Who I Kissed (16 page)

I reach across the table and squeeze her hand. “It wasn’t your fault, Chloe.” I can’t believe I’m offering her comfort. That she feels like she had a part in it. She’s taking on guilt that clearly belongs to me.

“It was me who kissed him,” I remind her. “I had the peanut butter sandwich, and I barely knew him. I mean. He was a great guy, but…”

“No,” she interrupts. “Everyone heard what people used to say about you at your old school.” She drops her eyes. “That you liked girls. You probably wanted to start fresh.”

It’s an interesting theory. I only wish it were true.

“I kind of thought you had a thing for Zee. But I guess we were all trying to act more sophisticated. Sex. Drugs. Drinking. We’re just a bunch of stupid kids.”

She’s sobbing softly now. I’m shocked that she seems to forget that I’m the one who caused her brother’s death. Nobody else.

She looks up and sniffles. “We all had a role that night. Zee feels bad too,” she says. “He always made sure Alex had his meds and stuff.”

A tear slips from her eye and splashes on the table.

I wiggle on my seat, and the leather groans. “No.” I glance around the empty restaurant. The coffee barista is sitting on a stool, still tapping at her phone. I hope she has unlimited texting. She’s probably complaining about working Halloween night and being stuck with two losers. Or maybe she recognized us and is telling friends that the peanut killer and the dead boy’s sister are having coffee. “It was my fault.”

“Yeah? Tell Zee that. He’s furious he got drunk. He doesn’t usually. And he was with Kaitlin again, which he also feels bad about.” She makes a face and then looks up, and the pity shines through the tears rimming her eyes. She wipes them away, but the pity stays.

I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about Zee and Kaitlin with her. I don’t want to hear that she knows how much I liked Zee. I kissed her brother. Killed him. I chew my lip, but she keeps talking.

“Zee thinks if he hadn’t made out with Kaitlin, you might not have kissed Alex,” she whispers.

I blink and blink and blink. Shake my head. I don’t want her to think that. Alex was her brother. “Please don’t, Chloe.”

I push the tea away. So much for the soothing qualities of mint. The smell is making me sick.

“How’s your family doing?” I ask softly to change the topic.

She sniffs and then chuckles, but it’s not happy. “My mom is a mess. She cries all the time. Especially when she thinks I can’t hear her. My dad has stopped crying, but he’s sad. They’re both messed up.”

“You are too,” I say.

“Yeah.” She digs inside her purse and pulls out a package of Kleenex. Wipes her nose.

“I miss the weirdest things about him. The way he would always pull my hair to get my attention. The way he would laugh obnoxiously at jokes. The way he read my
People
magazines and pretended not to. He knew all the celebrity gossip. And the stupid Hot Wheels collection that’s still in his room. I keep waiting for it to seem normal. That’s he’s gone. But it doesn’t.”

We stare at each other, and I don’t think I’ve ever looked so deeply inside someone’s soul. Felt such a connection to someone else’s inner pain.

“I didn’t tell my mom I was meeting you,” she says.

My hand automatically reaches for the locket around my neck. Chloe’s eyes go to it, but she doesn’t comment. “I understand that,” I tell her.

“Are you going back to swimming?” Her question takes me by surprise. I expect it from everyone else. Not her.

My hand moves to my braid. I twist it around my finger as I shake my head, to tell her no.

“You should,” she says. The door chimes, and she watches as someone walks in, but there’s no recognition on her face. I turn and see an older woman with frothy white hair. A black poncho is wrapped around her frail little body. She bows her head and hobbles toward the coffee counter.

“If I quit sports, I’d be lost,” Chloe tells me. “It’s the only thing that keeps me sane.”

I watch the woman at the counter, her hands shaking as she opens her purse and slowly takes out coins. I wonder why she’s having coffee alone, if someone will be meeting up with her. I hope so. As if she senses me watching, she turns, and her eyes sparkle and seem to see more than most. She smiles at me, nods her head formally, and then turns back to the zombie maid.

I turn my focus back on Chloe. Take a deep breath. “I’ve been looking into something. And I wondered if you might want to get involved. Kind of in Alex’s memory. There’s a group. NAAN. The Nut Allergy Awareness Network. They have teen chapters, but there isn’t one in our part of Washington. I’ve been looking at starting a chapter. Here. In Tadita. There’s a national walk coming up. The chapter could do lots to help raise awareness in schools. Sponsor speakers. Maybe if we put together a team, we could raise more. All of us could walk in Alex’s name? Use the money to start a website for kids with allergies. For friends and families?”

Chloe picks up her purse and clutches it tight to her chest. She shakes her head back and forth. “No. No. I can’t do that.”

The purse makes her appear even tinier. She glances around the coffee shop, and her gaze moves to the woman at the counter. “I should get going.” She glances back at me and slides out of the booth. She stands up and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Thank you for the note. I’ll see you around.”

