But he doesn’t answer me. When I’m about to ask the question again, Cassie’s voice cuts me off.
“Don’t waste your time, Z. He’ll never tell you.”
“Why not?” I ask the question to Grover.
“Did you know that four in ten people never leave the place where they were born?” he says.
I groan at him, too tired and sunburned for his games.
In the cabin, Cassie hides the duffel bag under her bed. Bek takes a long inhale as he stands in the doorway. “It smells like grapes in here.”
“See,” Grover says. “Girls smell good.”
“Is food all you think about, Baby Fat?” Cassie pokes Bek in the stomach.
“And sex.” He nods.
“I told you.” Grover says to me. “Is this your bed?” He sits down on Molly’s quilt.
Why is he allowed to ask so many questions, but when I ask he never answers? He picks up the quilt and inspects the bloodstain from the other night. I run my fingers through my hair and stop myself the second I almost pull a few strands loose. A lump forms in my throat.
“Let’s get out of here before we catch one of Mad’s STDs.” Cassie walks out with Bek behind her.
I wait for Grover to get off my bed, but he doesn’t. He runs his hands over my pillow and sits back on my bed, comfortable. I avoid his eyes. He taps on the spot next to him, inviting me to sit down, but I don’t move. Instead, I walk into the bathroom and inspect my sunburned shoulders. They’re redder than I thought. I rub the cool aloe on them. When Grover comes to stand behind me, I shiver. Maybe from the aloe. Or maybe not.
“It hurts,” I say.
He nods. “I know. But it’s the only way to heal.”
I nod back at him. “That sucks.”
“Yes it does,” Grover says.
He looks at me in the mirror, his face so calm and even. How does he do that when he’s balancing unsteadily on something that might break any second? The thought makes my stomach hurt or maybe my heart break. I can’t tell.
“Why won’t you tell me where you live?” I ask.
“Because I’m a coward.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Well, you’ve got problems,” Grover says.
“So do you.”
“I acknowledge that,” he says.
I do have problems, but I’m working on that. So I tilt my head to the side and hold my hair back, exposing my neck.
“Go ahead,” I say.
“Seriously?” Grover asks.
My hands shake. “Yes.”
He smiles as he bends down to me. His nose graces my skin, like a feather.
And then Grover smells my neck.
As we walk back to the archery field, he says, “I noticed something.”
“What?”
“Cassie has a new sweatshirt.”
I shrug. “She does?” I ask.
Grover nods as we crunch over pine needles in the woods.
“How did you and Cassie become friends anyway?” I ask.
“She punched me.” A goofy grin sits on Grover’s face. “For calling her Sticks.”
“But you still call her that.”
He takes a step closer to me. “How many nicknames do you think Cassie has?”
“Not many,” I say.
“Why do you think that is?” he asks. I look into his wide eyes. There are secrets in him. I can practically see them. “Because no one cares enough to give her one. She needed me to care.”
He wipes his fingertips across my aloe-coated shoulder.
“She’ll swim,” he says. “Don’t give up on her.”
Don’t give up, I repeat in my head.
“Where have you guys been?” Madison comes through the trees, out of breath. “We’ve been looking for you.”
“We’ve been looking for us, too,” Grover says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Madison asks.
“What does that mean, Zander?” Grover looks at me.
Sometimes people are lost because they’re too afraid to look at the path. Sometimes people avoid the road for fear of what might be on it. It’s easier to stand in the shadows and watch.
“Teamwork.” I shrug. “Kerry said if something is lost, it’s easier to find it if other people help you look.”
And in the dark, I see Grover smile. “Amen.”
CHAPTER 16
Aunt Chey,
You’re not really my aunt, so let’s stop pretending.
Kisses,
Cassie
Cassie puts her head in the water and blows bubbles the next day. She just bends down and does it. I don’t have to fight her. She doesn’t even snap a sarcastic comment my way. We walk out into Lake Kimball. She looks down at the water and dunks her head.
“There,” she says, spitting water out of her mouth and wiping her face.
Shocked, I say, “What the hell did you steal last night?”
“Why?”
“Because this is weird. You’re weird. Did you steal drugs from the Wellness Center?”
“Who cares?” Cassie laughs.
“I care,” I yell.
A half smile creeps up on Cassie’s face. “Why do you care?”
I look down at the T-shirt covering my bathing suit. I need it to protect my shoulders today. They can’t get any more sun or blisters will form. The aloe helped but it didn’t fully heal them overnight. It will take a few days.
“I realized something last night.” I play with the bottom of my shirt.
“What?”
“I haven’t conjugated a French verb in three days.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Cassie asks.
I gnaw on my bottom lip. I can’t remember a time in the past year when I haven’t had a constant stream of foreign words running through my head, like a sea of letters I could dive into and disappear. But Cassie makes everything hard. She breaks the words to pieces until they’re too broken to read. Or maybe I’m broken. But now I don’t feel like putting the words back together.
“I don’t want you to get kicked out of camp, okay?” I say.
“Why? Because you’d feel bad for me?”
