Watergirl

by Juliann Whicker

  1-How long was Sean under the water, anyway?

  2-Why did he not drown?

  3-What does his ideal girlfriend look like?

  4-What’s with Oliver?

  5-What’s with Cole and what he said about Bernice?

  6-Were they really fighting over going away for Christmas?

  7-Why do I feel like I have to come to the lake?

  8-What about what Oliver saw at the lake, no, not saw but thought he saw?

  9-Why do I have to be obsessed with anyone I kiss anyway? Will I never be allowed to have a normal boyfriend and stuff?

  I put away my notebook because I was tired of trying to make sense of stuff. It would be better to forget. That’s what I’d come to the lake for—to forget. The wind sighed around me, a song that made me feel more lonely.

  I needed to sing. I fought it, but the pressure built up in my chest until an awful sound came out, a choked, bleeding sound that surprised me. Did I really feel like that? I tried to close my mouth but the sound kept coming and with it, tears.

  I sang until the sound ended, cut off with a sob as I curled in the parka and rested my head against the bark of the tree. I heard a splash and jerked up because it was probably Oliver, but no. When I looked up, I saw nothing until I looked over at the water inside the circle of willow fronds. A bulbous head with two dark eyes stared at me while strands of seaweed trailed down between them, seaweed that didn’t grow in my freshwater lake. The eyes lifted and the lips drew back in a snarl while a horrible hiss came from its throat. It was probably ten feet away from me when it lunged for me with its claws.

  I scrambled away, ducking out from beneath the tree, feet pounding as I ran, pound, pound, to my bike, lame bike, I needed a car! Then I was pedaling clumsily away. I pushed, faster, faster, until I was back in town but I didn’t slow down until I realized I was at Sean’s house. I dropped my bike and ran up his sidewalk to bang on the tall front door.

  I had my mouth open to scream, ‘there’s something in the lake!’ when the door opened and Bernice looked out at me with a frown. Nothing came out of my mouth. I shut it.

  “Gen, what are you doing here? I didn’t know you were coming to Oliver’s going away party.”

  “I… Oliver’s going away?”

  She nodded and I thought I saw a flicker of satisfaction on her face. “It’s too bad the team will lose such a good swimmer, but he had an emergency at home he has to leave for.”

  “Oh.” I stared at her and she stared back.

  “Do you want to come in, or maybe I could get Oliver…” She frowned. “Unless you were looking for Sean, but I heard you guys weren’t together anymore.”

  “Yeah. I had something of his I wanted to give back, but you know, I don’t want to bother him at his party. I’ll just see him tomorrow.” If I wasn’t killed in my bed by the monster. I shuddered.

  “Are you okay? You don’t look very well.” Her concern was kind of annoying.

  “I think I might be coming down with a cold or something. Anyway, I’ll see you later.”

  “What’s up?” Sean’s voice came from behind Bernice.

  “Nothing,” we both said at the same time.

  Sean stepped close behind Bernice so that I could watch him rest a hand on her shoulder while he leaned close to her ear.

  “You’re missing the party,” he said in a low voice.

  She nodded and looked up at him with luminous eyes and a stunning smile. Wow. She really liked him.

  “I was just going,” I said, backing up and almost falling off the steps.

  “Didn’t you need to give something to Sean?” Bernice said turning a puzzled frown in my direction.

  “It’ll just take a sec,” Sean said, stepping past Bernice, and waiting until she backed off to close the door on her.

  “I don’t have anything for you. It’s stupid. Didn’t really happen. I’m just having a hallucination, like the other stuff going on, like you not drowning, and the Cole thing. It’s all good. I think it’s the flu, you know?”

  He frowned at me. I realized then why I’d come to Sean’s house. I wanted a hug. Why would I have come all this way for a hug from Sean? It made no sense.

  “I’ll walk you home.”

  I blinked at him. “I have a bike.”

  “I can keep up.”

