You Know Me Better Than That (A Short Story) (3 page)

Jessie:
How would you know I wasn’t lying?

Miranda:
From your face. It’s always in the face.

Jessie:
Well, I don’t gamble.

Miranda:
You’re missing out. It’s one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Anyway, Wil and Lisbeth had been together for a year by the summer before my senior year. One day, a family friend stopped by, that guy Ellery, who babysat us when we were little. He was a senior at UT and looked like an Ellery, stout but short for a Texas boy. He was handsome, just not my type. Wil called four times that afternoon, and I answered three of those calls, since Ellery and Lisbeth were obviously not going to. Not that I had any idea what they were up to, just that my sister totally refused to pick up the phone.

The first time, it was simple. It hadn’t even felt like lying: “Nope, not here. Can I take a message?” The second time, Lisbeth said to tell him she’d gone to The Springs for a girls’ day. The third time, I heard the phone ring but I was in the shower. And the fourth time, I walked away from the phone to get her. She told me to say she’d be home soon.

I left for my night at the pool. It was after eight and the sky was violet when Wil showed up. I wasn’t exactly surprised to see him. I’d just finished patrolling the perimeter for junk, and I was dumping everyone’s shit into a trash vat near the shallow end.

“Tell me a story,” Wil said, kicking off his flip-flops.

I hadn’t been keeping up with
Your World
that summer. We were busy. I’d saved a drowning five-year-old at the bottom of the shallow end the week before. Four feet deep and I could barely make out her shape the water was so dark. Her family hadn’t even noticed she was gone.

“I don’t have one,” I said. He was edging me toward the rim of the pool.

“She wasn’t here,” he said. “I came earlier, and she wasn’t here. We were supposed to drive to Galveston today, and all of her friends were here, but she wasn’t. They said she was with some guy. When I called the last time, you said she was there and you went to get her, and when you came back, you’d changed your mind. I may not be smart like you, Miranda, but I’m not a fucking idiot.”

He stepped forward like he wanted to get a better look at me, his face an inch from mine, mouthwash on his breath. I’d never felt so close to being close to him, but I also thought he might hit me.

“You look so similar close up,” he whispered.

I remember he stood there, breathing mint into my face, waiting for me to do something. When he turned to go, I touched his arm, and he jerked it away and said, “You’re such a good sister.” That made me feel dirty. Then he muttered something I didn’t hear, like: “I see through you, Mira,” or “I see you, Mira,” or just “I see.” I couldn’t tell.

So I pushed him. I shoved him hard, and he stumbled before diving into the shallow end.

I think maybe he was crying, and that’s why he’d turned from me. I knew he’d rammed into the bottom with that dive, cracked his head open, but the real reason I dove in after him was because it felt like he was running away from us, not just what
we
had, but what the three of us had.

I could see him a couple yards off, drifting faceup at the bottom, and it made me happy. I swam through the dark water. It tasted cold and coppery, like a penny.

His eyes were open, and blood was fanning out into his hair. He blinked and turned his head, like he wanted me to leave. He looked relaxed. Maybe he meant to stay down there. But if he did, I wanted to be close to him before his lungs filled. I loved that Luke Wilson was letting me save him.

I grabbed his face and closed my eyes and kissed around his mouth. I felt the dip in his upper lip—he hadn’t shaved that morning—and I slid an arm around his waist, flattening his chest against mine, like if I were lying on top of him.

My fingers ran up his neck, up through his hair. There was a tear at the crown of his head, a flap of skin, and I let my fingers slide inside the wound, then out. The water was warmer there. I pressed my palm on his skull, to stop the blood, and I thought I felt him kiss me back. I say
thought
, though, because when I pulled away, his eyes were murky and his arms hung loose. I was drowning him.

Now comes the part you know: CPR, coughing, a two-inch gash at the top of his head. She barely spoke to me after that.

Jessie:
Who?

Miranda:
I have no idea what she heard, if he ever told her. There were no more trips to the pool after that. He was the last of us. She had her license by then anyway, so maybe I’m imagining the connection, maybe it was just growing up. No one says your little sister has to like you. It’s just blood. That’s another good title: “It’s Just Blood.” Of course, you’re probably going to go with something more like “Harebrained Poet Miranda Davis on Hollywood Hunk Luke Wilson: Sibling Rivalry and a Rumor the Size of Texas!”
and
I wouldn’t blame you, Jessica. I just want her to have the story.

You know, if Wil had become an accountant, he wouldn’t matter to you, but he’d still matter to us. Wil belonged to Lisbeth and he belonged to me, and we both nearly killed him, but only I saved him.

Anyway, what was your ending? I think you owe me lunch.

Jessie,

Sorry to hear your first interview was so challenging! We should have suspected, but we can find someone else, no problem. Plenty of people knew Luke Wilson and would have an uplifting story to tell, so don’t worry about it! This honestly happens all the time. Too bad her sister refused to play ball.

—E