With that she hurries toward the door.

The bell sounds as she leaves.

I stare down at the table for a moment. The bell jingles again. I glance up quickly, but it’s an older man walking through the door. He glances at me and then at the counter, and his eyes light up when he spots the woman. I smile to myself, pull on my skull cap, and head past him for the door. When I hit the pavement I start to jog. I don’t care that I’m wearing jeans and a hoodie. My body wants to move. Running helps clear my head.

I don’t think about it, but I find myself heading toward the recreation center. There are only a couple of cars in the parking lot. I decelerate down to walking and creep past the windows of the pool. The blinds are drawn and I can’t see inside, so I head toward the entrance. When my feet touch the mat the automatic doors slide open. I step through and walk past the second set of doors. The aquatic centre is to the left, the ice rinks past the reception area directly in front of me. At the registration desk, a woman is sitting on a stool in front of a computer screen. She’s wearing a sparkly orange witch hat over a long blue wig with a long black dress. She glances up and smiles. “Hey, Sam. Long time no see.”

Her name comes to me. Dawn. She’s a lifeguard and a swimmer and knows the whole Titans team by name. She fills in at the front when no one else can work. I approach the counter.

“I wasn’t sure if the place was open,” I say. There’s a gold name tag pinned to her witch costume. Dawn Murray.

“Usual hours, but since it’s Halloween, there’s no one here.” She gestures to the pool. “Titans have the pool booked, but Clair let everyone out early. There is a group of old timers playing hockey, but that’s about it.”

I smile politely.

“I’ve missed you, honey. How are you doing?” Her voice has the recognizable inflection. Concern. I guess it’s better than an accusatory glare with no comment at all.

“I’m okay, thanks.”

“You’re not swimming.” It’s not a question. She knows.

I glance at the clock on the wall above her. It’s a little past eight. It feels like it should be one o’ clock in the morning.

“You must miss it,” she says. I don’t answer.

“You can take a girl out of the water, but you can’t take the water out of the girl,” she says. “I know. I used to swim competitively.”

“That’s not even close to the saying,” I tell her.

She laughs. “I know.” She cocks her head to the side. “You wanna go in?”

My body involuntarily jumps. My cheeks flush and my heart races. I do. I want to go in. I shake my head back and forth. No. Of course I can’t go in.

“What are you doing here if you don’t want to swim?” Her voice is gentle, and I have an urge to crawl over the counter and make her hug me. I am officially pro-hugs.

“No one’s there. Marcus is lifeguarding, and he’s bored out of his mind. You’ll give him something to do. I won’t even charge you,” she says and laughs. The phone rings, and she leans over to pick it up.

The clock ticks loudly. I watch the second hand noisily move and match my breath to its beat. I think of Aunt Allie and the angels guiding her. Talk to them in your head, she’s always told me. They will hear you.

Please, angels, show me what to do.

“Samantha, you okay?” Dawn asks when she hangs up the phone.

“I don’t have my stuff,” I tell her.

“The new club suits came in a few days ago. Clair left the box in the office. I just happen to have access. And I have goggles and a cap I can lend you.”

The only person stopping me is me. I close my eyes. I imagine my dad at home and the pictures he keeps on his dresser. I think of the hours he’s volunteered at pools over the years. Driving me to early practices without complaining. Moving to a new city so I could have a better coach. And to repay him, I scrunched up his efforts and threw them away like crumpled balls of paper.

“Go on, Sam. You wandered in here for a reason. And I don’t think it was to see me. Or get a free candy.” She nods her head toward a black bowl on the counter. It’s half filled with candy. “But help yourself.” She smiles.

I hear my dad cheering in the stands. I remember him wiping away tears when I was seven and fell off the block and got my first DQ. Telling me he was proud of me for getting up there in the first place. How many thumbs-ups has he given me over the years?

Dawn jumps off her stool and disappears into the office. I think about sneaking away, but I don’t move. She pops back out and throws a blue suit at me. I reach out and grab it. There’s a white moon in the middle. I grip the fabric in my hand. Bring it up to my nose and sniff the new suit smell. A sticker on the tag says “Samantha Waxman.”

She opens a drawer by her desk and pulls out a pair of goggles and a cap. I shake my head, but she hands me the gear. Then she walks to a nearby vertical cupboard, pulls out a plain white towel, and tosses that at me too.

“Go,” she says. “Get wet. You’ll feel better.”

I don’t move.

The cap is bright pink, but I tuck my hair under it anyway and dip my toe in the water. Cold. Perfect for laps. I hope the water will thaw out the ice that lives in me. My heart pounds, as if I’ve already done a set of sprints.

