The Lifeguard (16 page)

He reaches for my shoulders and pulls me toward him, a tiny muscle quivering in his cheek. “Is that what you think?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t hate you,” he says, his face so close I can almost feel the warmth of his skin. He waits, not moving, then abruptly pulls back, dropping his hands. “I…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

“Shouldn’t have what?”

He shakes his head sinking into silence. He’s off somewhere in his head.

I walk off ahead of him, wincing from the lost opportunity. What is it? His girlfriend, the blonde? He obviously doesn’t feel he needs to explain anything to me. Some girls wouldn’t let him get away with that. They’d be up front, direct.
Afraid to make a move because of what your girlfriend would say?

Only I can’t.

I turn to stone and look back at him. “It totally doesn’t matter, okay?” It comes out in a rush, with more annoyance and frustration than I want to show, only I can’t hide the anger building in me. “I have to get going, my aunt will start worrying.” I start running ahead.

“Sirena, wait.”

I keep going, faster now, only his legs are longer and he catches up, reaching for my arm. “Stop, please.”

I look up at him and want to stamp my feet. He’s calm on the outside but below the surface he’s deceptively deep and unknowable.

Like a riptide.

“I don’t hate you,” he insists. “I don’t want you to think that.”

“Why do you
care
?”

He runs the back of his hand lightly down the side of my face. I swallow hard, leaning in to him, my insides aching with some primal longing. I press my lips into the side of his neck inhaling his sweetness like a narcotic. I shouldn’t, I know it, only I’m powerless to stop myself. I lift my face up to his until our lips meet. I don’t care anymore, I don’t. I’m desperate to kiss him

Only he stands there stoically, emotionless, cold, his eyes shut.

He doesn’t kiss me back.

“It won’t work,” he says, “and I don’t want to hurt you.”

Am I that pathetic?

I stand back and shake my wrist loose of his grip. “I won’t give you the chance.”

I turn and run back to the house, tears streaming out of my eyes. His words echo in my head, slicing into me like a knife. At least now I know for sure how he feels and I can’t pretend anymore. He’s completely cold to me, he doesn’t care in the least. I’ve been living in my own blind fantasy world.

I hate you
, I want to scream. But it’s my fault for what I did. I started it. I brought it on. What a desperate and pathetic loser I must seem to him. I run faster and faster, filled with fury.

This time he doesn’t call after me…and he doesn’t follow.

DANGEROUS RIP CURRENTS:

STAY OUT OF THE WATER.

T
he signs are everywhere, posted all along the fencing near the beach. I look out.

Not a soul is in the water anywhere.

All over the sand, beachgoers are trying to cool off by sitting under umbrellas, fanning themselves and downing cold drinks. I don’t have an umbrella and I’ve finished every drop in my quart-sized water bottle. I lay out on my blanket, staring up at the sky, the sun blistering my skin.

I hate Pilot. I hate him, I hate him. I hate him. I blame him for the riptides. I blame him because I’m roasting. It’s over ninety-nine degrees and I’m stuck in the middle of a beach with nowhere to swim and nothing to do and no one to do anything with. I’m in a total sweat and so furious I feel like screaming. It’s his beach, or at least he acts like it is, so it’s all his fault and I’d like to strangle him.

I hate his superiority, the uncomfortable way he makes me feel, the way he sets you up as if he’s interested and the next moment gives you the deep freeze, disabusing you of the laughable notion that someone like you might hold even the slightest appeal to him.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the rejection came on top of the news that my parents—so busy house hunting and splitting up—weren’t even planning to visit me this summer.

“Money is very tight, Sirena,” my mom said. “You have to understand that, baby.” Why did I have to understand everything about them? Why didn’t anyone understand what
I
was going through?

My life sucks. Plain and simple. And it’s not like there’s anything on the horizon to make it better. I look at my skin turning red. Screw sunblock. I bury it in the sand. What does it matter if I burn? Who cares about skin cancer?

Out of the corner of my eye I watch him high up in his chair looking out at the beach and down on everyone. He’s not in a sweat. Maybe he’s cold now, instead of hot because he’s not like everybody else or
anyone
else. His face isn’t beaded with perspiration. How is that possible? Does he have a supernatural cooling mechanism so he doesn’t sweat, just like he doesn’t bruise? Maybe he doesn’t even sunburn; he only tans and the color automatically stops when he’s a divinely toasty brown because of his internal perfection meter.

Eventually he makes his way to the sand and walks off. He’s on foot patrol now, wandering all along the beach as if to let people know he’s there, that he’s watching. I keep my eye on him until he’s almost out of my field of vision.

Slowly I make my way to the pier, just outside the swimming area. I sit at the edge, watching the water. It doesn’t look particularly dangerous to me. Wouldn’t you be able to see riptides if they were really there? Wouldn’t the water look wild, wouldn’t the waves look bigger and fiercer than they do now?

Three girls pass by in low-cut bikinis. They put down a blanket, drop a pillow-sized bag of cheese doodles and a six-pack of Diet Coke and lay out in the sun. One is tall and thin, almost gaunt. She must live on Diet Coke. Her hair is long and dark in ringlets. The other two are blondes, closer to my age. They laugh constantly like there’s absolutely nothing in the world that isn’t funny. They must be in a sorority because they’re all wearing identical silver charm bracelets with dangling hearts.

“So I asked him to come to the party,” one of the blondes says.