  I shook my head. “You have a party. It’s nothing. I was stupid to come here, you know, like I usually am.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  I sighed. I couldn’t argue. I didn’t want to argue, not when the monster clawing… and then there was the other thing, the Oliver leaving thing. It was one thing to fight an obsession, it was another to know that he wouldn’t be there, that he’d be gone and part of me would be ripped out along with him.

  I sneezed.

  “Bless you.”

  We started down the sidewalk, me pushing my bike with him on the other side. “Why are you coming with me?”

  “I don’t like parties.”

  I looked up at him. “Then you shouldn’t have them.”

  “I’m The Captain.”

  I rolled my eyes then shuddered as I had a memory of the monster, the hissing. He put a hand on my shoulder. For a second I felt better until I remembered him putting his hand on Bernice’s shoulder and pulled away from him.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice authoritative and commanding. Who wouldn’t tell him when he used that voice?

  “You’re not my captain. You’re not my pretend boyfriend, you’re not my anything, so why am I here, with you? It makes no sense. We have nothing in common, you can’t stand me, and really, I don’t exactly enjoy the way you make me feel, but here I am.” I shook my head.

  “That’s it?”

  I stared at him levelly, taking in his chiseled cheekbones and general perfection. “No. It’s not. What it is, is none of your business. I really should have gone to Oliver, but I didn’t think about it.” He’d been sure there was something in the lake all along. He wouldn’t think I was crazy. Wait. I kind of wanted to be crazy, to have been hallucinating. I did not want validation about monsters. I sighed. I wanted a hug.

  “This isn’t about this morning?”

  I frowned at him. “So you can hold your breath for a long time. So what?”

  “And about Cole?”

  “No.”

  “But, it’s about Oliver. Are you feeling… sick about him leaving?” His icy eyes felt accusing but at the same time, looked concerned—about me.

  I swallowed. I was, but that wouldn’t give me nightmares.

  “That must be it.” I stopped on the sidewalk. I was done with this conversation, done with blocking him when I just wanted a stupid hug.

  “Sean, will you please go away?” My voice came out small and vulnerable. Crap. Where was my powerful voice, the one that had made Oliver leave me alone, then again, also the one that made me faint? I tried again. “Otherwise, I think I’ll cry on your shirt. I don’t think you’d survive that, so…”

  He reached over the bike and pulled me against him, for a second blocking out the monsters with his slow, steady heartbeat. “Go for it,” he said, against my hair.

  My heart sped up as I blinked completely dry eyes, then closed them, leaning against him. We stood like that for too long, until my legs were cold and he was probably freezing because he only wore a long sleeved shirt with his jeans.

  A car drove by, the headlights startling me and making me pull away, feeling self-conscious. “Um, are you cold? We’ll have to see if you can keep up,” I said, climbing on my bike without looking at him.

  I pushed off and he kept up with a steady jog, his feet pounding against the pavement beside me. We were a few blocks from my house, so after only a few minutes, we were there. I got off, then frowning, unzipped my dad’s parka and handed it to him.

  “Night,” I said, leaving him there, holding my parka in his strong hand like he had no idea what it was. “Don’t get mud on it,” I called over my shoulder b
efore I let the screen door close behind me.

  Chapter 25

  So that was that. Oliver was gone. The lake really had a monster. I really had to work overtime after Thanksgiving and the Holiday rush got crazy. I didn’t have time to notice my stupid sick heart looking for Oliver every other second of every day. The other half I was looking for monsters. I was busy practicing Christmas chorale arrangements, hanging out with friends.

  One thing that slowly got weirder and weirder until it was impossible to ignore was the fallout from having two of the hottest guys at school supposedly fight over me: I’d become someone guys wanted to date.

  At first I stared at them in stunned silence when they asked me out, then I gave lame excuses about work and stuff, then I said yes. His name was Jack, and he was in choir with me so at least we had something in common. We went to a movie. He laughed too much. He touched my hand too much. The best part was when we were driving home and sang Christmas carols along with the radio and did parts. We sat in the car at my house, practicing our parts for the chorale when he lunged for me.

