We took the blanket near the water, and I sat down again, stretching my legs out. Sea foam tickled the bottom of my feet. “Doesn’t that bother you?” Andy pointed to the soaked hem of my jeans.
I sidled close enough for our shoulders to rub. “I’m weird.”
“You’ll hit me if I agree. Getting another drink, want one?”
“Two.” His eyebrows lifted at my answer, but I smiled sweetly. “Please?”
“You’re cute when you make that face, but I’m cutting you off soon.” No matter how much he warned, Andy never followed through. Less than a minute later, he slid down beside of me. “You’re getting quick at this,” I said.
“Expecting me?” someone drawled. I knew who it was from the voice and the warm breath on my neck that reeked of coconut rum.
It was Kyle Sanford’s signature scent.
“Harassment is illegal.” I turned toward him, wishing I could shoot flames from my eyes. Pepper spray was just as useful. I patted around the blanket for my car keys. “Get lost or I’ll spray you blind.”
He winked—a taunt that challenged me to hurry up and do it. Kyle’s baby face looks might have fooled his parents, our classmates, and even 95% of the town, but not me. Underneath his clean cut exterior was a liar.
And a murderer, as far as I was concerned.
“Can’t we be friends for one night?” He sounded angelic, and if I were anyone else, his act would seem believable. We both knew that his desire to be friends equaled my need to stand in front of a speeding bus. “You really do look like her.”
I ground my teeth together and groped the blanket. Where are those stupid keys? One year. Kyle had spent just over one year taking a jab at me every chance he got. It was tiring and humiliating. I fought back, obviously, but I wasn’t immune to his comments. “I’d kill you if I could.”
“Psycho bitches turn me on,” he teased. “I always wanted you more than Ms. B . . .”
Before I could stop myself, I snatched the front of his shirt and yanked him to me, not caring that his clothes ripped under my grip. “Leave. My mom. Out of this.”
His smile widened. “Anger management, Charlotte,” he said softly. He dug into his pocket and tossed my keys in my lap. “Maybe I’ll come back when you’re really drunk. Should be fun.”
I was thankful for the seedy beach lighting. No point in fueling his screwed up cause by letting him see tears. By the time Andy came back, I’d cleaned my face and shoved the conversation with Kyle to a dark spot in my mind. Thinking of ways to get him back was easier when my thoughts were clear.
Andy dangled a balled up piece of paper under my nose. “Look what I got.”
“Hmm?”
He nodded to a group of girls congregated around a radio. Bony hips swayed offbeat to a pop song, and all seven held red plastic cups. “The blonde’s number.” Random phone numbers were his way of getting back at Sophie’s flirting. Of course, his revenge would be more effective if she actually noticed.
Only one brunette hung out with the bunch, but I told him his mystery woman was cute. Asking him to specify meant surrendering my drinks while he tried to explain, and after my chat with Kyle, I needed them. I opened both palms. He grudgingly shoved the beer in my direction. “Cut off. Don’t forget it, Char.”
Whatever. I stared straight ahead, attempting to tune out all noise around me. It worked at first, but after five minutes, my head throbbed from the mixed conversations. The girls at the radio were squealing and the guy on the blanket a few feet away from us yelled at his girlfriend for being wasted “again.” I wished for the set of earplugs in my nightstand drawer. Suddenly, all the noise stopped. My happiness was short-lived, though, because a new sound assaulted me.
The voice from the harbor.
Why was it here? I started to scramble to my feet so I could get away from the sea. A jolt rushed through my body, leaving me paralyzed. “Andy! Do you hear that?”
He ogled something across the beach. Distracted, he twisted to me. “What?”
“Someone’s singing behind those rocks.” I could barely muster enough strength to lift my arm, but I managed to wiggle a finger at the water.
I saw uncertainty in his eyes. Uncertainty and fear and concern. Oh god, he thinks I’m crazy. “No . . . just the radio. Sounds like Lady GaGa.”
I clenched my fists in the sand to wrestle the need to cover my ears. Shut up! Shut the hell up! Maybe I was crazy. Or worse. Crazy people only heard voices. An aria played on repetitive loop in my head. “I’m just drunk . . .”
