Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,12
to my parents, but it was bleeding so much I was sure I was going to die, and I had to get six stitches. All in all it was only a one-inch cut. Asher apologized profusely—the only time either of us has—and maybe the whole thing would have stopped at that point, if I hadn’t retaliated a few days later. Head wound or not, I wasn’t going to literally let him land the winning blow.
Asher starts up the engine and takes a seat across from me. We’re not ten feet from the dock when he reaches his silver mug toward me. “Coffee?”
I shake my canteen in front of me. “I’m good.”
“Right.” I can see that smirk about to break through. “You probably filled up on Kool-Aid this morning, huh?”
Asher
Sidney stands up so quickly, I have to cut the engine so she doesn’t topple over the side. Before it has even quieted, she’s climbing over, lowering herself into the water.
“What are you doing?”
“Swimming,” she says, walking through the shallow water that’s just up to her thighs. “Arms. Legs. Water.” She pulls her T-shirt over her head and tosses it in a crumpled pile into the boat in front of me. “An obnoxious boy following you in a boat. Sound familiar?” She keeps walking, and I keep the boat far enough to the side that I won’t bump into her accidentally. She’s wearing a plain suit—dark navy—but tight and shiny and cut high on her leg, like a team suit. As the water reaches her chest, she dips down into the water and pushes herself forward, a billowy cloud pluming up around her as her feet leave the sand.
Sidney disappears under the water and comes up about fifteen feet ahead. Her cheek dips down into the water, and then up, and down, as she swims steadily into the light chop of the lake. I start the motor back up and idle the boat to the side of her, giving her a few feet and keeping pace. I have the air horn Tom gave me in one hand, though a quick scan of the lake tells me there’s not a boat to be seen anywhere near us. The fishing boats are already settled into their spots for the morning, and the speedboats pulling skiers and tubers won’t hit the lake for hours, after the morning chill burns off. The only ones cutting across the lake at this hour are neurotic swimmers and the guys hell-bent enough on annoying them to ruin their own mornings.
I look at the other side of the lake, imagining the little bay I know dips inland there, but it’s still too far to make out. This is going to take a while—Sid isn’t going for speed, she’s building endurance. Open-water swimming is so much harder than in the pool, where there aren’t waves and frigid temps and currents to deal with. I can’t remember the last time Sidney and I spent an hour straight alone together, unless you count the time we spend lying on the deck chairs in silence every morning, after we vie for that stupid padded lounge chair. The unicorn. I know she calls it that, though she never says it in front of me anymore. I laugh, because her head’s underwater and I can. I shake as I think about her diving toward that chair, and standing under a stream of cherry Kool-Aid. Thank you, family dinners.
Sidney’s head bobs up, and down, and up, and down. It’s quiet out here. The motor is barely running; the lake is only slightly choppy, yet to be churned up by a day’s worth of skiers, tubers, and Jet Skis. And Tom was right, I’m already bored. I glance at my phone, sitting on the bench next to me. It’s been ten whole minutes. Swimming in open water is so much slower than in a pool, even in a lake as calm as this one. And Sidney doesn’t seem to be in any rush—maybe this is all part of her plan.
“I’m bored,” I say toward Sidney’s bobbing head, but of course she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even pause to tell me I’m being a baby. She can’t hear you. The thought frees something inside me.
“I can’t believe you do this every other day.” That’s a lie, though, because it’s totally something she would do. “Scratch that. I can totally believe you’d do this every other day. Because you’re the most obsessive person I’ve ever met. You can’t do anything