Ripple

Chapter Two

As if the first day of senior year isn’t bad enough, I’m physically ill from not swimming, and it’s far worse than I remember. Each step I take feels as if shards of glass wedge further into my skin. It’s hard to keep up a mask of composure when all I want to do is wince, gasp out in pain, curl into a ball.

Someone rams into my right shoulder, and I careen into the wall, bouncing off the white-painted cinder block hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs. They scream for oxygen, and I nearly bend over and gasp for air, but instead I just blink back the stars and glance over at my tormenter.

It’s Nikki. A girl from my old clique. Her deep green eyes are cold and angry, so different from freshman year, when we were bio partners. When we joked around and worked straight through lunch, getting perfect grades on every lab report. Just like the others, she doesn’t understand why I shut her out. She never will, because I’ll never tell her the truth.

She looks beautiful, in a cream-colored sweater and a string of pink pearls. I feel a stab to the chest. We used to shop for our back-to-school clothes together.

“Frigid.”

I hear the word, whispered, but purposely loud and close enough for me to overhear. I spin around, but I’m not sure who said it. I tighten my grip on my backpack straps, raking in a deep breath to calm the burning in my lungs. I try to picture myself as I will be tonight, when I slip into the lake and serenity replaces the tension in my back. I must envision the lake thirty, forty times on a normal day, and something tells me today will be much worse.

I purse my lips and try to forget Nikki and the whispers and head down the hall again, past the bulletin board for the school-club signup sheets, past a poster advertising auditions for the fall play, past the trophy cases. Those things meant something to me once, but now I rush past them as if I’m wearing blinders, pretending I don’t ache for the things I force myself to forget.

I feel the stares as I pass a group of senior guys sitting near the windows. Their longing gazes eat at me as much as the looks of contempt I get from my former friends. One of them clearly has a girlfriend because she smacks him and then turns to glare at me.

“It’s not my fault they stare,” I try to tell her with my eyes. I’m wearing the most nondescript clothes in my closet: a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve black V-neck, a scuffed pair of ballet flats on my feet. My hair, long and straight, is pulled back in a low ponytail. I’m not wearing makeup, but I know it doesn’t matter—my skin is flawless, my lashes dark and thick even without mascara.

I walk as briskly as possible, until I’m three doors down and can take my seat in English class. As the weight comes off my feet, I clamp my jaw down so that I don’t actually sigh aloud. It’s never hurt this badly before. I don’t know what that means. It’s been months since I last skipped swimming. That was when my last lake was overrun by campers, and I had to move.

The new lake was working, until Cole showed up. How did he find it? Why was he there?

I don’t know if I have the energy . . . the willpower to start the process all over and find a new lake. I hope he doesn’t go back.

I’m resting my head on my desk, my eyes shut, when I hear the chair beside me creak with the weight of another student. It must be the last available chair or no one would sit in it.

“Lexi, you don’t look so good,” he says.

My mouth goes dry. Please don’t let it be Cole.

I turn to scowl at him, but when our eyes meet, all I can do is stare, my breath caught in my throat. His eyes are a startling bright shade of hazel. How have I never noticed that? How have I always thought they were a simple dull shade of brown?

Last night they appeared dark, but today they’re full of light, browns and greens swirling together like a painter dipped his brush in both colors and spun it around in a circle on canvas. It reminds me of the trees when I’m underwater, their brown and green outline just a shimmery mass beyond the surface. His deep brown hair isn’t quite as shaggy as it was last night—he always gels it into submission for school.

I liked it more when it was wild.

“Thanks a lot,” I mutter, tearing my eyes away from him. He’s wearing a button-down shirt with a sweater-vest. What does he think this is, prep school? I turn my face away from him and once more rest my cheek on the cool surface of my desk, hoping he’ll leave me alone.

“You need anything? A cup of water or an aspirin or something?”

I sit up and glare. Two years since I ran in his clique, and we’ve hardly spoken. No, that’s a lie. They all talk plenty, relentlessly hurling insults my way.

And now I’m supposed to be civil?

