sane self puts it into perspective.
“I’m not letting you guys go alone,” Josh says, unwinding the scarf from his neck. For a split second he has the look of a boy trying to hang himself with a makeshift noose. Josh continues unraveling his clothing with the force and precision of a hurricane.
Carolynn grabs the rising hem of his fleece and yanks it down. “I used to be on swim team in middle school, remember?” She jerks her thumb at me. “Lana’s already proven she can hold her breath longer than any of you ass-chaps.”
Josh blinks bewildered at her. “You don’t even swim anymore, Car.”
“Because I don’t like getting my hair wet, not because I forgot how.” She secures the pins in her tresses.
The ribbon of gold on the horizon is expanding, its molten edges bleeding over the tallest trees. “It’s better with only two of us,” I explain. “It’ll be dark below, and with more people there’s more chance that someone will get hurt.”
Carolynn smiles at Josh and says, “Translation: you’ll kick us in the tits with your giant legs and feet.” She and I are at the rim.
“I think my flashlight is waterproof. Yours?” I ask.
She sniffs under her breath. “We’re about to find out.”
“Maybe we should count to three and then jump?”
She stretches her arms above her head. “Whatever.”
I say, “One,” and she dives. Carolynn disappears under the surface. The sun’s rays fracture through the fringe of trees and the water turns an unnaturally vivid violet. Toxic water. It must be because it’s the same water that was in dead Maggie’s mouth, ears, and nose. This used to be our place, and now it’s become a killer’s dumping ground. And it’s because Maggie is dead that she will never be able to admit to the police what she did to Ben and who sank a knife into him.
Carolynn’s kicks send ripples through the water. There’s the suggestion of bodies crowded below the surface, and then the ripples fade and the water is smooth again, bodiless. I’m going mad. I give my head a defiant shake.
This is our place, and Ben would expect me to be brave. I am a shark and I can hear that hungry, daring voice, mine or Ben’s, urging me on. I lunge forward. I am alive, alive, alive.
– 15 –
I pop up with the slippery wall of the ridge at my chest. Carolynn’s heart-shaped mouth smirks at me. A single drop clings to the tip of her upturned nose. “It’s not so fun when you’re not showing off for Josh, is it?”
Wet hair plasters my face, and I unceremoniously swipe it away. Carolynn’s elaborate twist survived the swim. Her pins are dotted with little crystals, and they’re nestled in her locks with the look of fallen stars. “I don’t show off for Josh,” I say.
“Please.” She flicks water in my face. Her pink nails are chipped, newly neglected. “It’s obvious you go for nice guys, and Josh is the nicest.”
I look to the sky and sigh, exasperated, like I have no clue what she means. “You work the flashlights and I’ll search the wall,” I say, teeth already beginning to chatter. She shrugs, smiling like she’s pegged me.
We swim in a zigzag as my fingers crawl over the rock and Carolynn sweeps our flashlights as lanterns illuminating a stormy night. Our movements and pace synchronize.
During our fourth break on the surface, Becca shouts, “You’ve been diving for ages. Your nips are going to fall off if you stay in longer.”
Becca has a point. My skin is tight and shivering over my bones. I’m losing control of trembling muscles. Staying afloat is as exhausting as flying, and I start thinking of us as two desperate little birds trying to avoid crashing to the ground in an ice storm. We’re not treading water; we’re flapping our frozen wings.
Carolynn’s eyes are blue rimmed, the right one twitching with cold. The only makeup she was wearing, mascara, has washed away. Without her foundation, I see she has a band of freckles on her nose like me. Her sharp jaw is set, refusing to chatter.
I lift my stubborn chin in the air. There is no quitting; no crashing to the ground. “Again?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Carolynn says, nimbly tucking a rogue lock into its jeweled pin. “You’re the one who looks worse than an eighty-year-old stripper in Tacoma.”
A gasped chuckle from me. Then we’re under. My fingers skate over the rock’s face as if on ice. Carolynn flashes the