“No,” I snap. “Because I’d feel bad for me.” Cassie narrows her eyes, like she’s trying to see past my lie, but it’s not a lie. It’s the truth. “And I’d feel bad for Grover, too,” I say.
When I say his name, Cassie’s face gets serious. “You don’t have to worry. I didn’t steal drugs.”
“Good.”
“But what if I did.” Cassie invades my space. She leans in close, examining my eyes. “What would you do?”
This is a test. I can feel it.
“Nothing,” I say.
Cassie gives me a smart-ass look and eases back.
“I put my head in the water. What comes next?” she asks.
“Floating,” I say, taking a breath. “You need to be able to float to swim.”
Cassie yanks on the orange life jacket around her neck. “This makes me float, dumb ass.”
An angry comment. Confirmation she really isn’t on drugs. I drag Cassie by the life jacket back to shore and grab the packet of crackers from my pocket that Grover handed me under the table at breakfast.
“Eat.” I hand them to her.
“Only with a side of diet pills.” She scans my body. “You need them, too.”
“No diet pills.”
“Yes diet pills,” Cassie says.
“No diet pills,” I say. Cassie’s rigid stance doesn’t change. “I promise I won’t conjugate any French verbs as long as you don’t take any pills.”
“How do I know if you’re really doing it?”
“You won’t. You have to believe that I’ll tell you the truth.”
“The truth,” Cassie repeats. And then she says, “Fine. I won’t take any diet pills if you tell me why you were sent here.”
Cassie’s words surprise me. For the whisper of a moment, I see one sentence of the French imperfect
in my head. My French teacher made us all go around the classroom and talk about something we repeatedly did when we were younger, using the tense.
Quand j’étais petite, nous allions à la plage chaque semaine.
When I was young, we used to go to the beach every week.
She clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth and told me that was impossible. There’s no beach nearby. She was right. I made it up, but I didn’t want to talk about the habitual stuff we did. She knew what my family did anyway. Everyone knew.
“I’ll tell you.” I can’t look at Cassie. “But not yet.”
“You promise?”
I force my eyes up. “Do you promise not to take any more diet pills?”
Cassie’s head moves up and down hesitantly. “I promise,” she says.
We shake on it. I look at the hideous life jacket around her neck. “Now what do we do about that?”
A wicked grin grows across Cassie’s face. “I’ll take care of it.”
Cassie puts her head under the water many more times before the bell rings to end our activities. I teach her how to kick. She holds on to the side of the H dock in the red zone making waves with her legs, her head in the water, and blowing bubbles. Every time younger kids swim past, she splashes them and smiles. By the end of the day, she’s lying on her back, face toward the sun, and floating in her life jacket.
I sit on my butt in Lake Kimball, feeling the sand and water between my fingers, and watch her. My shirt billows out in front of me like a heavy water balloon. It weighs me down.
Cassie watches me as I walk to the end of the dock. With the sun on the water, I can see the drop-off that marks the yellow zone from green. The sandy bottom disappears and all that’s left is navy blue.
When I dive in, my shirt drags as I push my way through the water. I touch the bottom with my hand just to know it’s there. There is a bottom. Looking up through the blue, I push my feet off the ground and start fighting my way back to the top. My shirt clings to the water, like a million tiny hands pulling on me, trying to make me go back down, but I don’t want to be on the bottom anymore. It’s dark down there. And I don’t want to fight so hard to breathe. Breathing should be easy.
When my head comes above the surface moments later, Cassie yells from the shallow end, “Show-off!”
We gather our things and head up the stairs toward the mess hall. Water drips off Cassie’s hair and down her back. The ridges of her shoulders and spine stick out; she’s so skinny. I don’t know how her parents look at her every day and don’t help. My mom would be all over me.
A sinking feeling overtakes my stomach. I swallow hard and ask her, “Do you still live with your mom?”
I see Cassie’s bones pull in tight. “Why?”
I try to act casual and even. “Just wondering.”
“No.” Cassie picks up the pace, but I follow closely.
“Who do you live with now?”
She whips around. “I did what you asked. I blew bubbles. Don’t burst mine with your questions.”
She stomps her way to the top of the stairs, but I stay put. My stomach is sour with sadness. I hate sadness. Anything is better than sadness. Even feeling nothing.
I look down and count the steps as I make my way up the stairs. At the top, a pair of large feet stops my movement.
“I have a package,” Grover says.
“What?”
“Do you want my package?”
I look down at the zipper on his shorts. I can’t help it. For a breath, I imagine what’s underneath. Grover is just so long.
He pulls a brown box from behind his back. “My package for you.” He smiles. “It’s not actually from me. I’m just the delivery boy.”
I take it from him.
“Delivery man, I should say.” Grover puffs out his thin chest, and the image that was in my head moments ago is back. My cheeks heat instantly.
“Thanks.” I start to walk away.
“She did it,” Grover says. “I told you she would.”
And he did. But that’s not what I want Grover to tell me.
“By the way.” I glance at the return address on the package. My address.
“Yes?” he asks.
“I don’t have a boyfriend anymore.”
“My heightened mental and emotional state just elevated.” Grover looks down at his package. “Along with other things.”
