by Shay Bravo
“Go wild, my children.” She raises her hand. “But not too wild.”
The first thing I do is take my duffel bag to my room. It takes me a hot minute to find the stairs, which are past another living area. It doesn’t have a TV—instead, the focus of the room is an ornate fireplace, above which hangs a meticulously detailed painting of the lake.
I take my best guess at which side is west and journey down the hall until I find a door with a small dry-erase board that says “Ophelia, Sol, Anna.”
Scott was wrong. This place is probably more expensive than all of our tuition costs added together.
There are two queen-sized beds neatly made, and so comfy looking I have to fight the urge to take a twelve-hour nap.
A large TV is mounted on the wall above a vanity. There are a few toiletries, like makeup wipes, with a small note that reads: These are new, feel free to use them (:
“I feel like a sugar baby,” says Ophelia as she enters the room.
“Right now, we’re all weird, sugar cousins,” I say placing the note back down. If this entire lake house belongs to one of the former members of the club, I’m beginning to wonder how much power they might have out there in the world.
“I’ve been with the club for two years now and they’ve never done something like this.” She lets her bag fall on the bed closer to the window. “Then again, it’s the first time Anna is the president.”
“She seems to stay strict to code.” Leaving my duffel bag next to hers, I look through my clothes until I find my bathing suit. There’s no way I’m coming to a lake house and not taking a dip in the water.
“You’d be surprised, the last president was extremely strict about hours and who could join. Anna tries to keep things fun.” She stretches, yawning. “She works hard.”
Ophelia is not completely wrong. The pool party and now this are certainly things I didn’t expect to come out of the history club of all things. While I’m still not happy about some of the things done to get into the club, it has truly been an entertaining (and thoroughly stressful) ride.
Once we make our way back to the first floor, we find Alan and Xiu playing Super Smash Bros. while other members are hanging out on the covered part of the deck. I’d changed into a one-piece swimsuit and shorts and Ophelia had changed into a moss-green two-piece and was wearing a sheer robe à la Anna, as well as a wide-brimmed hat and some round shades. She looks right out of a summertime photo shoot, and I wish I could hold that power.
On the deck, I lean over the railing. Scott and Carlos are ripping over the water on Jet Skis, chasing each other.
“That looks like fun,” Ophelia says, taking her copy of The Handmaid’s Tale with her to the shore of the lake, where there are reclining chairs and Anna is currently reading a book as well.
“I feel like I’m in a movie,” Ethan says, encircling my waist with his arm. I feel the warmth of his skin against mine before I realize he’s in his swim trunks.
Jesus Christ, how are you so fine?
It doesn’t feel like a movie. It feels like a dream.
“I’m going to take a dip,” I say, pulling on his hand. “You coming?”
“Right now?”
I’m already halfway to the pier, undoing the buttons of my shorts. “Right now.”
I take off my shorts and leave my sandals with them on the chair next to Anna’s. Running down the pier, I pick up speed and exhilaration courses through my veins as I reach the end and jump.
I’m only airborne for a second or two, but it feels longer.
If I could take a snapshot of my life the past couple of months, I’d make it this. Right here, where everything seems so easy and simple. Where the members of this strange, cult-like family are talking and laughing among each other. Because right now I don’t have to worry about school, or my family, or anything else.
Right now I’m just a girl, jumping into a lake with her friends.
The rest of the day is a blur. We swim in the lake. Carlos gives me a ride on the Jet Ski. I take a shower, and we all play Mario Kart.
Around seven o’clock we decide to make dinner. Alan offers to grill burgers. Carlos suggests we make s’mores over the fire pit, and we cheer. We raid the fridge and cabinets for food then make our way to the deck.
The sun is setting over the lake, giving it a bright-orange glow. I sit next to Ethan on a small love seat close to the fire pit.
Scott comes out with a portable speaker. Tame Impala plays soothingly around us.
“Did you think you’d be here two months ago?” I rest my head against Ethan’s shoulder.
“Jesus, has it only been two months?”
“Like, two months or less.” That does sound like a very short amount of time to have known him. Before that time, I didn’t even remember he existed; I didn’t even know the rest of the members existed for that matter. Yet here we all are.
Scott sits down across from us, grabbing a few of the s’mores ingredients on the table. “Where are you bitches going after Westray?”
“What do you mean?” Xiu asks.
He pushes a stick through his marshmallow. “What are your plans? I will probably be homeless for a while and backpack around. See the world, leave my shitty family behind.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Alan laughs, closing the top of the grill, where he had just flipped the patties he had shaped himself. He and Scott share a long look before he responds to the question himself. “I want to go to grad school, but there’s no money for that, so I’ll find a job.”
“I want to go to grad school too.” Angela gathers her hair up with a scrunchie before taking a bite of her s’more. “Hopefully get a job doing research, bank some money, and go traveling when I’m not stuck in the lab.”
“I want to be a get a PhD and teach classes,” Xiu says. “Not here, but somewhere.”