“I’ll pass.” Pain relievers don’t work anyway. There’s no getting around this. The only relief I’ll feel is when I’m in the water tonight. “Don’t you have a girl to hit on or something?”

He rolls his eyes. “So you’re sticking with the ice-queen thing again this year, huh?”

I blink several times, fighting the urge to defend myself. When Steven was alive, Cole and I never got along. He has this way of calling people out, thinking he knows everything. I guess in two years, he still hasn’t changed.

I force my eyes to stare at the whiteboard as the teacher shuffles in and starts writing her name in giant red marker on the top, in big loopy cursive: “Mrs. Jensen.”

“Did you have a good summer?”

“Are we really doing this?” I wince as my temple pounds harder. “Just give me the punch line. Have your laugh and move on.”

Someone behind us snorts, and I turn to see Sienna, Little Miss Picture-Perfect, sitting down behind me. Why is she sitting there? She’s even worse than Nikki. My eyes dart around the classroom. She’s taken the last available seat. Maybe someone will trade with me. Or maybe this teacher does assigned seating. “Oh come on, you know she doesn’t talk to people.” She stares right at me. “Not even ex–best friends.”

Cole lifts an eyebrow. “Funny—she talked to me a few minutes ago.”

Is he defending me? Why would he do that? I look over at him, and he gives me a slight smile, showing off his dimple. A stabbing pain to my stomach reminds me why I’m supposed to be mad at him.

“I guess miracles do happen.” Sienna shrugs her petite shoulders, her blonde-streaked hair tumbling down her back, and starts digging through one of her many Coach purses. Today it’s green, to match the cami she’s wearing underneath a white cardigan. Sienna is like that—very matchy-matchy, always pulled together. A picture of lipglossed perfection. I guess I used to be like that, too. “Do you have an ulcer or something? Your face is all screwed up. It’s really not cute,” Sienna says. She cocks her head to the side and her platinum hair shimmers, all bounce and body, like she could model for a box of a hair dye.

“I—” I start to say, then stop, snapping my mouth shut. Nothing good comes from talking to my “ex–best friend.” Besides, I’ve been replaced. By Nikki, and Kristi, and Sienna’s boyfriend Patrick.

Mrs. Jensen clears her throat, and I turn my attention to the front of the class, promptly ignoring Sienna.

“Now, I know you guys have already had five classes of rules and expectations and agendas, so this shouldn’t be anything new, but we’ll be going over it anyway.”

I grind my teeth. I could have stayed home.

Mrs. Jensen hands out the syllabuses, and I take the last copy and hold it over my shoulder for Sienna without looking at her. When she doesn’t immediately take it, I wave it around, as obnoxiously as possible. She yanks it out of my hand, grumbling something underneath her breath.

Mrs. Jensen starts at the top. “This year, we’ll cover at least three classics, and three books of your own choice. . . .”

I sigh inwardly. Behind me, Sienna leans in to get closer to Cole, but all it does is amplify her voice in my ear. “So, are you coming to my party?”

I glance around. There has got to be somewhere else to sit. Someone who will trade chairs with me or something. Do I really need to listen to this? To hear everything I’m missing? Two years ago, she would have been asking me if I was coming. I would have known she was in this class because we would have shared schedules at seven o’clock this morning, and then squealed when we discovered we had one together.

My eyes sweep the room, take in the same faces as always, but I pause on the desk in the back corner. A new guy, tall and blond and bulky with muscle. I wonder if he’s heard the rumors about me yet. I give him until noon before someone warns him to stay away.

He must feel my eyes on him because he turns and catches me staring. I look away, feeling a familiar warmth creep into my cheeks.

I dig a blue pen out of my binder and pretend to be taking notes on Mrs. Jensen’s big talk. She’s pacing around up there, a fine sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead. I’ve never heard of her before. She must be new. Probably straight out of school. She looks like she just graduated from the seventh grade and is all sorts of freaked out about being in front of us all.

I draw little squiggly lines all over the orange paper. They look like waves. Like the ocean. With the orange background, it’s like the ocean at sunset—deep blue and orange russet, all mixing together.

