“She will, Ivy. Give her time.” Nan wraps her arm around my waist. “Why don’t we make lunch and Iris can join in or not when she’s ready.”
Nan mixes the dough while I begin chopping fresh oregano and basil.
“I’m worried about her,” I say to Nan, keeping my voice low so Dad won’t hear. He and Grandad are talking about sports.
“I know,” she says. “Your sister has never been very good at dealing with major events. She either shouts and cries or ignores it entirely.”
“I’ve been struggling to find some way to help her.” I pause. “I guess I was kind of hoping you might have some good advice.”
Nan sighs. “I’ll continue to reach out to her, but I can’t force her to listen. Your mom was having issues with her too.”
I put the knife down. “She was? What kind of issues?”
“Iris was acting out, and your mom wasn’t sure why.”
“Nothing had happened?”
“Not that I or your mom was aware of. She spoke to a few of her teachers and no one had noticed anything off at school besides some shifting in friendships, but that was nothing out of the ordinary.”
Frowning, I pop my hip against the counter. “When Iris first got here and we were talking about my friends, I told her that I have a small friendship group and prefer that. She said she had that too. I didn’t think much about it because she’d just moved away, but she hasn’t mentioned anyone back in the city,” I say. “Plus, my therapist said something interesting.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, she said that Iris might not know how to be real around people because her friendships at school were based on hanging around with the people who would keep her popular.”
Nan puts the fresh dough through her chrome pasta maker and turns the wheel. “You think something happened with her friends?”
I shrug. “Maybe she was cast out or something. It’s kind of weird that she’s cut them all out of her life since moving here. Even if you eventually grew apart, you would be in contact to begin with.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Nan says. “I don’t want you to worry yourself with this, Ivy. You need to look after yourself too.”
I smile, but I don’t agree with her. It’s so much easier to help someone else rather than myself, and I want nothing more than to make sure my sister is okay.
When lunch is ready, we all eat in the dining room. Iris joins us for twenty minutes and then escapes back to her room. No one but me seems to mind. Iris needs time and all that. I think it’s kind of rude and crappy on her part, but apparently I’m wrong.
21
Mondays have never been my favorite, but after the weekend, I was happy to go to school. I’m drained from being the one to hold conversations with Nan and Grandad. Not to mention that I still can’t quite figure out what was going on between Iris and Mom before she died.
Iris follows me to the pool after classes let out. “Are you sure you don’t mind me tagging along?”
“Nope,” I tell her.
“Really? Because I don’t want you to think I’m wedging myself into your crew.”
I take her wrist and stop walking. Iris stops too. Be the bigger person here. “We’re sisters and we have to stick together. Mom would want that. Listen, I should get in there. Coach will be ready to start and I’m already cutting it close.”
Iris bites her lip, her eyes watering.
“What?” I ask. Oh, please don’t cry. I don’t do well with crying, never knowing what to say to make it better.
“It’s just…” She averts her eyes and takes a breath. “Gosh, ignore me!” She glances back.
“No, what’s wrong? Do you want to go and see the guidance counselor?”
“Not at all. It’s dumb and unimportant.”
“It’s not. Tell me, Iris.”
She shrugs. “It just hit me that I don’t have much going on. You’re the star of the swim team.”
“And you’ve been here two minutes, and everyone loves you.”
She laughs.
“Mom would be proud of how you’re trying at school, Iris,” I tell her.
Her eyes flicker with annoyance. Every time I’ve mentioned anything to do with Mom, she’s built a wall around herself. I won’t ever stop talking about her, but I also won’t expect Iris to be okay with it. Dad is right, she’ll get there when she’s ready.
“Thanks, Ivy. Now, show me how awesome you are at swimming.”
Iris follows me inside the changing room.
My teammates are all ready before I even put my bag down.
“Ivy,” Coach says. “Nice of you to join us.”
I wince. “Sorry. I’ll be quick,” I reply, heading for my locker. I could tell her I was talking to my sister—we’ve been offered all sorts of leniency short-term—but I don’t want to use my mom’s death as an excuse for letting myself down. I’m not late to classes or swim practice. I hand homework in on time. Okay, so I do that mostly because my dad would ground me if my grades slip and I won’t be allowed to swim, but still.
Besides, the last detention I got for talking in class was so boring.
I strip my clothes, my hands shaking slightly from being late. I need to be out there now. Everyone has left; it’s only me and Iris in the changing room. Late to me is loss of control.
I open my locker to grab my towel. Instantly my nose stings from the putrid smell that slams into my face.
“Oh my God,” I mumble through my hand as I step back.
Iris steps around the open door of my locker. “What’s that?”
I drop my hand and glance at her out of the corner of my eye. “Something dead? I think it’s under my towel.”
We sometimes get mice in the school but it’s been a long time since one made it into the building. Is that what’s under my towel?
Slowly, because I don’t actually want to do this, I reach my arm out and my fingers brush the towel.
“Don’t touch it, Ivy.”
“I wasn’t planning on touching it!” I hiss.