“I want to build things, make things better.” Carlos looks at me. “See people around me happy.”
“Carlos, my man, you make people happy by showing your gorgeous face.” Scott manages to put an entire s’more in his mouth. Between mouthfuls, he points at me. “What about you, Sol? Ethan? You guys? The golden couple.”
“I want to switch my major and minor, to study computer science and hopefully get into IT,” Ethan says, but I feel disconnected.
What do I want to do?
I don’t know if I’ve ever known. When I was in high school all I wanted to do was get into college and figure out if anthropology was for me. My parents wanted something more viable than that, but all I wanted to do was figure out past events and human patterns. When Mom got deported, I figured I’d understand the world more with a political science minor, and since WCC doesn’t have an anthropology degree, I decided to zero down on history. It didn’t feel like a path, though; it felt like I was merely finding something to write down on a piece of paper.
“What about you, Soledad?” Alan asks.
“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“Yo, I’ll drink to that.” Scott lifts up his Arizona iced tea. “Our generation says we want to do all these things, but honestly, no one knows.”
There are a few nods of approval, as the smell of sizzling food fills the air. The music plays softly in the background as more questions about life roll around, but my mind is elsewhere—in the imminent future that will come to sweep us all away no matter what.
Stars glitter in the sky, clouds muddling their shimmer every now and then as the darkened leaves of trees make them look like cosmic puzzle pieces. As I get lost in the sea of starlight, I realize no one asked Anna what she was planning on doing with her life, but when I look around, I don’t see her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It takes me a minute to remember where I am when I wake up. The ceiling is high and slanted, and the light entering the large windows to the right is s
cattered because of the trees surrounding us.
I turn on my side. Ophelia is fast asleep, but I hear the tapping of keys, so I sit up. Anna is on her bed, legs crossed, with her sleeping mask up on her messy hair. Her fingers are tapping swiftly; she doesn’t seem to notice me.
“Morning,” I say. “We missed you last night.”
“Something came up.” Her eyes stay locked on her phone.
“Is everything okay?”
“It’s personal.” She gets up with a small smile. “Thanks for asking, though.”
Anna leaves the room, taking her mystery with her.
The bathroom of the girl’s wing is busy, so I can’t take a shower. I drop my bag back inside the room and make my way downstairs to the laundry room, where we were able to dry our swimsuits, and change into mine there.
Out on the deck, the boys, except Ethan, and two of the girls are using the grill. Carlos is lounging on one of the chairs with dark sunglasses on and a light-teal button up open to expose his pale chest, which is exactly where I slap him.
“Ah, Sol!”
“Sorry.” I snicker. “You were so vulnerable. I couldn’t help it.”
“That’s exactly what a serial killer would tell her victim.”
“You big baby.”
He shoves my hand away when I try to grab his cheeks.
“I will throw you in the lake, woman.”
“No, you won’t.”
“You think I won’t?”
“I think you’re a chicken.”
A sinister smile creeps up his face.
Oh fuck.
The next moment he’s wrestling with me as I try to make my body heavy.
Let me tell you, I’m not the thinnest girl. I will hands down eat the last taco left standing, but Carlos is a fitness addict. When he snakes one of his arms around one of my legs while the other grabs me from underneath my torso, I am beyond impressed and horrified.
“Carlos, stop, we’re gonna fall and die!”
He laughs, walking us down the pier. “Look at it this way, you’re already wearing a swimsuit.”
“I swear I’ll bring you down with me.” I’m falling, screaming bloody murder before my body crashes through the water.
Boy, it is cold as fuck.
I swim to the top, ignoring the numbness in my arms and legs. Carlos is laughing hard at the edge of the pier, like some sort of evil villain in a children’s movie.
“I fucking hate you!” I yell.
He blows a kiss my way. “I love you, too, gorgeous. Go for a swim, I’ll call you when breakfast is done.”
With a quick flip off, I turn and swim around in the lake. Once I’m moving, it’s not as cold, and with the morning sun my skin starts warming up.
I let myself drift a little, making sure I’m not too far from the shore, but far enough so I can’t hear the mutter of everyone’s conversation. Scott’s groovy music is the only sound aside from nature itself. Fluffy white clouds obstruct the sunlight every few moments. I close my eyes, think of what I have accomplished so far this year. I met Ethan. My grades have not dropped, despite the amount of time and stress I dedicate to the club. I have a good relationship with my parents, even though I feel guilty about not talking with my mom as often as I used to.
I wonder how things might be different if Mom hadn’t been deported. Before she was taken, I had applied to different schools in Southern California, far from where we live now. I was more than ready to move away, become my own person, and leave my little town behind.
Would that have been better? I don’t think I will be able to know now. I’m not even sure I know the girl I used to be before the crash. The little girl who’d run around her house and drag her parents to parks, the teenager who’d argue with her mother about future tattoos and piercing ideas, the young adult who wasn’t scared of the future.
Me.
And Ethan. If Mom were here I wouldn’t have met him. There is a selfish side of me that says I would be okay with that as long as I could have my mom back. But I do really like him, and I am happy he is in my life.