“Gross.” I shake my head as I walk away. Because it is gross. Kind of. Maybe. I take one more look over my shoulder at Grover. Okay. Maybe not.
CHAPTER 17
Dear Mom,
It’s humid in Michigan. Humidity is weird. The air holds on to all that water and doesn’t let it come pouring out. I think I’m humid and you want me to be dry like Arizona. But Arizona air doesn’t have anything in it. It actually sucks the life out of your skin until you’re chapped and cracking. Maybe we could meet in the middle? Iowa, maybe. Or Nebraska.
I don’t think my friend Cassie has an address.
I’m sad about that.
I’m sad.
I’m sad.
I’m sad.
I know you wanted a longer letter. I hope this helps.
Thanks for the two-piece.
Z
I wake up to tapping on my forehead, like water dripping down from the ceiling. I know this feeling. When I open my eyes, Cassie is inches above my face.
“I’m ready to float,” she whispers.
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“No shit, Z. Get up.” Cassie’s wearing my sweatshirt and shorts, but tied around her neck I can see her hot-pink bathing suit. She holds up my new two-piece. “Finally.”
I snatch it from her as I get out of bed.
Cassie works open the window in the bathroom as I quietly slide into my bathing suit. Madison sleeps curled up in the fetal position. The silver key dangles from her neck.
“Do you think you’d sneak out if we weren’t locked in?” I ask Cassie in a whisper.
“What?”
“It’s like in France—they let their kids drink from an early age, and it’s not a big deal. But we don’t do that here. We don’t let kids drink, so they want it more.”
Cassie rolls her eyes. “I thought you were over the whole French thing.”
“It’s just an analogy.” I glance back at the locked door. “But I don’t think I would.”
“Would what? I got bored the second you said France.”
“If the door wasn’t locked, I don’t think I’d care about sneaking out. Would you?”
Cassie must get what I’m trying to say because her face becomes sullen and serious.
“Everyone wants to find a way out when they’re locked in. What most people don’t realize is that there’s always another locked door.” Cassie stares forward like she’s trying to burn a hole through the wall with her eyes and then snaps out of it. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
She escapes first. As I’m wiggling my way through the window, I glance back at the girls sleeping in the cabin. I freeze when Hannah moves in her bed, shifting from one side of her body to the other so she’s facing the bathroom. She smacks her lips a few times and nuzzles down into the sheets, but her eyes never open.
At the lake, Cassie strips down to her bikini. I hesitate for a second. It’s been a while since my stomach has been exposed. Maybe it’s been forever—I can’t remember.
“What are you waiting for, Z?” Cassie barks in a whisper. “No one’s gonna see you.”
But Cassie doesn’t know who might be watching. I scan the trees for Grover and strip down to my suit.
We wade out into the lake. I scoop a handful of cold water and drip it on my shoulders. It feels like an ice pack.
“Ok, I got us here. Now, teach me.”
“Have you had any diet pills?”
Cassie grinds her teeth. “No.” She grabs her sides. “I can feel the fat clinging to my skin already. It’s gonna make me sink.”
“H
eavy people float just fine.”
“Are you saying I’m heavy?”
I ignore the door Cassie just opened for a rigged fight. I’d lose. “I’m going to teach you two different ways to float—one on your back and one on your stomach.”
Cassie jumps up and down in the water. “Let’s just get to it. I’m freezing my fat ass off.”
I watch how comfortable she is in the water now. She wouldn’t put her toe in last week. Seeing water all around her, that doesn’t seem possible.
“What happened with your mom?” I ask.
Cassie stops jumping.
“Administrators tend to check the situation at home when you come to school with a gash on your leg and a bad case of lice for the fifth time. It was over after that.”
“So your mom lost custody of you?”
“She didn’t lose anything.” Cassie squeezes her hands into fists at her side and her knuckles crack. “You can’t lose something you don’t want to begin with. She just gave up.”
“My parents are the opposite. They hold on too tight.” I brush my fingers over the top of the water.
“Boohoo for you. Your parents care about you,” Cassie mocks.
I swallow hard. “I didn’t say I was the one my parents held on to.”
“Your dead sister?” Cassie asks.
The breeze blows, shaking the leaves on the trees. They sound like whispers in the night. I look at the shoreline and up at the mess hall. A dim light is on in the building. It catches the shadow of someone sitting on the top of the stairs.
“Grover says I’m the same way. That I hold on to things.”
Cassie looks at me, her eyes practically burning in the moonlight. “Teach me how to float.”
We walk deeper into the lake, and I tell Cassie to lie on her back. She tells me I’m fucking crazy. I tell her that’s no secret; we’re at a camp for crazy kids. She corrects me and says it’s a camp for kids with heightened mental and emotional states. Then I tell her that I’ll hold her up. That I won’t let her sink.
“Promise?” she asks.
“Promise.”
She lies flat on the water.
I keep her steady with my arms under her back. After a few minutes, I say, “I’m going to take one arm away.”
In the dark, her hair and skin blend in with the black water. They look like one body. Cassie is of the water and the water is of Cassie. When she nods, I take my one arm away.
The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland Page 11