At least, that’s how I remember the ocean at sunset. I haven’t seen it that way since the night Steven died.

“Yeah, can’t wait,” Cole says.

I slide my chair over just a little bit, trying to avoid listening to this. But two inches isn’t enough, and it’s all I can manage without drawing attention to myself. The last thing I want is for New Teacher to peg me as a troublemaker.

I feel the urge to look back at Sienna, so I concentrate harder on the paper, the waves growing and filling the empty space at the top, until there’s more ink than blank space.

“Everyone is going to be there,” Sienna says.

That same feeling stabs me in the chest. Because to her, I’m not everyone. I’m no one. She said that on purpose just to get to me.

I glance at the clock. Eight minutes. That’s all that’s passed since I sat down.

“Awesome. I should be there by eight at the latest.” He pauses for a second. “What about you?”

I furrow my brow as I fill in the last blank spot on the left margin of my syllabus. Why is he asking Sienna what time she’ll arrive at her own party? When I glance up, I realize that he’s asking me.

My lips part, but I don’t know what to say, and then Sienna jumps in. “As if Lexi’s invited.”

“I’m busy anyways,” I say, but my voice comes out more hollow and sad than I’d anticipated.

Cole’s eyes soften and he starts to open his mouth, but I’m saved from his words of pity by the teacher. “You? In the middle? Did you have a question on the grading system?”

My breath catches. “Oh. Uh, no, I think I figured it out. Sorry.”

Then I turn back to coloring in the waves, trying to think about the lake tonight and not Sienna’s party. I wouldn’t go, anyway, so why do I care? I have to go swimming.

Cole better not be at my lake. I can’t take another day of agony like this. I need the water like I need air.

When I get home that night, I sink onto the couch, letting out a long slow sigh of relief. I thought today would never end. It’s still several hours until dusk, but it feels good to be home, where I don’t have to hang on to the facade. I’ve spent two years training myself to pretend I don’t care they all hate me, and it’s never gotten easier. These precious hours between school and dusk are the only time I can relax. Once the sun disappears and the moon rises, pulls on the tides—pulls on me—I have to go.

“How was your first day, sweetie?” My grandma walks out of the kitchen, holding a steaming mug with both hands. Tea. Her only addiction.

I sit up. “Good. Tough classes, but I’ll be fine.”

“You always are. I’m very proud of you, you know.” Gram sits down on her recliner and clicks the remote, turning off the television. “Are your friends in any of your classes?”

She takes a slow sip of her tea, staring at me over the lemonyellow mug with her eyebrows raised. These last two years, she’s picked up on the fact that something’s changed, but somehow, I’ve kept my biggest secret, even from her.

She is my father’s mother, and she’s totally normal, at least as far as I can tell. She doesn’t even know how to swim; she used to tell me stories about my father and his sailboat and how she refused to set foot on it until she had a life vest tied firmly around her.

And then one day he sailed away. I always imagined my dad would come back, eventually. That he’d realize it was stupid to leave us. But he never did. Never will.

So, since my Gram isn’t big on swimming, that means either I’m a total freak of nature or I got it from my mom. And I’m pretty sure I know which one it is. But my mom’s dead. I’ll never know for certain.

“Uh, yeah. Sienna is in my English class. Nikki and I have chemistry together.” I avoid looking at her and get to my feet. “Did you take your insulin today?” I ask. “What was your reading?”

Gram sets the mug down beside her. “I wish you wouldn’t worry so much. That’s my job.”

I stand in the entry to the kitchen. “I’m not worried, Gram. I just like to know that you’re not forgetting.”

“You set that blasted alarm. How could I forget? I nearly jump out of my chair every time it rings.”

I smile, then. “Okay. Good. I’m going to fix you up some more syringes. Want spaghetti for dinner?”

Gram nods, picking up the remote and clicking the television back on. “Sounds good.”

I open the fridge and pull out my grandmother’s bottle of insulin, then go to the cupboard and take out the box of syringes, a pair of scissors, and a roll of medical tape. I take them to the little dining room table, where my backpack is sitting. I reach into the small zippered pocket and pull out a laminated chart about the size of the average road map.

