Ripple (19 page)

Oh, right. We’re at the bottom.

I scramble out of the car, accepting Erik’s hand as he leads me around the attendant. But just as I pass him, I glance over and nearly trip over my own feet.

Cole is standing there with Nikki. Are they together now? Or are they here as friends? I blink rapidly and look past them. Kristi’s here, too, with a guy I’ve seen her talking to at school. Are they also on a double date?

Why do I feel like my insides are in a blender right now? It’s just Nikki. There’s no way he’d date her. There’s no way he’d get over me so quickly.

But I’m here with Erik. Cole thinks
I
got over
him
that quickly.

I tear my eyes away from him, hoping somehow to get rid of the image of Nikki’s hand on Cole’s arm. Of course, they would be here. Everyone goes to the Harvest Festival.

Erik notices my expression but doesn’t call me on it. He attempts to distract me. “What now?” he asks. We walk past one of the games that rings out with a shrill bell, overstuffed cartoon characters dangling from the edges of the booth.

“We dance?”

“Is that a question?” He asks, turning to look at me.

“No. It’s a request.”

He grins, another gleaming smile. “Consider it granted.”

I’m not sure where Sienna disappeared to, but I can’t bring myself to care as he leads me through the crowd. We weave between stands and strollers and other kids from school too absorbed in their own conversation to notice us, until we’re in the area they’ve set up for the band. The dance area is surrounded by straw bales and is packed with people—couples young and old.

The band seems to have gone from country to swing, and everyone is going crazy, spinning and swinging, laughing and smiling.

“Uh, do you know how to swing dance?” I ask, grimacing.

“Yes.”

I spin around and look at him, wondering if he’s joking. “Seriously?”

“Yep. You?”

“We covered it in PE last year, but I wasn’t very good,” I say, giving him an apologetic look. “Prepare to have your toes smashed.”

“We’ll see about that.”

He pulls me into the crowd, then spins me around so fast I can hardly breathe. He takes my hands in his, our fingers interlaced and palms together. “Just put your trust in me, and everything will be fine. Can you do that?”

I nod, but I’m hardly ready when suddenly he pulls me toward him. Just as I think I’m going to crash right into his chest, stumble over his feet, he pushes me away. I nearly lose my balance, but my arm twists above my head, and I’m spinning in a circle. For a millisecond, my back is up against his chest, but then he spins me the opposite direction. Finally, he takes my spare hand, and I end up back where I started.

I burst into laughter, because I have no idea how he just did that, but I don’t stop dancing. Instead, I pick up on his rhythm. I forfeit all control to Erik, allowing my body to go where he leads it. I let myself lose my balance here and there and hope he’ll catch me.

And he does. We’re flying all over, spinning, dipping, twisting, and I can’t seem to stop grinning like a fool as I shuffle my feet this way and that, wherever he leads me. The song bleeds into the next and then the next, until I’m not even sure it’s swing music anymore. But still we don’t stop.

We dance for so long that I lose track of time, which seems an unbelievable feat when my hunger for the ocean grows with each tick of the clock. I wouldn’t be able to do this with anyone but Erik. Knowing he won’t let me walk away from him, won’t let me out of sight, somehow makes it possible to relax and enjoy myself.

Finally, the beat drifts away, and a slow melody picks up. A love song, clear as day, echoes from the speakers. And only then do I let my feet slow.

Erik releases my left hand so that he can put his arm around my lower waist. He pulls me against his body, warmer than the night.

A
week after the festival, Sienna’s blue coupe follows Nikki’s dark Mitsubishi sedan up a particularly winding part of Route 101. The sky above us is black with storm clouds. It’s a particularly dangerous part of the highway. The cliffs hug the road to our left; the ocean licks at the rocks below to our right, at least fifty feet down. There won’t be a real shoulder for at least another half mile.

It’s unbelievably dark, and yet the sun won’t set for another hour.

Erik and I are crammed in the backseat of Sienna’s coupe as we follow the two cars ahead, their headlights illuminating the pavement in front of our caravan. Hip-hop blares from Sienna’s speakers as Erik’s hand rests on my knees. It’s too loud to talk to Erik, but we smile at each other in the darkness, trusting our lives to Sienna’s marginal driving skills.

Up ahead, a red blinker flashes, and taillights flare brighter. Sienna slows, turning off the road and driving through a rusted open old gate, barely hanging on by one hinge. Dilapidated wire fencing sags between old iron T posts, mostly obscured by the overgrown reedy grass that grows this close to the ocean.

Our caravan glides quietly up the gravel, winding back and forth on a few lazy switchbacks. The headlights illuminate secluded spots of the sparse grassy hillside until a wide, empty gravel lot opens up. The two cars in front of us pull up next to each other, and then Sienna does the same. “We’re here,” she says, glancing back at us as she turns off the radio. Patrick throws his door open and yanks his seat forward to allow us to climb out.

Outside the car, I watch as six of my classmates—Nikki included—pile out of the other cars. I am inordinately happy that Cole isn’t here tonight. I haven’t figured out yet if something is going on between him and Nikki. And frankly, if it is, I don’t want to know.

One of the guys lets loose with a ridiculous coyote screech, his hands above his head in a rock-on kind of signal.

Erik and I follow the others to this evening’s destination.

The lighthouse.

But this lighthouse isn’t exactly serving its original function. It juts into the dark sky, completely black, devoid of ... anything. It’s engulfed in total blackness, has been for at least a decade.

Patrick, Brian, and Danny all switch flashlights on.

Erik leans in, whispers into my ear, “Sorry. I didn’t get the memo about the flashlights.”

I grin up at him in the gray of the evening light. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

We manage to find each other’s hands in the darkness and to interlace our fingers. Ahead, the storm clouds seem to have closed in on the lighthouse. It’s as if it has disappeared right into the clouds.

