Chapter 11
ELEVEN
GWENNA
The lake looks as cold and miserable as I feel.
It’s the color of iron, but smooth, unlike the churned-up clouds of the sky overhead. I shiver, despite the coverage of the wetsuit that, improbably, Morgan not only owns, but let me borrow. It covers my scars, and apparently adds buoyancy to boot, which will help, because I sink like a stone.
Too late, I realize I should have brought a swim cap, or at least a hair tie.
It’ll be ridiculous trying to thrash my way through the water with my hair loose, but I don’t have time to go back now.
I already had to reroute when I got to the field house and saw the notice on the door: SWIM TEST STUDENTS PLEASE PROCEED TO SOUTHWEST SHORE . I’m lucky I’m even close to on time.
On the surface, a row of orange buoys bob up and down like cereal marshmallows in milk, and I idly wonder what the actual test is. Out and back, laps, treading water. I rub my upper arms.
In front of me, there’s a small plaque sunk into the face of a rock—a name and a few lines of Latin in simple brass.
Vivian Thorne
Loved much, lost too soon .
Custodiat hunc locum amoenum in eterna.
May she watch over this lovely place for eternity.
It’s a nice sentiment, until I remember the rumors that someone drowned in this lake. Was it her? And they put a memorial up right by the lake ? That’s downright macabre.
“And…there you are.”
The voice behind me is cold and sharp as broken glass.
I turn and my stomach drops.
Pacing out from the field house, clad in a red one-piece, is Elena. Her brown hair is scooped back into a perfect ponytail, and her beautifully shaped brows are drawn.
Oh no , I think. She’s taking the test with me? But she’s been here for weeks. She should have ? —
She lifts her arm to reveal a clipboard, a stopwatch, and my stomach plunges further.
No , I think. Of course she’s not taking the test. She’s proctoring it.
“Welcome to your physical fitness test,” she says, the barest hint of heat creeping into her words.
I look around us. Are we being watched? Monitored? Who proctors the proctors? I think idly, a bit of dark humor as I stare out into the choppy surface of the lake.
My stomach tightens.
I don’t want to do this.
Even more than I didn’t want to do it before.
I should say something. I have to say something.
“Elena, about the other night,” I start. “I?—”
“ Save it .” The words are all but barked out.
Elena looks up at me, eyes fierce, but then her expression softens.
“I mean…” She clears her throat. “Just…don’t worry about it, Gwenna.
I was…overreacting. Had too much to drink.
” She smiles, tips her head. “And I certainly didn’t realize you had the whole fencing team behind you. ”
Neither did I, I think. I wait for her to say something more, but she doesn’t. I’m halfway to forming some words myself when she jumps back in.
“Before we begin, I have to ask you some questions.” Elena clicks her pen. “You are…Gwenna?” She says my name like it tastes bad.
I nod. “Yes.” Although how I wish I wasn’t.
Suddenly, I wonder if this is even worth it. The swim test. The semester. Proving myself at all.
I could give up. I could go home.
I could let them win.
“Question two,” Elena interrupts my train of thoughts. “Can you swim?”
“Y-Yes,” I stammer.
Instantly, she looks up.
“Yes?” she says. “Or no?”
“Um—”
“It’s a simple question,” she practically snaps. “Can you, or can’t you?”
“I can…” I don’t know how to finish the sentence. I’ve never swum a lap for a race, or even just for exercise, but I’ve been in bodies of water and survived. “I can not drown,” I say at last.
Elena sets her jaw. But her eyes brighten.
“Interesting,” she says, tapping her clipboard with the pen.
“Interesting?” I echo.
“I’m only supposed to administer this if you confirm that you can swim. Otherwise, it’s too dangerous.” A little smile creeps over her lips. “I’m sure you’ll do fine. I’m a certified lifeguard, after all. I would never let someone innocent drown.”
I choose to ignore the adjective. But a slow panic is feeding into my skin, taking over me from the bottom up, from where my sneakers are uneven on the sand to the crown of my head being ruffled by the lakeside wind.
Like her sweetness is all an act .
Like I’m about to make a mistake.
“The test is,” Elena goes on, “swim to the furthest buoy and back, and do it under the time limit.”
“Time limit?” I repeat. “Which is?”
“Fifteen minutes,” she says, almost laughing. “You think you can manage it?”
“Yes,” I say, this time with more confidence than I feel.
Fifteen minutes is an eternity, I tell myself.
And the buoys are…I squint. I’ve never been a good judge of distance based on eyesight alone.
Fifty yards? Maybe a hundred? Walking it would be no problem.