  I felt really bad about hitting him in the face and told him so a lot of times, but he kept apologizing with his hand over his face dripping blood until I got out. I felt bad, but I would have felt worse if he actually had managed to kiss me and I became obsessed. Dates apparently, weren’t for me.

  When the first snow fell, I was still riding my bike to school, skidding at the corners, but alive and in one piece. When I got to school, I turned the corner of the hall, and there was Flop at her locker, right beside my locker, looking so unlike herself that for a second I thought she was someone else. She wore boots, pants, sweater, coat, scarf, the whole thing.

  “Flop?” She turned and gave me a sunny smile, totally ignoring the way that me, and Junie who had just showed up, stared at her.

  That day at lunch, while snow piled up outside, I looked at our table, at Tuba who didn't need fixing, Flop who looked ready for a ski resort, me, who knew how to swim and was officially over Cole. Junie’s psychotic plan actually worked, except of course for her and her relationship thing.

  A few days later, only a couple days before Christmas break and the Christmas concert that my teacher was freaking out about, like she did every year, a new guy came to school, shaking snow off his long blonde locks, looking only slightly out of place in his shorts and sandals as he walked through the hall, past Flop who stared, love-struck at first sight.

  That day was reconnaissance, which meant that she talked to everyone she knew about who he was to find out what classes he was in and where he was from… that kind of thing, then she had two classes in a row with him, the last two, and she could flirt with him in person. The next day he showed up at our table, and the day after that, and the day after that, falling into our little group without any apparent effort.

  Logan was from southern Cali and had a passion for all things sunshine. Flop was sunshine, so naturally they were in lockstep. They had these crazy conversations that didn't make any sense to anyone else, but they didn't seem to mind that there was anyone else, so that was fine. Right. He was totally nice, but sometimes I wanted to sit and talk about hot guys, not just one hot guy, Logan, who I wasn’t allowed to think of as hot, anyway, although he was, not as hot as Sean or Oliver, but you know, pretty good.

  Whatever. I was okay for Flop to be happy when I was miserable. At least I had Junie to be miserable with, at least I had Junie until the unthinkable happened.

  First of all, New Year’s parties should be banned. I mean, after Christmas break, why do people have to dress up and get confetti in their eyes anyway? Total overkill.

  So it was a week after Christmas during the break when we were all hanging out at the coffee shop eating bagels and drinking hot chocolate—everyone was Junie, Flop, Logan, and Tuba. Sean came in, looking glistening from the snow melting in his short hair and eyelashes, looked around the room then came straight for our table.

  I blinked at him when he pulled up a chair, as comfortable with us as though we were his team. We hadn’t talked since Oliver’s going away party, hadn’t really looked at each other. He must have just returned from his Christmas break, with Oliver if he’d actually kept that bet.

  “Hi,” he said with a smile at all of us, a gleaming, toothy smile that made me think I must have chocolate on my nose or crumbs on my shirt.

  “Hey,” Logan said easily, shaking his hand like it wasn’t so weird to see him there. The rest of us kind of nodded and stuff, except for Junie. She glared at him.

  It was sick the way he did it, sick but impressive. He started with Junie, telling her about an internship with a conservation group that worked on some oil damaged beach trying to restore the ecological system, and how he could email her the information if she was interested, which, if the way she kept nodding and nodding and nodding were any indication, she was.

  After that, he turned his attention to Flop and Logan, asked them if they’d gone swimming since he’d moved there, and invited them to his New Year’s Eve party, and us when he looked around with an including smile, his eyes somehow less glinting than usual.

  “I’d have Flop on the team any time if she were willing to do the early morning drills, but either way, you two should be there.” His words and tone were so precisely flattering, I was left speechless. “All of you should come, unless of course you have your own plans. Anyway,” he said, standing up. “I hope you can make it.” He looked directly at Tuba when he said it.

  Logan was ecstatic with the idea of bringing in New Year’s Eve in a pool with Flop, and Junie said it would be interesting and educational, besides which, she could ask Sean about what other internships he knew about. Tuba, Flop and I exchanged skeptical looks.