We walk in silence, and soon my sneakers hit pavement. The last two hundred feet before the backdoor is a crooked, cracked old sidewalk.

“Are you guys sure this place is still unlocked?” someone asks. Nikki mutters something I can’t quite make out. To my left, Kristi giggles.

I haven’t been in a group like this in a while. At Sienna’s, it’s easy to detach from everyone, find a quiet room. But today, we’re all together, all on the same mission. And in the darkness, no one separates from the pack.

Right on time, the ground rumbles with thunder. “Told you,” Sienna says, throwing a look over her shoulder.

Excited whispers mount as we reach the only door to the lighthouse. Nikki stops, her hand on the knob, and glances back at all of us. Then she purses her lips and turns back to the door, twisting at the knob.

It swings open.

“Yes!” Sienna jumps up and hugs Patrick. I let out the air I’d been holding.

We file one by one through the entry, and by the time I get inside, a whole line of people are already climbing the old steel-grate steps. The stairs wind around and around in a lazy spiral, all the way to the top.

I wait in silence for a second. Then I grab the rusted wrought iron and follow my friends up, the steps groaning and creaking under our collective weight.

It must take ten minutes for our whole group to make it to the top. Beams of flashlights bounce around inside the cylindrical area as we wind around and around the spiral staircase.

And then Nikki finds another door to push, and we emerge onto the platform. It’s just as dark here as it was below. The electrical system is totally shot—not only do the spotlights not work, but neither do the overhead lights.

We fan out around the windows, stare out at the ocean raging against the rocky cliffs below us. The wind has been picking up, and the sea is frothing white.

Lightning streaks across the horizon. Nikki shrieks and jerks back, away from the window. Someone laughs.

We used to come up here all the time, the whole group of us. Whenever the weather people predicted a storm, we’d all pile in a car and come up to the old abandoned lighthouse on the bluffs. Most of the time, the “storm” turned out to be nothing, a boring false alarm. But after we saw real lightning for the first time, we were all hooked. The dark magic of Mother Nature was enough to keep us coming back, over and over.

Erik and I hang back, and he pulls me closer, leans in close enough that his lips brush my earlobe. “This is amazing,” he says, as the air around us crackles with a thunder boom.

I nod. “I know.”

A bolt of lightning streaks across the ocean.

“I meant us,” he says, his voice lower than ever.

I smile, then turn to meet his eyes.

“I know.”

If it seemed like the atmosphere at school a few weeks ago had shifted, today it feels like the entire world flipped around, turned inside out.

I walk in, and Nikki smiles and waves at me. “Last night rocked,” she says, rushing by. She twists around and walks backward so we can maintain eye contact. “We are so doing it again!”

I grin at her as she dashes out the door toward the gym. She has first-period PE. I know, because she’s bitched about it for two weeks straight. It ruins her hair or something.

I head to my locker and am inches away when Brian, one of the guys from last night walks by. He nods at me, a happy, slightly tired smile on his face. “Last night was epic!” he says, giving me a fist bump as he passes. “Next time we’re staying overnight!”

I laugh. I hope by then, my curse will be gone. Every night I go swimming, I hope it’s one of the last times.

It’s hard to imagine, but it could happen. I turn back to the lock, spinning it twice toward the right when I feel hands wrap around my waist. Before I can react, a warm cheek presses against my face. “So this is what it’s like, huh?”

I turn at the husky voice and smile. Erik’s hair is wild and loose today, and like the others, he looks a little tired but happy.

“What?”

His grin gets bigger. “Being one of them. Being normal.”

I smile and nod. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Pretty awesome, huh?”

I sigh, totally content inside these four walls for the first time in a long time. “Yeah. I’d have to agree.”

“And homecoming is this weekend?”

I grin. “Yeah. Saturday.”

“Great. See you at lunch?”

I nod, and before I can say a word, he brushes his lips against my cheek and disappears into the crowd.

I turn back to my locker.

Homecoming.

Something I thought I’d never have.

And now it’s mine.

 

I’m standing in Sienna’s bedroom, surrounded by her pale pink walls. Sienna is in the attached bathroom, clanging around in the cabinets, searching for the perfect shade of lip gloss. As if she ever wears anything but cherry.

I can’t stop staring at myself in the mirror, at the green silk dress I bought over two years ago on a whim. It’s knee length, with a sweetheart neckline and an open back that makes me feel a little exposed.

Fifteen-year-old Lexi didn’t mind being a little daring.

I remember buying this dress, the last weekend before school started for our sophomore year. Sienna talked me into it. Oh, sure, I loved it, would have jumped at the chance to wear it, but I only wanted to go to homecoming if Steven asked me. Sienna had no idea that’s who I was waiting on, and how could I tell her?

And it was too soon to know if that fantasy would come true. That camping trip had been a week prior, and it seemed as if he liked me, but I was afraid I was reading too much into it.

God, I wanted it to be true. I wanted to discover that he did feel for me the way I felt for him. And I was afraid buying this dress—beautiful as it was—would jinx it somehow.

But I can’t blame the dress for how all that worked out. I spin around, watch the fabric swirl around my knees, moving like the ocean.

Someone outside honks, and I take a few steps back to peer out the window. It’s the limo, shiny black, shimmering under the spotlights mounted over the garage doors.

I walk to the door. “Sienna! Are you ready?”

She steps out of the bathroom, and it’s hard not to stare. She’s wearing a red satin dress with a short ruffled skirt that has black streaks running through it. The top has only one strap, the other shoulder bare. Her platinum hair is pulled up in a French twist that would look severe on anyone else. On her it looks elegant, understated in comparison to the outrageous dress. Topping it off is the simple diamond pendant dangling on a delicate silver chain.