Iris grips her hair in her fist at the side of her head as if the dead animal is going to leap up and bury itself in her shiny curls.
Breathing lightly through my nose, I pull the towel. Iris squeals and I jump back, slamming into the row of lockers behind me as the mouse thuds to the floor.
“Oh my God, so gross,” I exclaim, shuddering as I think about how I need to burn my towel now.
“Ivy, what’s taking so long?” Coach says, popping her head back into the changing room.
Iris holds her hands up. “Mouse in Ivy’s locker.”
“Dead,” I add.
Coach walks over to us with a frown. “Poor guy must have gotten himself trapped. I’ll take it out. Iris, you can go through and take a seat.”
“Okay.”
Iris looks back as she heads toward the pool. “Do you have a spare towel?”
“No, but Coach does.”
“See you out there.”
Shuddering, I slip my swimsuit on, tie my hair up, and tug my goggles onto my head. My heart is thankfully slowing down after almost having the dead mouse fall on my feet.
How did it manage to get in there? And what did it die of? It could have starved over the weekend maybe.
Poor mouse.
The team is at the edge of the pool when I get out there. I power-walk toward them, looking for Iris out of the corner of my eye. She’s sitting alone. There aren’t usually people watching practice.
“Ivy, you’re up,” Coach says as she returns to us. I don’t know where she put the mouse, I’m just glad it’s gone.
“Okay,” I reply. So I’m not going to get a recap of what she was saying, but they were only here for a couple of minutes, so it was probably a pep talk. I don’t need one of those; I just ne
ed to get in the water.
I step onto the block and pull the goggles over my eyes.
Bending my knees, I launch forward and dive in. The second my head is under, I’m free. I push hard, lap after lap, challenging myself to beat my times.
There are so many great swimmers on the team, but I couldn’t care less about beating them. Dad has always told me to swim for me, even when I’m swimming competitively.
I swim, gliding through the water like I was made to do this. Every stroke of my arms brings me a sense of peace I long for every day. I could do this forever.
Coach calls it when practice is over, and I climb out of the pool.
Now back to a reality where my mom is gone.
“Ivy, that was amazing!” Iris gushes as I meet up with her outside the pool.
I rushed getting dressed, so my hair is still damp, but I can shower when I’m back home. I didn’t want to leave Iris waiting around for me longer than necessary.
It’s been cool to have her here watching. My conversation with Nan still plays in my mind. Iris might have lost something before she lost Mom. That has to make the breathtaking sting of losing Mom even worse.
I grin at her. “Thanks.”
“I would love to be able to swim like that.”
“You can swim.”
“Yeah, but not like that.”
“Maybe we should head to the community pool one weekend, and I’ll give you some pointers.”
“You would do that?”
“Sure.”
She links arms with me as we head out of school. “Want to get grab some dinner out? Dad’s cooking isn’t bad but…”
I laugh. “Yeah, he tries. There’s a new restaurant called the Cove we could try.”
“I’ve heard it’s nice.”
“You’re into seafood, right?”
She nods. “I love seafood.”
Seafood was Mom’s favorite too. I press my lips together before I voice that thought. Iris doesn’t take well to talk about Mom.
“Dad gave me a fifty this morning, so dinner is on him,” she says.
Okay, where’s my fifty? I won’t be voicing that thought either or I’ll sound like a brat. Dad has given me way more money than he’s given Iris over the years because, obviously, Mom and Dad didn’t pay each other child support.
“Perfect,” I say, trying to keep my voice light. We reach my car and get in.
“Did you have to try out for the swim team?” she asks after we’ve been driving in silence for a mile.
“Uh-huh.”
“Hmm.” She’s staring out the window. “I spoke to Ellie about cheerleading at lunch today. Well, she actually spoke to me about joining.”
“Really?” I knew Rosemary Anderson left last month and they hadn’t replaced her yet.
“Ellie and her friends are exactly like my friends back home. Fitting in with them is so easy.”
It doesn’t sound like she wants to fit in with them.
“You want to make friends, right? I mean, you have with Ellie.”
She shrugs. “Sure.”
“But I mean, if you don’t want to cheer, you shouldn’t do it,” I tell her.
Her eyes glaze over like she’s repeating my words in her mind and trying to make sense of them.
She blinks and smiles. “No, I want to.”
As much as I love it when a person doesn’t need someone else, we all want friends. I don’t know why Iris is being so blasé about it. She had friends in the city. They might not have been as real as what I’ve got with Haley and Sophie, but she knows what it’s like to have friends.
No one wants to be alone. Not really.
22
Tuesdays are usually pretty quiet, only today I’ve thrown in another session in the pool after school. But I don’t care that I’ve lost one of my free evenings because last night was kind of cool. At least nothing dead dropped out of my locker again.
Iris and I enjoyed dinner at the Cove, and we talked. Not about Mom or anything heavy, but it was still nice. When she’s being the rational version of herself, I like her. She has been shying away from giving me any credit for swimming, even going as far as making me feel bad about it, but after watching my practice yesterday, she’s practically been waving her pom-poms.
