Chapter Three
Julia
Hanging out at the pool in June is my favorite.
The temperature isn’t yet unbearable, and the water is still too chilly for most, which means plenty of open chairs.
We head to the other side of the guardhouse where we have a view of the entire pool deck.
Chloe snags the lounge chair to my left, and Tyler claims the one to my right.
Alex tosses her bag on the chair beside Tyler, both of them excited about the new water basketball hoop the pool installed in the offseason.
“Damn girl, what were you doing in Europe?”
Alex stands at the base of her lounge chair clutching her Cincinnati Reds T-shirt and glances down at herself in confusion.
The navy blue bikini top looks great against her slightly tanned skin and showcases the brand-new lines intersecting across her stomach.
She’s always been slim, but now, she’s toned.
I let my gaze roam up and across her stomach all the way to her equally defined arms.
What was she doing in Europe?
“I don’t know,” she says, still confused. “Ran. Swam. Ate good food and drank a lot of wine.” Her eyes meet mine, and I swallow and look away, wondering why I feel like I need to dive into the cold water.
Tyler rips off his shirt and tosses it on his chair, and I immediately look at him. His body is smooth and muscular, his intense baseball regiment keeping him in amazing shape. Where Alex’s new abs are subtle, Tyler’s are cut, as if chiseled by the fitness gods.
It makes me wonder why I keep stealing glances at Alex instead.
“Must be a bummer that you can’t legally drink here,” Tyler says sympathetically.
She smirks. “Legally being the key word.”
He laughs and holds out his fist, which Alex bumps with her own. This time, when our eyes meet, I don’t look away.
“Jules, do you mind putting lotion on my back?”
Chloe holds out her half suntan lotion, half tanning oil contradiction in front of me, and I take it, grateful for the distraction and wondering why I need one in the first place.
A Twizzler hangs out of Chloe’s mouth while she fills out a quiz called “How Well Do You Know Your Bestie?”
“You look like a mom,” I tell her while she scribbles on one of the pages.
Even through her oversized sunglasses, I can tell she’s shooting daggers at me.
“Don’t you ever say that again.” I chuckle and drag my fingertips along the top of the water.
It’s gotten hot, but neither Chloe nor I want to actually get in.
We settle instead for sitting on the edge and letting our legs dangle inside the cool liquid.
“Favorite color?” She reads aloud. “Easy. Teal.”
I nod, though I’m not supposed to be giving her any hints on whether or not she’s right since she’s filling it out about me.
While she jots down her answer, I watch Alex dive in front of Tyler and block him from making a shot, swatting the ball across the pool in an almost embarrassing display of defeat.
I can hear her yell “Ha!” and it makes me smile.
“Who is their crush?” Chloe reads aloud. “Tyler,” she mumbles. “Star sign. Oh, you’re the definition of a Pisces. These are super easy. They should have one that’s like, ‘What’s their deepest darkest secret?’ ”
“I don’t have any deep or dark secrets,” I tell her and watch Alex block another shot. It’s amusing how bad Tyler is at water basketball.
“Sure you don’t,” Chloe mutters.
Tyler hangs his head to go retrieve the ball, and Alex swims over to us. “Having fun?” I ask.
“Sure am.” She gently splashes some water on my legs, and I shriek at how cold it feels. She does it a couple more times until the shock wears down and settles into something soothing, the heat of my skin cooling and making me shiver.
“Favorite season?”
Alex glances from Chloe to me. “Is she asking me or you?”
“She’s filling out a quiz about me,” I tell her.
“Your favorite season is spring,” Alex says easily and starts to float on her back. “You like it when the flowers poke out of the snow. New growth, fresh starts, all that cheesy crap.”
“Hey!” I kick at her legs, making her sink. “It’s not crap.”
“Last question,” Chloe cuts in. “What color are your bestie’s eyes?”
Alex looks at me, and I press my sunglasses to my face, making sure my eyes are totally covered. She swims closer and presses her back against the wall. “The outer parts are blue and around the iris is green. Kind of like where a deep blue ocean meets vibrant green sea grass.”
Always thinking of my eyes as just plain blue, I stare at Alex, speechless and surprised.
“Okay,” Chloe says, stretching out the word. “I’m just going to put blue.”
Alex’s description rolls around in my head.
She offers me an almost shy smile, and I tilt my head as if asking: where did that come from?
She responds with a shrug and watches Tyler slowly make his way over.
The whistle blows, signaling the top of the hour and the end of adult-only swim, and a bunch of kids excitedly jump into the pool.
