Chapter 5 Ophelia
OPHELIA
Past
Swimming Lessons
Ilove water. I love wading into the sea or any pool—the bluer the better, the deeper the better, but I only ever stay in the shallows.
Technically, I can swim. I know how I’m supposed to move in the water, at least. Dad has insisted on lessons.
Five years’ worth of them. But there’s something inside me that just won’t let me go deeper.
I’m five-feet-four-inches now, and I won’t even swim out to six feet even though I know that if I were to go under and panic, all I’d have to do is kick off the bottom and I’d resurface.
I know this in my head, but no matter what, I cannot get my limbs to move, to do what I know how to do as soon as I can’t feel the bottom.
It's weird. Everyone swims. It’s embarrassing.
“Phee,” Ethan says, coming up behind me and settling next to me at the pool. He hands me a beer, and I take it, although I don’t really want it. Sometimes I think he forgets I’m two years younger than him.
He taps his bottle to mine and takes a big swallow of his.
I glance up at the top of my house, which I can see over the tall fence the Foxes had erected between the properties, and take a small sip.
Dad would not like to know I was drinking a beer, especially around water, but I remind myself he’s not home.
He’s out with the Foxes, and Tonia is visiting her sister in Portsmouth.
Her sister has been going through a divorce and Tonia’s helping out, so she’s gone most weekends now.
“Warm enough?” Ethan asks, setting his beer down and wrapping an arm around me.
I nod, liking the feel of him this close.
It’s almost nine at night but it’s August, so the temperature is perfect for swimming lessons.
Today is my fifteenth birthday, and this is Ethan’s birthday gift to me.
I have a feeling he came up with this idea at the last minute when he forgot it was my birthday, but he’s seventeen now and getting ready for college so I get it.
“Good. Cute suit, by the way.”
His green eyes skim over me, and I feel myself blush a little. I know Ethan’s reputation at school. There is no shortage of older, prettier girls with actual boobs that flirt with him any chance they get. Flirt and more. I’ve heard the stories.
“Thanks,” I say. “Your mom took me shopping to get it for my birthday. I am not sure my dad was too pleased, to be honest.” It’s a two-piece crocheted suit in a rainbow of colors, but it’s skimpy. I think seeing me in it this afternoon, Dad realized I’m not a little girl anymore.
Ethan’s grin widens. “I get why.” He waggles his eyebrows, and my blush deepens. “You better watch the boys, Phee. I see how they look at you.” He drinks a sip of his beer and slides into the pool, the water coming to his stomach here.
“No boys look at me, Ethan.”
He faces me, then pushes my knees apart and stands between them, flexing his muscles. He’s been working out, and you can really see it.
“All you have to do is lose these.” He reaches to slip my glasses off my face and sets them aside. “There. That’s better. You have pretty eyes, Phee. You should get contacts.”
“Maybe,” I say, squinting a little. I’m not blind, but there’s a lot of blurring without my glasses, and contacts irritate my eyes.
He sets his hands on my hips, thumbs coming to my hip creases, his face dimpling as he licks his lips. Then, without breaking eye-contact, he reaches for his beer and drains the bottle. “Ready for your lesson?”
“I think so,” I say, yelping and setting my hands on his shoulders as he lifts me up, muscles bulging, and draws me down into the pool. My breath catches when cool water reaches my belly, and when he wraps his arms around my waist as my feet touch down, I hug him.
Ethan and I have been getting closer—not close, but he’s definitely taken more notice of me these last few months.
We’re just friends, of course. I’m too young in his eyes.
But the few times we do get to hang out together when he doesn’t have friends over, I feel like he gives me all his attention, and it feels nice.
Admittedly, I’m at his house more often than he is, especially with Dad and Mr. Fox doing so much business together and Tonia helping out her sister. I don’t mind it. Esmerelda, Silas’s mom, is a lot like Tonia, and I sit in the kitchen with her doing homework mostly and just talking.
“Okay, here we go, Phee,” Ethan starts, walking backwards across the pool.
I keep my arms around his neck as the water gets deeper. He’s smiling, hands hooked behind my back. I’m smiling too, but I’m also a little nervous.
“Not bad, right?” he says.
I’m standing on tiptoe to keep my head above water. “Can we go back to the shallow end?”
“You’ll never learn how to swim if you stay in the shallows, Phee.” He takes another step back, and I hug him tighter when I can’t touch the bottom anymore. “It’s all right. I got you, baby.”
Baby.
That’s new.
I nod, trying to smile, trying to be a little more grown up like the girls he’s used to hanging out with.