Speaking of which, she was meeting up with Ellie today to tell her she does want to be on the team.
I’m happy about that too. Iris will have a hobby, something that’s all hers to focus on. She won’t worry about my friends or what I have.
Kicking like my life depends on it, I reach the edge and pull myself out of the pool. My legs shake and my arms feel like jelly. I’ve overdone it. Stumbling into the changing room, I lean against the tile in the first shower cubicle and wait for my heart rate to return to normal. I pushed it too hard, but I beat my personal best time.
I got my personal best!
It’s worth every second of the muscle burn.
The elation of swimming faster has a goofy smile stretching across my face. This feeling is addictive, knowing I’m strong enough to push my body and achieve my goals.
I shut the water off, the last of the chlorine spiraling down the drain.
Closing my eyes, I slide down the wall as the muscles in my thighs throb and my breath rasps from my lungs.
I’m going to ache tomorrow, but I don’t care. It has been a long time since I’ve pushed this hard. If Coach could see me right now, she would say I’ve gone too far. After swimming I should still be able to walk, so it’s a good thing I kept it together until I got into the changing room.
The harder I pushed, the more everything else fell away. There was no dead Mom in the background, no sister pushing boundaries, no dad pretending he’s unaffected by it all.
I would spend my life swimming like that if I felt the same complete freedom.
Flicking my eyes open, I wiggle my toes. I have to get up and leave. Coach will be going home soon. The showers and changing room are eerily silent. I’ve had the longest shower of my life, so it won’t be surprising if the rest of the team have left.
I place my palms on the floor and push myself up. Bracing against the wall, I give my legs a minute to support my weight. I need to get home and eat.
Iris picked a great day to need the car. The walk isn’t far, but I’m exhausted. I step out of the shower and grab my towel from the peg. Wrapping it around me, I lean against the wall again.
Maybe I need to do some sort of weight training to improve my strength.
Or maybe I need to work up to swimming like an actual fish.
I stand still with my towel around me as if I’ve frozen on the spot. I don’t have the energy to dry myself. Damn, I need some food.
Pushing myself, I walk out of the cubicle and head to my locker.
“Coach?” I call out, only to be met by silence. She doesn’t leave before us. “Coach, are you here?”
On unsteady legs, I walk to the next row of lockers and peer into her office through the window. It’s empty and her computer screen is black.
Great. She probably thought everyone was gone while I was sitting in the shower with the water turned off.
Well, it’s not a big deal. The doors is locked into the pool but not into school, so I’m not trapped in the changing room. I dash back to my locker, drop my towel, and tug my clothes on.
Dad is out, so he’s not expecting me home. Which is good because I’m going to be later than usual tonight. He calls about ten minutes after five if I’m not home on practice days. It’s thirteen minutes past now.
The fatigue is really slowing me down. I need to start running regularly again. I don’t class myself as unfit in the slightest, but I need to be able to swim as hard as I did today without feeling like I’m going to die.
I grab my bag, sli
ng it over my shoulder, and leave the changing room. My hair sits damp against my back. The corridor is empty. The janitor will be around here somewhere and there are usually teachers who stay later than this, but I don’t see any now.
My heart beats faster as my footsteps echo through the air. I keep my head down and head to the door.
The sky is dark, and thick gray clouds hover above, waiting to rupture and soak me. I could call Iris, but I heard her talking about going out with Ellie. Ty is having dinner with his grandparents, Sophie has extra tutoring in Spanish, and Haley is shopping with her mom.
I’m going to get wet. Good thing I have a great rapport with water.
I jog across the street at the crossing and head for the fields.
Above me, the sky rumbles. I knew a storm was close. Fantastic.
Leaning forward, I up my pace despite my burning thighs screaming in protest. It’s so dark with the sun hidden away as if it’s lost the fight to the storm.
Once I’m across one field, trees lining the second one make it so much darker out. I usually walk through the middle since it’s a more direct route and the forest isn’t too thick, but I’m not stupid. It’s dark, I’m alone, and I’ve seen plenty of horror movies.
Curling my arms around my stomach, I walk faster. Above me, in the trees, a flock of birds flee from the branches. The flapping of their wings makes me jump. I step back, head shooting up to see about fifty of them flying toward town.
My eyes flit shut, and I press my palm to my racing heart.
The sky lights up with a bright silver fork overhead, followed by another crackling rumble. The storm is almost on top of me.
Screw it, I need to get home. I turn to my side and stomp into the trees. I’ll be out the other side in less than a minute. We don’t have a lot of forest in town, only a few patches of trees here and there. It just happens that the widest one separates my house from school. During winter, you can pretty much see straight through them.
I tread carefully, placing my feet between broken branches and rocks. There is kind of a man-made path, but I missed it because I tried to be smart and go around.
Drops of water patter down on the leaves above me. As of now, I’m protected by the trees, but I can already see the clearing and then it’s wide-open fields.
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