“Get out. Pilot?”

My ears perk up.

“Duh, yes.”

“What did he say?”

She laughs and raises an eyebrow. “He’s definitely coming.”

“
I
want him,” the other one says, kicking the friend.

“Bitch, I saw him first.”

“
Who gets the hot lifeguard, who gets the hot lifeguard?”
the first one singsongs, then cracks up.

The brunette grabs the bag of cheese doodles. She whacks it with the heel of her hand and it bursts open with a boom, shooting cheese doodles out over the sand. That’s the funniest thing in the world to them.

Nausea washes over me and my head pounds. I’m on the brink of madness. If I had just one person to talk to, one living soul who could understand this.

I don’t care about anything anymore.

I stand up.

I’m going in.

I won’t go in all the way. That would be dumb. I’ll wet my feet and hands, duck down fast and come out. I’ll cool off, not die of heatstroke. What big harm could come from that?

I turn my head to the lifeguard’s chair. Still empty.

I take baby steps into the water, immediately aware of a strange and exciting drawing sensation as the water swirls crazily around my toes and they sink into the wet sand. It’s an odd, tickling feeling, as if gravity is trying to draw me out to the center of the earth. My toes disappear as though I’ve stepped into quick sand. I smile—this is a test I hope to ace.

Sirena against the odds.

Another baby step.

One more. The water’s just below my knees.

No big deal.

I splash water over me and then wet my face. Yes, I’m finally cool. I look down and watch the way the water changes my bikini from pale to deep green like it has magical powers. Before I turn to go back out, I take one more step forward. The bottom deepens unexpectedly as if I’ve stepped into a hidden crater. I try to step back but I lose my bearings. I topple forward, the pebbly sand scraping my knees.

“Ow,” I cry out, then I turn, embarrassed. Did anyone hear me? The three girls are gone now. Not many people are near me outside the swimming area by the pier. The few that are seem to be napping or lost in their own worlds, oblivious to everything but their favorite music. I manage to get back up on my feet. I take in a deep breath of relief. I turn and start to run out, back to the sand.

To safety.

But suddenly another strong wave rushes in, crashing against the back of my legs. I’m thrown down again, angry, swirling water surrounding me. Then another wave. Only this time a rush of saltwater gets washed down my throat and I gag and start coughing as it chokes me. A sense of what’s happening sends panic spreading through my insides like an electric current. Before I have a chance to try to get to my feet again, I feel a powerful, demonic force beneath me as though the ocean is intent on dragging me away to punish me for approaching it. I fight to step back to shallow ground again, to the dry sand only yards from where I am, but this time there’s a stronger wrench and I’m dragged out farther and farther until the force of the tides drags me under the waves.

“Help,” I scream, managing to poke my head over the surface. “Help.” I throw my head back so I can breathe, but the water is pounding against me and it drowns out the pathetic squeal of my voice.

“Help,” I yell out again before a torrent of water washes over me and I’m below the surface again. A deep bubbling sound fills my ears as I go down. Darkness surrounds me.

Where am I?

And then a low, rushing hiss as another swell of seawater engulfs me like a lasso. I reach out but there’s nothing to take hold of. As I open my eyes, a clump of seaweed drops over my face like a blindfold, and boughs of driftwood caught in the currents rake my skin.

Where am I? Where am I?

When I rip away the seaweed, it dawns on me where I am, and terror tightens the back of my throat.

Buried under the pier, hidden from view.

No one can see me anymore. No one knows I’m here.

I’m scared, so scared, but I have to do something.

I look up and see dark planks of wood inches above my head, boxing me in, trying to bury me alive just feet below the surface of the ocean. I grope above me fighting the current, desperate to catch hold, to steady myself, only the wood is worn and rough and a thick splinter wedges itself under my fingernail like a spike, pain searing through me. I try to ignore it, choking back the burn as I fight against the water’s force, trying to hold onto the wood above me to anchor me, praying for it to let up for just a few seconds so I can fill my lungs with air, just enough so I can try to call out again and keep fighting until someone spots me, but my arms are so thick and leaden with exhaustion and my heart slams so hard in my chest that I’m about to pass out.

And then, as if for no reason, the water seems to calm. I’m filled with hope. I can get out, now. I suck in as much air as my lungs can hold.

This is it.

My chance.

With every bit of strength I can summon, I begin to work my way out from under the pier, using both hands to hold the planks above me to keep me from going under, to steady myself. I manage to get almost to the end of it, close to the bright sunlight, and I exhale in a rush of giddy relief. I’m home safe, I’m free now. I can feel the sand under my feet again. Shallower water. I breathe in deeply, then again.

You’re going to be okay, Sirena
, I tell myself like a mother reassuring a terrified child.

I take one step, then another. But then my foot lands on something hard and rough that’s sticking up like a mound in the sand.

A rock? What is it?

As I lift my foot to step away, it rears up and comes alive, a sea monster lying in waiting. It’s as big as a blanket with horrible shiny, beady black eyes and it lashes into my leg viciously like a madman on the loose with a knife. Red heat scorches my insides.

“Help me,” I scream before the pain fills my throat and all the fight and power leach out of me. A violent rush of water suddenly surrounds me, only now I’m powerless to fight it anymore. I sink down below the surface, watching the water around me darken from green to deep red to brown like the earth. I drop toward the rocky bottom and the world turns black and cold and goes achingly silent.