Save Me

by Jenny Elliott

  She finished off the luscious apple. Garren took the core and deposited it in his bag.

  Rachel’s attention had shifted back to Ethan. He wore a sad frown now as he returned Rachel’s gaze. Hunching his shoulders, he shuffled away toward the school building. Rachel looked at Cara and cocked her head toward him, said a quick good-bye to Garren, then hurried off.

  Garren rose from the wall. “If you want, I’ll join you for lunch again tomorrow.”

  Hopefully, like her, he only wanted to be friends. “Don’t feel obligated.” She held out her half-full bag of chips. “Here, take the rest.”

  “Thanks.” He accepted the chips and smiled before he turned his face up to the sky and walked away.

  She wondered how he saw where he was going, looking up while he walked.

  SEVEN

  Two periods later, Garren passed Cara and Rachel in the hallway and entered the journalism classroom. Cara prodded Rachel from behind to get her moving in that direction. Inside, Cara chose the middle desk in the back row. Rachel sat in the seat to her left.

  Garren stood in front of the teacher’s desk, blocking her view of Ms. Burg. For some reason, Mr. Cutter, a young teacher who taught English and creative writing, stood at the head of the class.

  More students filed into the room. Garren came over and took the seat to Cara’s right.

  Cara glanced toward the front desk. And her heart sank deeper than she’d sunk beneath the ocean’s surface. Her head swam and she thought she might pass out. Which would be okay. At least then she wouldn’t be conscious of what was happening.

  David looked up and his green eyes froze on her. His face paled, his chest expanded, and he let out a deep breath.

  Cara was too taken aback to stop staring at him. Her heart lay in a cold puddle in the pit of her stomach. David was her teacher.

  Her gaze dropped to her desk. There was no way she could hide. And she’d have to see him every day at school.

  Mr. Cutter interrupted her horror by addressing the class. “I recognize many faces here. Welcome to the new school year. For those who don’t know me, my name is Mr. Cutter. Ms. Burg accepted a last-minute job offer in Portland.” He waved David over, spoke in his ear, and handed him a stack of papers.

  David distributed small piles of the papers to the first person in each row to pass back.

  Mr. Cutter continued, “Fortunately, Mr. Wilson is an intern from Washington who’d already signed up for student teaching this semester. He’ll be your new lead. My job here is to observe.”

  “Hello, everyone,” David said, claiming Mr. Cutter’s former space.

  Mr. Cutter continued, “You should all receive a ballot listing newspaper staff members’ names. Please check the box next to the candidate you think deserves the position. You can leave your votes on the teacher’s desk at the end of the period. Mr. Wilson will announce the winning candidate tomorrow.”

  Mr. Cutter sat at the teacher’s desk. “Mr. Wilson, I’ll turn things over to you.”

  David stood tall in front of the class. “I want to give you all some time to think about your votes before we begin with today’s lesson.” His words weren’t smooth, as they had been when she’d spoken with him before, but were cut off neatly at the corners.

  His eyes never met hers.

  Grateful to have something to focus on, Cara bent over her ballot. She concentrated on four names in the column of staff members, each next to a corresponding check box: John Albright, Rachel Clark, Cara Markwell, and Jeff Peters. John was a star athlete and strictly a sportswriter. Jeff loved to argue and covered editorials. Rachel was the least qualified staff member, but she wrote an advice column students loved. Cara wrote the most diverse articles and had assisted previous years’ editors.

  She was certain she wanted the editor position more than the other candidates. In past years, she’d worked the hardest, and she expected to win the vote. But if she did get the position, David would be her lead. At the moment, working closely with him seemed like it would amount to utter humiliation.

  Rachel doodled in a notebook, unaware that Cara’s recent hopes for love had just been doused, in the worst way.

  Students finished with their ballots and many of the girls’ eyes turned to Garren. Several girls also turned their attention to David, and not just because he was a new student teacher, if their flushed cheeks and silly smiles were any indication.

