you see him?”

  The look on my face before I focused on my sandwich must have given me away because she gasped making Tuba ask her if she was choking.

  “It’s a long story,” I said before she got a chance to ask. Of course she’d ask, and I’d tell her, and she’d want to know how good a kisser he was, and I’d have no idea because even though I could still taste him, I had nothing to compare him to besides Cole.

  Somehow I made it through lunch without glancing at the swim table. I bolted, ducking out the door. After school I went to Flop’s house. I didn’t have time to go into details before I had to go to work, but I told her enough that she knew what she’d already guessed: I was obsessed.

  “Maybe it would work out with you guys though. You know?” she said.

  I tried to keep my heart from hoping. “No. You know what he’s like. He has a new girl every day.”

  “Not since he had the flu. Maybe he’s a changed man.”

  I thought about it for a second then shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe it would be nice to be obsessed with someone who was obsessed with me back, but maybe it would be even worse. Cole did me a favor by leaving me.”

  “Really? Wow. You sound so mature.”

  I rolled my eyes and then I had to ride my bike really hard to work where Sheila did give me a hard time.

  By Wednesday Junie decided to talk to me. What she said wasn’t particularly soothing, but it was probably good for me to hear about the ways in which violence had brought about every evil in the world. No one bothered me. It wasn’t quite the relief I’d hoped for. In my choir group, no one wanted to stand by me. In the halls I got tired of glares and stares. I’d figured it would go away, that people would get bored with it and move on, but by Friday I was still big news. I probably would be until Sharky came back to school.