Chloe tosses the magazine and pen beside me. “Grade us.”
I’m not sure why she’s making me go through the answers—I know what she put when she called them out—but I do what I’m told and put little check marks next to each question. At least until I reach the last one. The pen hovers over the page, and I stare at the word “blue.”
Where a deep blue ocean meets vibrant green sea grass.
I put a large X next to the answer, then toss the magazine back. “You missed one.”
“What?” Outraged, Chloe snatches the magazine and scans the page of questions. “Which one?”
“My eyes are not blue,” I say matter-of-factly. “They are a blend of blue and green.”
Chloe throws the magazine back at me. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Tyler pulls himself out of the pool and sits beside me. He leans close and quickly runs his hands back and forth in his hair, and I squeal, pushing him away when water droplets splash all over me. “Another quiz?” he asks.
“They’re fun,” Chloe says, reaching for the sopping wet magazine. “Speaking of,” she flings the magazine toward our lounge chairs, “what color are your girlfriend’s eyes?”
Tyler looks a little startled and glances from me to Chloe, who gives him a daring kind of smirk. “Uh, blue?”
“Are you asking?” Chloe challenges.
Panic-stricken, Tyler stares at me, and I wait. “Blue. Definitely blue.” When no one says anything, he doesn’t seem so sure. “Right?”
I pat his leg reassuringly. “Right.” He sighs, relieved that he managed to pass Chloe’s sudden test, and I give her a disapproving look, but she’s staring at something across the pool.
“Is that Wyatt McCann?”
“What? No way.” Alex looks to see for herself.
“Where?” I ask, trying to follow Chloe’s line of sight.
And sure enough, a flash of floppy red hair catches my attention, and I sink a little lower to try to disappear.
“Oh my God.” It’s been about four years since I’ve seen him and even longer since we’ve spoken, but somehow, the sight of him still makes me want to hide.
“Who’s Wyatt McCann?” Tyler asks, craning his neck to see who we’re talking about.
Chloe continues to stare, her expression somewhere between delighted and surprised. “Julia’s old boyfriend.”
“For, like, a week,” I tell Tyler. “We were twelve.”
Chloe leans around me and stage-whispers, “He dumped her for Lily Felton because she had bigger boobs.” I smack Chloe on the shoulder because I don’t need the reminder, and I really don’t need Tyler hearing that.
It’s just as embarrassing now as it was then.
Even if my breasts have filled out nicely, thank you very much.
“Debatable,” Alex says and stands in front of me like a human shield. I put my arms over her shoulders and lean forward, resting my chin on top of her head.
Wyatt hovers near the deep end with two girls and another guy I’ve never seen before.
He’s a little scrawny, very pale, and looks as if he hasn’t showered in days.
I scrunch my nose. We were only twelve, and even then, I never had any grand ideas that we’d last through sixth grade, let alone middle school, but somehow, I still feel as though I’ve dodged a bullet.
“Did he go to Welton?” Tyler asks, eyeing him a little more suspiciously now that he knows a piece of my middle school history.
“Nah,” Alex answers. “He was funneled to Spring Hills.”
“He was my very first boyfriend,” I say, thinking back to how excited I was to find out that he liked me back.
“And the worst,” Chloe supplies.
“Also debatable,” Alex adds, and I smile. I’m fairly certain that other than Tyler, Alex has disliked everyone I’ve ever dated or shown interest in.
“He gave me this gold necklace with a little jewel on it,” I explain, trying to give Tyler a little more context. “But when he dumped me, he asked for it back to give to Lily.”
“Because she had bigger boobs?” he says, trying hard to keep up. “I’m sorry, babe. Want me to go punch him?”
“Alex already tried that.” I squeeze Alex’s arms and drop a kiss on the top of her head before pulling away.
“He was a dick,” she says casually, as if Chloe and I didn’t have to physically hold her back from marching across the pool deck and knocking him to the next state over.
“He was a hormonal preteen,” I amend when Alex turns to face me. It’s easier to forgive in hindsight. Even if, at the time, it did feel like he threw my heart into a blender.
I take the bow and arrow pendant dangling from the silver chain around my neck between my fingers and fall into a memory of later that night, when Alex threw rocks at my bedroom window and asked me to meet her outside.
We sat on the swings on my backyard swing set and she unhooked this chain around her neck and fastened it around mine.
You’re way cooler than Lily Felton. And prettier, too. I just wanted you to know how special you are and that you deserve to have your own necklace. You also deserve way better than stupid Wyatt McCann.