“Do you still”--he paused and slid a finger under my chin so he could look into my eyes--“hear the voices?” he asked hesitantly. He sounded like the shrink Dad made me go to after my mom died.
“No,” I lied.
“Andy! Andy!” The out-of-breath voice stopped him from saying something else to me. A skinny brunette girl ran up to us. She bent down and whispered into his ear. His brown eyes slowly widened and he thanked her before she left. Jumping to his feet, he held up a finger. “Don’t move! Sophie might be in trouble. Be right back, okay?” He didn’t give me time to respond. He sprinted off, leaving me alone.
I wanted to be concerned about Sophie--really, I did--but the voice was right in front of me, sharing a deafening, melodic secret. The music pulled me to my feet, like a puppet master, and steered me into the sea. I sloshed through the waves and stumbled because my clothes weighed me down.
Maybe Andy called my name. Or the boy from Physics I brushed off earlier. Frantic screaming that wasn’t enough to force me to turn.
The music stopped. I hit the water. And I sank.
I struggled at first. Maybe, if my clothes weren’t so heavy . . . Or if I hadn't drunk anything. I opened my mouth to scream, but the salt water seared down my throat and drowned my lungs.
The unforgiving tide dragged me down.
I let it submerge me, allowed my eyes to close from the painful pressure as I sank deeper.
Into delirious darkness.
CHAPTER THREE
I had to be in hell.
Fire scalded my vision, and I couldn’t think of anything else that justified why my entire left side felt as if someone had attacked me with a hot kettle. Something rough and damp dug into my palms as I hoisted myself to a sitting position. Inhaling, I turned toward the brightness. Big mistake for my vision, but at least now I knew that I was still alive. The light came from a flashlight.
A man squatted down to look at me. “Are you Charlotte?”
“Yeah.” I hardly recognized the raw, desperate noise coming from my throat. He realized that he was giving me permanent eye damage and shut off the flashlight. I immediately recognized where I was when he helped me to my feet: on the rocks by The Lighthouse.
He pulled out his radio and announced, “This is Nelson. I found Charlotte Brewer. Alive.”
Some girls get off on being the center of attention and by now, most of them would be in tears that were two parts genuine, one part bullshit. Not me. I had a theory that if I faded into the background, nobody would bother me. Unfortunately, the fact that I almost died blew my system to smithereens, and a million questions bombarded me once the rest of the crew showed up. Are you okay? Do you feel dizzy? Want something to drink? Someone pulled a heavy, wool blanket around my shoulders, and a woman with a gap-toothed smile and a slight Spanish accent tried to talk me into getting on a stretcher. I refused. When I saw my dad pushing through the hoard of people, I rushed toward him.
His arms squashed around me. “What were you trying to do?” He hadn’t showered after work because he smelled like the antiseptic sanitizer the hospital coveted. My stomach heaved. “I thought I lost you, too.”
Thinking about my mom sent uncomfortable tingles from the back of my skull to the tip of my nose. I wanted to scream. Instead, I bit my bottom lip until copper flooded my tongue. “I’m not her.” I’d said it more than once over the past year, but he always compared me to her when I did something that worried him.
> Calloused hands patted my waterlogged arm. The rescue worker who found me. “Charlotte, we’re going to have to examine you for—”
“She’s fine,” my father snapped. The man jerked away, surprised. Dad pulled in a long breath, and then calmly added, “Please, just give us some time. I’ll make sure she gets medical attention as soon as possible.”
My recovering-from-near-death bonding moment lasted for approximately five minutes. Two police officers waited in front of The Lighthouse, clutching radios and wearing smirks. Damn. I learned to fear them after they became a constant presence at our house after Mom got in trouble, just before she died.
“We need to ask you a few questions, Miss Brewer,” said the chunky office, whose nameplate read HALE. A breathalyzer seemed to appear out of nowhere. Wasn’t it his civic duty to make sure I wouldn’t die? Or at least guide me to a vehicle so I wouldn’t freeze.