  Jealousy ignited in Cara’s chest and fanned into flames. She wanted to tell the girls to stop being ridiculous. “Mr. Wilson” was a teacher. But she’d have to tell herself to stop, too. For the rest of the period, she tried, with little success, to concentrate on the lesson as much as she did David.

  After class, Garren stood with his back to the teacher’s desk and looked down at her. She could swear she saw sympathy in his tempered smile.

  “Sorry about the student-teacher situation,” he said, his voice quiet.

  He couldn’t know about her feelings for David. “What do you mean?”

  “It must be awkward.”

  This wasn’t the first time Garren had made odd comments. Maybe he assumed she’d miss Ms. Burg or something, since they’d worked together on the paper for the past three years.

  “It’ll be fine, thanks,” she said.

  “Good luck on the editor vote,” he said with a wink, and walked off.

  She turned to talk to Rachel, but she’d already snuck to the front of the line to drop off her ballot. Ethan stood in the doorway, waiting for her. Rachel disappeared with him down the hallway.

  Mr. Cutter shook David’s hand and left the room.

  Cara waited for the other students to drop off their ballots before she approached David at the teacher’s desk. The connection she felt with him was a mystery she didn’t understand. But as her eyes held his, warmth coursed through the invisible tether. Energy spread within her, then rushed back toward him.

  Her ballot shook in her hands. She quickly set the paper facedown on top of the others.

  David’s smile appeared strained, a counterfeit version of his natural, lopsided grin.

  “I’m sorry…” she began.

  “Don’t be sorry.” His forearm caught the stack of ballots and the papers fluttered to the floor.

  She leaned down, picked them up, and set them back on his desk.

  “I don’t know what to say, other than I wish you luck on the editor vote,” he said, his voice as shaky as she felt.

  “Thanks,” she said, knowing he also knew the true reason for the tremor in her voice.

  EIGHT

  At home, Cara absently walked into the kitchen and dropped onto the kitchen nook bench. Her mom stood at the stove with a spatula, pushing meat around in a sizzling skillet. Cara and her mom usually prepared dinner together after school, so her mom had set out a cutting board and fixings for an avocado salad for Cara to work on.

  Seeing Cara’s face, her mom turned down the heat on the stove. “Not up for fixing dinner today?”

  Cara shook her head. “Sorry.”

  “Looks like this calls for ice cream,” her mom said, and dished up two bowls of Cara’s favorite peppermint candy flavor.

  She set the bowls on the table, sat, and gave Cara a concerned sideways gaze. “The first day of senior year didn’t go so well, I take it?”

  Cara picked up her spoon and poked at her ice cream. “David was there.” Her words sounded flat.

  “What?” Her mom dropped her spoon and it clanked against her bowl. “Why?”

  “He’s the student teacher for my journalism class.”

  “Oh, no.” Her mom took her hand. “How could he not know you were in high school?”

  Cara sighed. “I didn’t tell him. I was going to tell him next month, after my birthday. I didn’t know if he’d want to date me if he knew I was seventeen.”

  “Did he say anything to you today?”

  “He wished me luck on the editor vote.”

  Her mom let go of her hand and clasped her ow
n together on the table. “You know you need to give up on this, right?”

  “I wouldn’t do anything to cause problems for him.”

  “Well, I’m a little unnerved that he didn’t make sure you weren’t too young. I hope he regrets his mistake.”

  A mistake. That’s what she was to him now.

  No longer able to hold back her emotions, she grabbed her things and ran for the front door.

  * * *

  Cara sniffed and blinked the tears from her eyes, doing her best to focus on the road as she headed for her favorite overlook at Maritime Bay. A few minutes later, she arrived at the lot above the lookout point. The only other car was a silver Toyota truck with Washington plates, and any tourist who saw her tear-stained face probably wouldn’t bother her. She parked far from the truck, stepped out of her Civic, and sucked in a salty, cleansing breath.