If I had known who he was before I broke into his grandparents’ house, I think I’d do it all over again.
“Sol!” Carlos calls.
I open my eyes, the light of the sun nearly blinding me.
“Food is ready! Swim back!”
Rolling in the water, I prepare to swim back to the shore. I feel the weight of the current over my shoulders and the reality of my life settles in. There is no way I could have anticipated the things that happened, and the choices I’ve made ever since, whether they were made willingly or taken in the spur of the moment, have shaped the course of my life.
We have a feast for breakfast. Red potatoes, seasoned and seared to perfection, accompanied by sausage and fluffy eggs jazzed up with spices. In the middle of the table there is a bowl of diced mangoes, bananas, and green apples, drizzled with honey and sprinkled with roasted almonds. Next to it is a bowl of guacamole for the toasted bread that is slathered with butter.
Ethan and the others are already eating when I get to the deck. I lay down a towel and sit next to them. Scott passes me a glass of orange juice.
“This is the life, isn’t it?” Alan asks, grabbing a bit of the guacamole to spread on his bread.
Scott laughs. “None of us is living here any time soon. Unless your families are well off, because mine sure as hell isn’t.” He pauses. “But if any of you guys is well off, you have my number.”
“We’re all going to Westray Community College, come on.” Melina laughs. “I’m sure none of us have the type of money to bribe our way into an Ivy League.”
“Doesn’t stop a boy from doing his hustle. If I don’t end up marrying Alan I gotta get someone who’ll take me traveling all over the world.” Scott tips his glass of orange juice at her before taking a drink.
“You mean someone who can stand you all over the world,” Alan retorts.
“Look at it this way.” Carlos sits up. “If this house was provided to us by one of the former members, they’ve got money. Even though none of us has this kind of money now, it shouldn’t stop us from dreaming. The system is fucked up, but we have to fix it. This generation, I mean.”
“Holy shit.” Alan laughs. “Run for president already.”
“I’m not doing that shit, man. I just want a good life.” We continue to eat, glasses and silverware clinking over our plates. It reminds me of Ethan’s mention of how the other half lives, fairness being given to a chosen few throughout life, but then again, I’m here sitting next to him, enjoying breakfast by the lake.
“Has anyone seen Anna?” I say.
“She was gone by the time I woke up,” Ophelia says.
“She went out to get some food,” Carlos says, turning to me with a quick tilt of his face. “Said something personal had come up.”
“Well,” I say, cutting up a piece of my sausage, “I hope she’s okay.”
Everyone helps put stuff away and wash the dishes. It is nice seeing us all work together, really, like a kids’ show singing about teamwork. Afterward, some of the members settle down to play games while others go back to their rooms to watch TV.
I decide to take a shower and wash the lake water off me. Like the rest of the house, the bathroom is fancy. While the floor is made out of the same polished concrete as the rest of the house, the tub is pure white marble, as is the sink and the accent handles on the drawers. The mirror is made out of a material that doesn’t get foggy, so I don’t have to wipe the steam away when I brush my hair.
I’m changing into a pair of shorts when someone knocks on the door.
“It’s busy!”
Ethan’s voice comes faintly through the wooden door. “It’s me.”
I open the door, my hair still a bit too damp for my liking. “What’s up?”
He’s wearing a T-shirt and joggers; the first time that he hasn’t been dressed like a fashion icon.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go for a hike.”
“Sounds like fun.” I look down at my outfit. “Let me find something to wear and I’ll meet you on the deck.”
He smiles and kisses my forehead. I melt inside like the corny fool I am.
“Okay, I’ll see you there.”
Once I’m in the only pair of leggings I brought and my beat-up running shoes, I meet him on the deck. The sun has already peaked today and it’s on its way down. There is a little trail off the deck that leads to the woods. We walk around the edge of the lake. Since there are no people on Jet Skis disturbing nature, a few ducks have settled to float on the water.
“It’s so nice and calm here,” I say, hands deep in my hoodie pockets. The breeze is cool thanks to the water. Even in early March, Westray can get fairly hot, but temperatures tend to be cooler in the mountains.
“Right? I woke up this morning and forgot I had come here yesterday.”
“How was your drive with Anna, by the way?” We bump arms for a second.
He snorts. “She was mostly talking with Ophelia about all the things she planned to do here. She asked me about you, but I didn’t answer because privacy.”
“Thanks.”
He holds his hand out to me and I grin, taking it and letting our fingers interlace. “I know you’re a private person too.”
“I am. I don’t like surprises, they unsettle me.” He moves over a root, pulling me toward him so I don’t fall over it.
“Oh, I unsettle you.” I get really close. “That’s nice to know.”
“Sunshine, you scared the hell out of me. Crashing into my life out of nowhere. And there you were, at the library. Suddenly you were everywhere, even my grandparents knew you. At the beginning I was upset, but the more I got to know you, the better I understood why you did certain things. When I learned about your mom, it’s like everything clicked.”