  “What do you think, Gen,” Tuba asked me with concerned brown eyes. “You’ve gone to one of his parties before. Would we have a good time?”

  I shrugged. “The music is good, the food is good, his house, well, it’s incredible. There’s this aquarium that takes up an entire wall in the living room, with sharks in it. The pool, also in the living room is huge, and everything’s perfect. I guess you could have fun, if you wanted to go. The only thing I didn’t like were the people. Everyone was so…” I shrugged and took a big bite of cookie.

  “That’s elitist,” Junie said.

  I sighed.

  “Of course Sean attracts superficial, but he’s deeper than that.” Oh great. I really did not want her to start giggling again. “I say we go. A New year, a new experience…”

  “Where we go doesn’t matter as much as that we’re all there,” Flop said, frowning at Junie. “If Gen wouldn’t be comfortable at Sean’s party, then we won’t go.”

  Logan frowned, wrinkling up his cute forehead. “Why wouldn’t Gen be comfortable?”

  Flop leaned a little closer to him so she could tell him under her breath about how I’d dated Sean and it hadn’t worked out.

  Logan nodded like that made sense. “Okay,” he said. “The pool would be cool, but so long as I’m with Flop, I’m good.”

  Everyone stared at me. Flop and Tuba wouldn’t care what we did, but Junie and Logan…

  “Sure. Let’s go. It’ll be fun.” Not like I could keep everyone from having a good time, and maybe it would be fun, I mean, how could it not be when I’d be there with my friends, my real friends?

  I looked cute when Logan and Flop came by to pick me up. Logan even said so in the brief second he didn't devour Flop with his eyes. Ugh. I hated happy people. We picked up Junie and Tuba, kind of crammed Logan’s his little subi, but we liked each other so it was okay.

  At the party Logan pulled off his shirt and dragged Flop into the pool right away. They were so at home in the water, paddling around, looking cute, faux splashing each other while their legs bumped. Me, Tuba and Junie stood around awkwardly while we listened to great music and watched the creatures in the aquarium.

  Tuba cleared his throat. “Junie,” he said. We both looked at him. His brown h
air looked a little sweaty. “Do you want to dance? This is great music. Not as good as Gen…” he said giving me an apologetic look. “But maybe…”

  “Sure,” Junie said, grabbing his hand and pulling him away from me, towards the millions of other people, most of them ridiculously beautiful until they were out of sight.

  That left me alone, well, alone with everyone else crowding around. I saw Bernice and waved when she noticed me because even though she ditched us, I could be better than her.

  I stood there by myself, not because guys didn’t ask me to dance, but because I didn’t dance. It was fine to hang out beside the aquarium watching the shark and the stingrays, along with a motley of other beautiful fish play intricate games I couldn’t follow. I could have watched them forever, at least until I heard someone clear their throat behind me. I turned around to tell whoever it was that I wasn’t interested when I stopped, staring at Ben, Bernice’s crush.

  “Hey,” he said with a sort-of nod.

  “Ben. What’s going on?”

  “Do you want to dance?”

  I stared at him. “I’m sorry. Shouldn’t you be asking Bernice? I’m pretty sure she likes you.”

  He frowned, his face looking less sweet, more tormented. “Yeah, I thought she might like me, but when I kept asking her out and she always had a reason why we couldn’t go, I finally realized that there’s only one swimmer that she’ll ever really see.”

  He turned around and I followed his gaze. Sean walked through the crowd with an unreadable expression, nodding at people who greeted him, making his way over to us.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said to me as he handed me a drink, then glanced at Ben with something like dismissal. Ben’s cheeks got red as he turned away, leaving me with Sean.

  I glared at him, at his blue ironed t-shirt that made his eyes even more brilliant.

  “What is this?” I asked, lifting the orange drink with an umbrella in it.

  “Orange juice, vanilla protein, bananas, ice, and an umbrella.” He raised an eyebrow. “You looked like you could use something to do with your hands. At parties you shouldn’t stand around looking bored. You might insult the host.”