  The rhythmic sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below calmed her. She shuffled down the grassy hill that led to a fence lining the cliff top. The owner of the truck leaned against the railing. His head was bent, as though he were watching the waves below him.

  Veering left, toward the farthest length of fence, she glanced over at the guy. His eyes met hers and she stopped breathing.

  David froze in place, staring at her. She did the same, paralyzed with disbelief that he was there. Her cheeks lit on fire, and not because of the connection between them. They were too far away for that.

  He might think she’d followed him after school. She turned to leave.

  “Cara, wait.”

  Taking in another deep breath of sea air, she hesitated, then turned to face him. He didn’t smile, but waved her over.

  She walked over to where he stood and gripped the cool fence railing. The waves smacking the rocks below echoed her desire to smack herself in the head. She wasn’t sure if she could speak without her voice breaking.

  “I’m sorry, too,” he said. “I shouldn’t have assumed you were older. I should’ve asked.”

  She cleared her throat and repeated his earlier words. “Don’t be sorry.” Her voice cracked.

  He took a step closer and studied her face, zoning in on her eyes and cheeks. “Are you okay?” He cringed, as though he were in pain.

  She most definitely didn’t feel okay. More than anything, she wanted to wrap her arms around him and have him do the same, for him to hold her like he had on the Lookout. Amazingly, she felt colder now than she had then, only on the inside this time.

  But he was her teacher. And she didn’t want him to feel guilty about anything. She needed to pull herself together.

  This was too much, though. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She cursed them, unable to control the flood of emotions that assaulted her.

  Standing up straight, she scanned the water to distract herself. Two tall, black dorsal fins and three shorter ones clustered in the water not far from the cliff face. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

  “They’re still here,” she whispered.

  “That’s weird,” David said. “Rick said they should be gone.”

  “I need to get back out on the water,” she said, eyes still on the transients. “I just don’t know if I can. Especially if they don’t leave.”

  “You can.” His words were firm.

  She met his gaze, not bothering to wipe away her tears. Her shivering ceased when their warm connection took hold.

  “I know the orca who knocked us overboard was probably just curious, or playful,” she said, more to try to convince herself than David. “But I’m used to baleen whales. These transients. Those teeth. They’re like sharks.”

  “They’re whales.”

  “Actually, they’re dolphins.”

  The corner of his lip turned up. “So they’re dolphins. As far as I know, not one has ever harmed a human in the wild.”

  Maybe because humans rarely swim with transient orcas in the wild, Cara thought.

  “Don’t let fear rob you of something that means so much to you,” he said before he took a few steps back.

  Cara relished the last shower of warmth between them, then nodded and broke their gaze.

  “I should go,” he said.

  She wasn’t sure if she’d imagined a hint of regret in his tone.

  She nodded again, but didn’t look at him.

  Not long after, she heard the hum of his truck motor as he drove off.

  She dropped down on the wet grass and hugged her knees to her chest. The transients had disappeared the moment David left.

  * * *

  In the overlook parking lot, Cara sat in her car and texted Rachel about David. Rachel texted back that she was home, so Cara drove over and parked in front of the Clarks’ brown bungalow. Ms. Clark welcomed her in and Cara let herself into Rachel’s room.

  Rachel, who’d been lying on her belly on her bed reading a paperback, hopped up into a cross-legged position and patted her mattress for Cara to sit. Cara dropped down next to Rachel and pulled a diet soda from her backpack. She cracked the bottle open and swigged from it.

  “Smile for me?” Rachel asked.

  Cara gave her a bogus smile and worked on screwing and unscrewing her soda’s cap. Her vision blurred as she tried to make out details in the pictures of her and Rachel taped to Rachel’s vanity mirror.

  Rachel walked over to her vanity, grabbed a tissue, and brought it over to Cara, who stashed her soda in her bag. Cara swept at her eyes, then stared at her hands as she folded and unfolded the tissue.

  “Busy hands are a sign of a busy mind, as your mom would say,” Rachel teased.