I jerked my head toward my father. He glowered at the cops. “Can’t this wait?” His request earned two shaking heads: one bald, the other a curly, orange mop.
“There was a party here tonight. Did you consume alcohol at said party, Miss Brewer?” Officer Hale asked. I shook my head. Did he expect me to throw myself under the bus willingly? He shoved the breathalyzer at me.
I was in major trouble. Dad’s head would explode if he found out I was drinking. “I’m going to puke,” I lied. Shaking his head to each side, the cop made no effort to move. I groaned and followed his order.
Hale made me puff into the breathalyzer for an eternity. At last, he muttered, “This thing’s broken.” He tapped on the tiny black device then turned it upside down, shaking it. I almost expected him to call it his “precious” because he yanked it to his chest when I attempted to look at the screen.
Protective much?
He interrupted Dad’s argument and borrowed his partner’s breathalyzer. This time, the doom tester was bright yellow and looked like a skinny flashlight. Just as before, Officer Hale was convinced it was a dud.
Dad stepped between us, his face and neck a vibrant shade of purple. “What’s the problem?” This was embarrassing for him. And painful.
I hung my head.
Officer Hale glanced between the yellow and black breathalyzers and at me. “Doesn’t make any sense,” he said to nobody in particular. Then, he lifted his shoulders and told Dad, “She’s clean, I guess.”
Dad rocked back and forth on his heels. “You guess?”
“That’s right. I guess. She shut the machines off as soon as she blew into them.”
Two broken alcohol testers? I was never a fan of Magic Eight Balls, but maybe this was my lucky night. Sort of. At least I wouldn’t have to put up with the meltdown that would ensue if Dad discovered I was drinking.
The haze weighing my brain down started to clear, and I remembered Andy and Sophie. Were they freaking out right now, wondering if I was dead or alive? “What happened to—” The glint in Officer Hale’s eyes warned me of his anticipation to bust someone. “Nothing.”
Dad sighed. “They already know your friends were with you, kiddo. Andy called the cops. He’s at the police station.”
My fists balled up by my side. I stared at my bare feet while Officer Hale scribbled on a pink pad of paper and spoke under his breath about the problem with today’s youth. Was Andy the only person who stuck around? I imagined the pandemonium after I went under, followed by everyone piling in their cars so they wouldn’t have to answer questions about the drowned girl. I just hoped Andy wasn’t in trouble because of me.
Officer Hale mashed the paper into my hand. I held it up in the direction of the patrol car headlights. Oh my God. It was a trespassing ticket. “Why would you give me this?”
“General trespassing is a crime,” Officer Red chimed in.
In other words, since they could not get me for underage drinking, they pinned me with something else. Fail. I crumpled the ticket and stuffed it in my damp pocket, but I wanted to chuck it back at them. “Can you at least tell me if Andy is in trouble?”
A condescending semi-smile changed Officer Hale’s face from mean to just plain creepy. He looked like a Jack-o-Lantern, except pasty and waxy. “Well that’s between Andrew and his parents. Privacy policy, I’m sure you understand.”
Of course I understood privacy, but my rescue wouldn‘t exactly be classified. The hot gossip tumbling from everyone’s lips like hangover vomit the next day would be me—soaked, shoeless, and standing in front of The Lighthouse in a heap of trouble. Courtesy of Officer Hale and his partner.
Do you remember Melanie Brewer? Her kid, Charlotte, is just as messed up as she was. Crazy girl got drunk and tried to kill herself last night.
A shiver crept through my bones. “You need to see a doctor, Charlotte?” Red asked.
Rescue crews and the police department was one thing, but I would never be able to show my face in public again if I went to the ER. Neither would my father, since he was a trauma nurse. “I’m fine, I swear. It was just an accident.”
Dad mumbled something incoherent, but I caught a few four-letter words. Judging by their pinched faces, so did the cops. Officer Hale sneered. “She has court in two months, Mr. Brewer. Make sure she’s there.” He crossed his arms over his chest and struck a self-assured pose that belonged to a Gap model instead of a middle-aged cop with male pattern baldness. “You’re lucky I didn’t arrest her.”