Part of me is terrified. The other part wants to dive in, feel the water flow. Pull through it. Breathe. In. Out. Head down. No thoughts but a checklist of technical tasks. The sound of Clair’s voice echoes in my head. Kick. Kick. Kick.

Marcus is in the office facing the pool. He can see me through the window. He lifts his hand. Waves. I force a smile and then raise my hands over my head and leap.

I’m in.

I streamline and kick, easing into a freestyle stroke. Then I sprint to the opposite end of the pool. Feeling good, I flip-turn and push off the wall. Too soon, my body slows and struggles to find a rhythm.

I slow my pace to about fifty percent and swim another two hundred yards. My body feels like ass. It’s dragging. I’m forced to breathe every stroke. Diagnosis: officially out of shape.

My belly burns, and a rush of fear mixes with frustration. I can’t tell which is which. I’ve never been afraid of the water before. Never. I tap the end of the pool and pull myself out, tugging off the pink cap and goggles. Without a word to Marcus, I march off the pool deck, back to the locker room.

I step into the shower, turn on the water, and shiver under a blast of ice cold. It hurts, but the sensation is a familiar manifestation of my emotions. I tug the new tight suit down and drop it on the shower floor, staring at it as icy water pelts down on my head. I have to give it back to Dawn wet. Clair will know I used it. I didn’t think this through. I don’t want her to believe it’s a sign of intent.

Instead of relief or even sorrow for returning to the water, I’m brewing with anger at the way my body performed. Betrayed me, really. But fear has sunk its teeth into me too. For losing my edge. I don’t know what I expected. But it wasn’t that.

When I skulk back to the front desk, Dawn is tapping something on the computer. “So?”

I hand her the pile of wet supplies and lift my shoulders.

“It sucked, right?” she says.

“Totally sucked,” I tell her.

“It’ll take a few weeks to get it back.”

I don’t say anything to that.

“You were dragging your ass,” a voice says from behind me. I almost jump out of my skin.

“Zee,” I say. Nothing further comes to mind. He’s staring past me.

“I heard you had coffee with Chloe,” he says. As if it’s no big deal that I was swimming.

“What are you doing here? I thought you’d be at Taylor’s.” I wonder if anyone is showing up to her house.

Zee glances at Dawn, and she stands up. “I have to get something out of the office,” she says and disappears through the door.

“I don’t know,” he tells me. “I couldn’t go to Taylor’s. It’s weird.” He looks away. “I was in the skate park doing Parkour. But it got cold. So I came inside to warm up.”

Above us, the clock ticks even louder. The whir from vending machines is suddenly deafening.

“I’m glad you swam,” he says. “That’s good.”

I press my lips tight and stare at the Halloween decorations instead of him. “It sucked. I sucked.”

“Yeah, well. You haven’t been training. What’d you expect?” He walks to the counter and dips his hand in the bowl of candy.

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“No? What about Casper, he mean anything?” He pulls a wrapper off the candy and pops the whole thing in his mouth.

There’s a shout of laughter down the hall, and I see a couple of old guys in hockey skates march out of the arena into the main area, hockey sticks in their hands. They wobble on their skates to the vending machines in the hallway.

“What do you mean about Casper?” I ask cautiously, watching the guys purchase Gatorades instead of looking at Zee.

“You like him, right?”

I lift my shoulder and push my braid from my eyes. “He’s been nice to me.” The old guys open the arena door and disappear with their sports drinks.

“I guess not everyone is,” Zee says.

I turn to him. He’s got on a ball cap. A sweatshirt over his jeans. Skater shoes. It’s a basic outfit, but he makes it work better than most. Too well.

“You think?” I ask, regretting the words as soon as they come from my lips, but I can’t pluck them out of the air now.

He cracks his knuckles and grabs another candy. “But I mean, you like him, right?”

“Casper?” I shrug. “He’s okay.”

“Chloe doesn’t know about you and Casper, does she?”

I’m weirded out by this conversation. “When were you talking to Chloe?”

“She texted me. Told me you had coffee. She doesn’t know you’re going to the festival with Casper.”

“I can’t imagine why she would care.” I blink at him, not surprised he knows. Everyone knows everyone’s business in this town. “You’re going with Chloe,” I say to show him I know things too.

“Chloe and I are tight,” he says. “Because of Alex.”

His words cut deep. Neither of us says anything for a minute. I shift from foot to foot, feeling stupid and ashamed.

“Well, I should get going.” I pull my skull cap from my pocket. Tug it onto my head.

He doesn’t answer, but I start walking. The first set of doors slides open.

“Sam?” Zee calls.

I turn around.

“You got the Jelly Bellys?”

Despite everything, I smile. “It
was
you.”

He grins and then ducks his head so he’s hiding beneath the ball cap. “I really am sorry,” he says. “About everything.”

“Yeah, Zee, me too.”

The doors slide closed behind me. A whole pile of “what ifs” float in the air.