  Cara balled the tissue up and tossed it at Rachel.

  “I’m really sorry about David,” Rachel said, lobbing the tissue at her trash can and missing. “But I’m glad you got to talk to him at the overlook. How weird that you ran into him. It’s a small town, but still.”

  “I know. I hope he didn’t think I was following him.”

  “You didn’t follow him, did you?”

  Cara glared.

  Rachel broke out in a grin. “Kidding. So what’s the deal with these orcas?”

  “They’re transients that should have left the area a while ago. I keep having nightmares about them coming after me in the water, mistaking me for their next meal.”

  “Oh, please. You don’t have enough meat on your bones to satisfy some orca that has its pick of a gazillion seals and sea lions. No wonder they don’t want to leave. David’s right. You need to get back out there.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d go with me?”

  “Yeah, no. But just because I’m afraid of monstrously large mammals and man-eating fish doesn’t mean you should be.”

  “That’s very comforting, thanks.”

  “You need to think positive. What are the odds that you’d have a second incident like the overboard deal? Slim to none, I’d say.”

  God love Rachel.

  “You’re right. I need to get out there.” She smiled. As always lately, her mind circled back to David. Her smile faded.

  “Part of the thinking-positive thing is to not let yourself obsess about what you can’t have,” Rachel said.

  “How am I supposed to force myself to act like nothing’s going on between us after how we connected? I have to see him at school every day.”

  “At least you’ll get to see him. And you’ll want to protect his reputation. So you won’t do anything stupid. Maybe you’ll become desensitized.”

  More like hypersensitized.

  “Or…” Rachel tucked Cara’s chin up with her fingers. “Maybe you two will get together later.” She offered a hopeful smile.

  “Mr. Cutter said David’s only interning for a semester. He’ll probably leave after that.”

  “So? Yours wouldn’t be the first long-distance relationship.”

  Rachel was sweet to make something so far-fetched sound plausible.

  “What about you? Are you still planning to go for Garren?” Cara asked.

  “Don�
��t be naïve, Cara, he’s obviously into you,” Rachel said.

  Cara wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t given off any amorous vibes toward her. Or to Rachel, either.

  “Then what about Ethan?” Cara didn’t let on that she’d seen Ethan waiting for Rachel after school and didn’t share her worry that Ethan might be bad boyfriend material.

  “It took some kissing up to get him to forgive me for ditching him for Garren.”

  Hopefully not too much kissing up.

  “No worries, though. We’re on for lunch tomorrow.”

  Cara put on a false smile as her chest tightened with anxiety. “You’ll have to tell me all about it.”

  NINE

  Thin fog curled through Seaside’s campus and crawled along the stone wall where Cara sat for lunch the next day. She kept an eye on Rachel and Ethan, who had settled onto another area of the wall. Ethan stood, while Rachel sat with one leg crossed over the other.

  Rachel flipped her hair back, then fanned it over the front of her white, long-sleeved tee. Ethan fished in a brown paper sack, then offered Rachel something she stuck her tongue out at after tasting. Next Ethan offered Rachel a drink, but after she tried it, her face bunched up and she grabbed a water bottle from her bag and chugged from it.

  Ethan noticed Cara watching and hooked his finger toward himself and Rachel, gesturing for her to join them. Cara looked away. The idea of being a tag-along to a twosome wasn’t appealing. And she didn’t want to seem like she supported Ethan, in case he did end up being bad news. But Rachel might be upset if she didn’t accept his invitation.

  As she considered how to respond, Garren sat beside her and held out an apple.

  She thanked him and took it, doubting it could be as tasty as the one he’d given her the day before. Yet when she bit into it, it tasted at least as delicious as the first one.

  She pulled out a bag of the jalapeño cheddar chips he’d liked so much and gave it to him in exchange.

  “I voted for you for the editor position,” Garren told her, opening the chips. He popped one in his mouth and took his time chewing.