I lay the chart—the periodic table of elements—out on the table. I spent half the last month preparing for the start of my advanced chem class. We’re not required to memorize the periodic table of the elements, but I’m trying to anyway. I’m sure it will help me later.

Knowledge. Books. School. I fill up my head with these things, and it keeps me from going crazy. After staring at the table for a few minutes, I look away, repeating the elements over and over, whispering them under my breath. Nitrogen, phosphorous, arsenic, antimony, bismuth, ununpentium.

The fifteenth row.

Carefully, I snip pieces of tape. Seven of them. I label them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . . . until the whole week is listed out. Then I take the syringes and load them with 40 cc of insulin. My grandmother’s daily dose. I label each syringe and then get up. Nitrogen, phosphorous, arsenic . . .

I’ve already forgotten the rest. I walk to the old, almond-colored fridge, dropping the syringes into the empty box on the top shelf. I stare into the fridge, tapping my nails on the door. Then I reach in and grab some Parmesan cheese and green peppers, my mind turning to the simpler things in life, the things I can control.

I chop the peppers while I bring the water to a boil, listening as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire blares in the other room.

My feet are on fire, now, but it’s still too early to swim. I don’t understand why, but swimming while it’s still light out is pointless and unsatisfying. I glance up at the clock.

Three hours to go.

The drive to the lake is excruciatingly long. It’s a dozen miles outside town, which would take fifteen minutes to drive if the road were paved. Unfortunately, it’s gravel, a rutted, puddle-filled old logging road. My Toyota groans as I climb upward in the darkness, ancient cedar trees soaring out around me, the very trees our town was named for. A light sprinkle has picked up, and my wipers intermittently swipe across the dirty windshield.

The radio in my car doesn’t work, so I make the drive every night in silence, my only soundtrack the sounds of my tires crunching on the old gravel surface or the squeaking of the worn-out shocks. When I first started coming here, I used to think it was eerie, driving so far in the silent darkness. But I’ve grown used to it.

I park under a big fir tree, my car engulfed in shadows. Tonight, the moon is blotted out by the clouds, and a fine mist drizzles down as I step outside my car. I pull on an old fleece jacket and zip it up to my chin, then set out down the trail.

Even without a flashlight, I have no problem navigating the familiar path. Leaves and sticks crunch beneath my worn-out hiking boots. My knees ache as I climb over the trunk of a fallen pine tree. A few more minutes and the pain will go away.

Under the canopy of the evergreen forest, the rain disappears. I unzip my jacket a little and take in a few deep breaths. Looking up through the limbs of the trees, I spot the few stars that aren’t hidden by clouds. The slightly sweet, decaying scent of a fallen nurse tree greets me.

Finally, I emerge into the small clearing that surrounds my lake. The instant I see the water, my desire grows. After a night without swimming, it’s nearly impossible to keep myself from racing straight to the edge and diving in.

The rain drizzles down, moistening my skin when I step out from under the limbs. I pause at the edge of the shore and look around, straining to hear any snap of twigs or rustle of leaves, but I hear only the sound of the forest. I pull my clothes off and hang them on the same limb as always, and then I walk to the edge of the water. A frog picks up its chorus, and I sigh as I ease into the icy lake. The cool liquid laps at my ankles, and already the pain is melting away.

Maybe Cole didn’t like the lake. Maybe he’ll never come back.

I wade deeper, then dive into the freezing water when it reaches my waist. Immediately, the muscles in my limbs unwind, my back relaxes. The glacial water is like a warm bubble bath for my body. Everything that happened today is carried away with each kick, each paddle.

I always begin my swim with a few long underwater laps. I can handle nearly ten minutes under the surface, back and forth, before I need more air.

If someone were to see me at exactly the right angle, or if the moonlight hits me just right, they might be able to make out the shimmer of my skin, an almost iridescent glow as I glide through the water. I’m not like Ariel in The Little Mermaid. I don’t have a tail or anything. Sometimes, my hands brush my legs when I swim, and my skin feels slick, like fish scales. Other times, it feels just like it always does, smooth, regular skin.