“Here, I’m going to lift you up, so you just float on your back.”
“Don’t let me go!” I say, catching my breath as he puts his hands at my back and stands there while I float.
“That’s it. Not too hard, right? Just relax. Don’t forget to breathe.”
“We never look up at the sky,” I say.
“Mhm,” he says absently and traces my belly button.
“It’s weird, right? Human beings, I mean. We’re always looking down or ahead, and it’s so pretty up there. There’s a whole beautiful world right over our heads.”
He looks at me, but I don’t dare turn my head. I focus on breathing, trying to relax.
“Ever been kissed, Phee?” he asks, his hands coming to my hips to pull me upright. We’re at the deepest part of the pool now and I gasp, hugging his neck, trying not to look down at how far the bottom is.
“What?”
He swims us toward the wall, and I feel a little better with its solidity at my back.
“Just a sec,” he says and dashes a little way away.
“Ethan!” I grip the edge of the pool tight.
He reaches out of the pool to grab my bottle of beer and drinks a big swallow. “You don’t mind, do you?”
I shake my head. I just want to get out now. If I look down at my feet floating there, I think I will go into a panic, and it would be very embarrassing.
“Can we get out?” I ask as he swims back to me.
“Oh, baby, you’re cold.” He wraps his arms around me.
“I want to get out.”
“Answer me first,” he says, touching my chin, turning my face to look up at him.
“What?”
“Ever been kissed?”
I search his eyes, the green darker now, his jaw strong with blond stubble dusting it. His coloring is from his mom, but his jawline and nose are all Mr. Fox. That dimple though when he smiles, that’s just Ethan.
I shake my head, my heart pounding.
“Would you like to be?”
“Now?”
He shrugs a shoulder, one eyebrow rising, teeth white when he smiles.
“I think so,” I say.
“Me too,” he says, and leans in to kiss my mouth.
I close my eyes, feel the cool water, taste chlorine and beer.
I feel something else too, hard against my stomach.
With a groan, he draws back and presses his forehead to mine.
“I like you, Phee. You’re sweet,” he says.
“But you’re also jailbait, so we’re going to have to wait a while. ”
I blink, a little dazed honestly. Ethan is technically almost an adult, and he can literally have any girl he wants. He likes me?
A phone rings, and I realize it’s Ethan’s. He left it on one of the lounge chairs. He pushes back from the wall, swims to the other end and climbs out. He answers the phone, keeping his back to me for a minute.
“Hey Anya.” He glances at me, then holds up a finger to tell me he’ll be right back.
“Wait!” I call out, but he’s already halfway to the house, and I’m not sure he hears me because he’s laughing at something Anya said. “Ethan, wait!” I crane my neck, my back against the wall, my elbows up outside the pool edge holding me up. “Ethan!” But he goes inside without looking back.
I take a deep breath in and close my eyes. I can do this. It’s fine. He’ll be right back. All I have to do is turn around and I can climb out. It’s easy, I can do it.
Swallowing hard, I open my eyes and I don’t let myself look down. That’s always when the panic hits. When I can see how deep the water goes.
I’m shaking, and I taste the salt of a tear as I try to get myself to move. One tiny movement followed by another and another. I can do this.
But when I manage to turn, my panic intensifies because I can’t not look down. Frozen, I cling to the wall by my fingertips and close my eyes and try not to hyperventilate.
I can’t do this. I can’t.
“Ethan?” I try calling out, but my voice is choked.
I hear a car door somewhere, but I still don’t open my eyes. Footsteps. An unfamiliar woman’s soft laughter. When I open my eyes, it’s not Ethan I see. It’s Silas Cruz.
He stops when he sees me, like he doesn’t expect me to be there. The woman beside him is still talking but the smile drops off her face when she sees his expression.
“Ophelia? What the…” he starts, then, as if something clicks in his brain, he tears off across the lawn, rips off his T-shirt and jumps into the deep end.
I let out a scream when my hands slip from the pool wall, and I go under, panic taking over my brain and my legs and arms doing everything wrong. I swallow water, thrashing, until strong arms wrap around me, and one powerful kick has us catapulting to the surface.
“Oh my God! Is she all right?” the woman asks as Silas lifts me out of the pool, then climbs out himself.
I’m coughing, choking up water and trying to wipe it from my eyes.
“Ophelia? You’re all right. Hey. You’re okay. Look at me. Look at me, O.” Silas’s hands are on me, he’s pushing hair back from my face, and when I open my eyes, I see his. I see his beautiful sea-colored eyes full of concern and then, when my pupils focus and I blink, relief.