The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,110

bloodstained, her mouth turned down, but alive and whole.

“Baby,” Laurel said, and then she rolled onto her side and coughed, and water came out, and she coughed more and more until it felt like throwing up. Even after she stopped, she still heard it happening. And then she lifted her head and saw Thalia a few feet away, her shirt gone, on her hands and knees, vomiting up everything she’d ever eaten.

“Are you okay?” Shelby asked, one warm, small paw on Laurel’s shoulder.

“I’m good,” Laurel said. She crawled toward her sister, Shelby following on her knees. When she got close, she sat up and the world spun and she knew she was lying. “Mostly,” she amended, looking at her daughter.

Shelby was pressing Thalia’s crumpled shirt to the back of her head. Her eyes were red and puffed almost shut. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay, baby,” Laurel said.

“I couldn’t stand it,” Shelby said. “Gramma brought me home, and I saw Molly’s mom on our sofa, and I knew I couldn’t stand it if she looked at me. It was my fault, Mommy. I couldn’t stand for Molly’s mom to look at me and know.”

Laurel grabbed Shelby’s shoulders and said, “It was not your fault.”

“It was. If I had met her—”

“Baby,” Laurel said, “I know. And it’s not your fault. You can’t control the whole world, honey. It was an accident.” She gathered Shelby up and held her, rocked her, and Shelby melted into her and let her and wept until her whole slim body was shaking with it.

Thalia finally stopped vomiting. She sat up, tugging on her bra straps. Her red eyes met Laurel’s.

Over Shelby’s head, Laurel mouthed, “Where is Bet?”

Thalia tilted her head slightly, toward the water.

Laurel looked out at the still expanse of the Frog Hole. The green water was like a sheet of uncracked glass. There weren’t even ripples. “We have to—”

But Thalia was shaking her head. She tapped her wrist where a watch would go if she wore one and said, “No point.”

Then Thalia started gagging again, tears spurting from her eyes, and she went back onto her hands and knees until she could gulp in enough fresh air to stop.

She crawled to them and sat by Laurel, close on her other side. Shelby rested on Laurel’s chest, exhausted, and Laurel put her hand over Shelby’s on Thalia’s wadded-up T-shirt, applying pressure.

“I have to stop doing this,” Thalia said. She looked, in that moment, as young and lost as Shelby. Laurel put her arm around her sister. She understood exactly what Thalia meant.

“What did he say when the deer ran?” she asked Thalia. “I heard Daddy say, ‘Get him,’ and the deer going. Then Marty said something. What was it?”

Thalia said, “He said, ‘Next time, I’d pick her,’ and he kinda jerked his thumb at you. He meant because I’d missed such an easy shot. But that’s what he said. That he’d pick you next time. He stepped in front of me, going after that deer, and I didn’t even think about it. It was something my hands did.”

“What are you talking about?” said Shelby.

“Shhhh,” said Laurel. “Never you mind.” She looked at her sister, wiped down to toddler level again, big circles under both her eyes, her mouth still trembling. The unbreakable Thalia, broken. “I’m not like you,” Laurel said. “I wouldn’t have said ‘I’ve seen better’ or told.”

“I know,” Thalia said, and then she buried her face in her hands. “I knew she couldn’t swim.”

“What happened?” Shelby said, struggling back out of Laurel’s arms. She was still holding the T-shirt to her head, and now her other hand reached around to feel it. “Wasn’t Bet here? Where is she? Did rocks fall on us? I remember rocks falling.”

“We couldn’t get her out,” Laurel said, and Shelby scrambled to her feet, swaying. Laurel tried to get up after, but her body failed her. She fell back as Shelby ran the few feet to the water’s edge.

Thalia said, “Put one toe in that water, Shelby Ann, and I will drag you back and spank you till we both die.”

Shelby stopped, staring out the smooth expanse of green. “Bet?” she called. “Bet?”

It echoed off the sheer rock walls, and there was no answer.

“I could have punched her in the face,” Thalia said in a low voice for Laurel alone. “I could have hit her with a stick, knocked her out. But I thought, ‘What if she doesn’t go down? What if I’m in the