It’s different during the day. I can still hold my breath for a long time, but my skin doesn’t get slick, and I don’t get the same relief.

I wish I knew why I crave the water, why I am what I am. But I don’t. And I’m not sure I ever will. The only person who could have told me has been gone for six years. At the time my mother died, all I knew was that she’d drowned. That was all my grandmother would tell me. In the years afterward, the ocean’s call grew stronger, and I thought it was because my memories of my mother were innately tied to the sea.

I used to spend hours walking the beaches, not sure why I wanted to be so close to the surf. And then came the devastating events of my sixteenth birthday. That’s when I finally questioned the story behind my mom’s death. After I swam for the first time. After I killed.

It wasn’t hard to find out what really happened. A quick search on Google, and everything I’d thought about her changed.

It wasn’t an accidental drowning, like my grandma said. Her feet were tied to a cinder block. Most of the articles said it was a suicide, and even though I’ve never wanted to believe it, I don’t see how it could be anything else.

The articles always mention another unusual drowning: Greg Roberts, her boyfriend at the time. But Greg wasn’t there with her. He died at least twelve hours before she did, a half-mile down the coast.

I knew Greg, but not well. Until I read that article, I’d always thought he’d left town the day my mom died, in some kind of emotional fit. He’d only been with my mom for a year, but their relationship had seemed intense, even to me, a twelve-year-old. My mother could never stop talking about him.

I don’t know for sure how he drowned, but after what happened with Steven . . . I have my suspicions. I wish she were still around. I wish she were here to tell me what I am, what it will be like for me in the coming years.

Tonight, I don’t think of her for long, because at some point during my swim, my mind goes blank. I surface, and the song—the one I sing every night—bursts out, wrenching free from my throat like I’ve twisted the cap on a shaken-up bottle of soda. It’s a haunting wordless melody that comes from somewhere inside, and I can’t control it. My arms paddle steadily, my limbs working together until I’m propelling myself at a pace that would probably trump an Olympic swimmer.

I’m totally checked out as I find my rhythm, switch into autopilot. It reminds me of how it used to feel to sleep, the way the hours pass without a conscious thought. I simply dip into the water and start swimming; and by the time I know it, it’s dawn, and I feel refreshed and exhilarated, ready to greet the day.

At dawn, I climb out of the water, my toes sinking into the muddy shore. The soft, squishy earth feels good beneath my feet. The urge to sing is gone, and it won’t return for hours. I’m alive, rested, eager to find a way to outsmart the hand I’ve been dealt.

But moments later, my toes are cold. The chill has seeped into my bones, and reality screeches back. It’s unseasonably cool for September. The temperatures in Cedar Cove tend to be mild—although almost constantly rainy and windy—because we’re practically in the Pacific Ocean. But today, it’s barely in the forties.

I’m not ready for the winter. I’m not ready to make it through yet another season of darkness, of long nights and cold mornings with damp hair and even damper skin.

I shiver and for a moment I think about getting back into the lake, but it’s dawn, so the water will have no effect on me. I’ll just be a normal girl in freezing-cold water, who should be at home in bed.

Even though I never get sick, I don’t care for the bone-chilling cold that I feel when I climb out of the water at dawn, my hair dripping down my bare back.

I find the towel I hung on a branch and dry off, then slip back into my clothes. The walk out of the woods takes twenty minutes. The sun rises slowly behind the hilltops, steadily lighting my way. By the time I make it to the road, it’s emerged from behind the mountains, full and round and ready for another day. It will take me thirty minutes to drive back to town. So much wasted time, every day, driving and hiking. So much wasted money, filling the beater car every few days. My allowance barely covers the gas.

When I make it to my rusted-out brown Toyota, I turn the key. It sputters briefly, and my heart sinks. But then the engine catches and whirs to life. I promptly crank the heat. Cold air blasts out at me, and I flinch, waiting for it to warm. I sit in the dawn light, the car humming, as my body thaws.

Finally, I shift into gear and begin the descent into Cedar Cove.