Running it, even. Swimming the greenish water of the lake that’s lapping at the sand… that, I’m less certain about.
“Oh, and you’ll need to…” She eyes me up and down. “You can’t wear a wetsuit.”
“What?” My stomach sinks. “Why not?”
“They help you float,” Elena says simply. “That’d be cheating.” She tips her head. “You do have a normal swimsuit under there, don’t you?”
I do. But.
“Your time starts,” Elena says, unceremoniously, and holds up a stopwatch. “Now.”
She clicks the button with a thumb, then frowns down at her stopwatch in confusion. “Oh, would you look at that?” she says, and holds out the tiny screen. “Seems I already started it. You’ve only got ten minutes left.”
I clench my fists. Shift my weight from foot to foot.
No, I decide. I don’t trust her. I shouldn’t trust her. With her here, this isn’t even a swim test anymore. It’s a setup, a trial of more than my ability to swim, and one that I know for certain that Elena wants me to fail—no matter how giggly she is about it.
“Tick tock,” she says, waggling her stopwatch. “You’re down to nine and a half minutes. ”
My muscles stiffen involuntarily. Fifteen was brisk but generous. Under ten will be a push.
But what choice do I have?
I reach for the long-tailed zipper at the back of my neck and slowly pull it down, peeling the wetsuit from my body.
I can feel her staring, know she is, even without looking, because who wouldn’t?
My body’s a testament to everything that’s wrong with me.
And now she sees it.
Just get it over with.
Toeing out of my sneakers, I step to the edge of the water. It’s cold, bracingly so, but I have no choice. There’s no going back.
I go in up to my ankles, take a deep, deep breath, and spring forward.
It’s not an elegant dive, more of a belly flop with my hands out forward, but it’s something. A plunge, head first, a sign that I’m going to try.
The water eats me. Cold as an acid burn, Morgan’s swimsuit pasted to my skin, and I gasp as I emerge, hair streaming behind me. Before me, the buoys bob in an obedient line, a garish orange against the steel gray, and I suck in another breath, resolute.
Be normal , I tell myself.
I surge forward with my right arm, then my left, face just kissing the edge of the water as I do the freestyle. My middle school swim lessons feel like a lifetime ago, from the lifetime of a different person, and in a way they were.
But I’ve remembered enough to move forward. I’ve remembered enough to keep going. To not drown.
And that’s what I’m going to show Elena. To show everyone.
I slice forward—right, left, right, breathe ; right, left, right, breathe —and chance a look ahead when I emerge.
I’ve barely gone anywhere. Surpassed maybe one and a half of the buoys, and there’s another half dozen or more to go. My muscles lock—from nerves or from the cold, I can’t tell.
But I refuse to stop moving.
I thrust my chest forward again, pulling with my arms, pushing at the water, wasting energy, I know, judging by the froth I’m stirring up. Right, left, right. I open my eyes again, and this time it truly feels like I’ve gone nowhere, except for the fact that the sandy bottom has dropped away.
In its place, a void has opened beneath me. Like I’m floating on top of an abyss.
The cold tightens around me. My chest constricts around my organs like my ribcage is a closing bear trap. And maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear I can feel a pulse of pain in the two scarred slashes just above my heart.
No , I think. No . I’m not going to fail. I’m not going to give her or anyone else the satisfaction.
But I’m sinking, sagging, and I can feel it.
My hips are dragging. My feet are stumbling against waves and currents rather than kicking at the surface and powering me forward.
And all the while, I hear nothing, nothing but the muffled scattering of drops and the frantic panting of my own breathing.
Nothing from Elena, no time markers, no words of encouragement, obviously, and no indication that she’ll save me if it comes to that.
And it might be coming to that.
It’s too cold, I think. Too cold to swim in. Too, too cold. How quickly does hypothermia set in?
Left, right, left, right?—
I’m seesawing now from side to side, not keeping myself flat like I know I should, but I’m fighting my instincts. My body wants to contract, to shiver. To warm up the blood flow in those organs.
And I can’t. Not if I want to move forward. I can’t indulge a moment of care for myself. I have to push, I have to? —
I slip under.
For a second, it’s so calm. Still. A weightless, breathless silence. Nothing to see. Nothing to hear. Nothing but the sensation of my hair fanning out around me like a spectral mermaid.
No.
The word flashes in my mind’s eye like a firework, like a sudden vision.
No, I can’t. I can’t give that to Elena, to my mother, to the rest of them.
No. No. No.
I may not be brave, but I am angry. And that will have to be enough.