On the ride home, Dad yelled so much, I knew he would need cough drops in the morning. He claimed Child Services would try to take me away from him. Kids my age trespassed all the time, but he assured me it was different with us, that everyone would think badly of his parenting because of what happened to my mom.
I wanted to tell him nobody thought like that. I didn’t, though, because even I knew the difference between a plausible lie and an incredibly stupid one.
***
I didn’t sleep. Not because I heard Dad pacing down the hall, his hushed voice admonishing the photo of a woman who could no longer defend herself. Or because his last words to me were “You’re grounded, kiddo. One month.”
I didn’t sleep because I couldn’t.
I gazed at the glow-in-the dark stars plastered on the popcorn ceiling in my bedroom and wondered how I awakened on the rocks. The tide should have carried me away, so why was I alive? “Great job being grateful,” I muttered, punching flat pillows. The clock on my nightstand read 4:15, and although I needed sleep, I lay thinking about how my body burned underwater.
When I was seven, I’d dived into the community pool, knowing I couldn’t swim. Calm, bleach-scented water had grabbed at my legs, entwining itself around my entire body until my feet touched the pool floor. My brother came in after me. Every time we passed by the community center, he mentioned how he saved me. Nobody helped me tonight, though. Instead of tranquil water threatening me, like the day at the pool, the sea was violent. But somehow, I’d made it to the rocks. I shut my eyes and tried to come up with even the tiniest memory about what happened after I went under.
Nothing.
“What’s wrong with me?” I turned on my side and squeezed the last bit of fluff out of my pillow.
The next time I looked at the clock, it was a little after eight, and Dad pounded on my door. “Sophie and Andrew are here!” Groaning, I sat up and raked numb hands down my face. They wouldn’t leave until I gave a decent explanation. How do you justify strolling into the sea like a champion swimmer when you can’t even doggy paddle? The truth was always a possibility: music entranced me. That sounded ignorant and psychotic, especially to my own ears.
I put on a pair of pajama bottoms and opened the door to the wide-eyed stares of my friends.
For the first time in weeks, Sophie didn’t look high.
“I’m torn,” Andy said. “I want to hug you but I also want to kick you in the knee cap.” They brushed past me. After I closed the door, he took the high road, throwing his arms around me and suffocating me with an embrace. “What happened to you?”
I looked over his shoulder at Sophie, and my excuse knocked me in the head. “Ambien!” I cried. “I bought Ambien from Jason at work.” Except for the occasional aspirin, I never took pills. Too scared of dying, as lame as that sounds. I prayed I could chalk my actions up to the side effects of alcohol and sleeping medication.
Andy pulled back, blinking. Once the initial shock passed, I saw a flash of fury in his dark eyes. Dumbest. Lie. Ever. Why did I drop the name of a real person? Hopefully he wouldn’t say anything to Jason. “You took Ambien?” His voice was hushed, as if I committed a cardinal sin. “I can’t believe you.” He turned to Sophie, jabbed a finger at her, and mouthed, “I blame this on you.”
Her head and shoulders drooped.
Great, now he thought I was a certified pill popper. Andy tried not to hassle Sophie too much about the pills because he feared losing her. He claimed that the best way to get through to her was to take a few steps back. The fact he blamed my situation on her told me he was livid.
“Not like you’re thinking! I just have . . . trouble sleeping. Didn’t plan on going to the party, you know?” My words tumbled out in one breath, and I smiled to avoid squinting. Sophie always called me out for bullshit when I squinted.
Her head was still down, so she didn't catch my fib. Knocking him aside, she squeezed me hard. “If something had happened to you—” Sophie is shorter than me by a half foot, so when I tried to speak, I swallowed a mouthful of curly, blonde hair. I smacked my lips together to get rid of the taste of mousse. “Don’t do it again! Ever.”
“Sorry I scared you guys,” I said.
Sophie let go of me and plopped down on the bed. The mattress springs pinged beneath her. She lay on her back and hung her head off the edge until her hair swept the hardwood floor. “We were soooo worried. Andy kept diving in to find you.” Blood rushed to her face.
LURE Page 2