Chapter Twenty-Seven. Melanie
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MELANIE
It’s only Dad, Hannah, and me left in the Amenity Center parking lot, after I got roped in to help Kennedy Claire do all the cleanup from orientation. I don’t mind though. I like feeling helpful.
“I shouldn’t have gotten between you two,” I say to Dad as I stand outside my car. Hannah’s already in the passenger seat, air conditioner blowing, two thumbs on her phone.
“No, Mel,” he says and sighs. “I’m sorry I snapped. I was just worried, is all. What you did was brave. It was the right thing to do.”
When I was little, Daddy used to always tell me that being brave was just doing the hard, right thing. The way he sees it, you do the right thing, no matter what.
He stoops to pick up a stray bottle cap and shakes his head. Under his breath, he mumbles, “Abel’s a damn idiot,” before tucking the trash into his pocket.
But I know he’s not picturing Abel from the orientation today.
He’s picturing Abel from when they used to meet for coffee every Friday.
Thinking of the man who had been his friend.
That’s why he can’t respect Abel, can’t forgive him.
Because Abel chose to protect his son instead of letting justice run its course.
Because he didn’t do the hard, right thing.
In high school, I was a tech theater kid, and we were in charge of the sets and lights for the Miss Lone Star Princess pageant.
By then we were seniors, and Kennedy Claire and Iggy had mostly left me alone. So when we were all together in the auditorium, me painting a backdrop and them pacing the stage for practice, they largely ignored me, as if I were nothing more than furniture.
But then one afternoon, after they’d finished practicing, we found ourselves walking out to the parking lot at the same time—just me, Iggy, and Kennedy Claire.
Us and some of the girls are gonna float the river, Kennedy Claire said. Want to come?
Me?
She exchanged a look with Iggy, who climbed into the passenger seat of Kennedy Claire’s Jeep. Yes, you. Who else am I talking to?
They didn’t snicker, like it was all some joke. Iggy didn’t make a remark about how I might look in a swimsuit, how I might sink the inner tube.
So I said yes. After going home to change, they picked me up in the Jeep.
The top and doors were off, all three of us singing Britney Spears at the top of our voices, wind whipping our hair, and I felt happy, soft around the edges like a sun-drenched photo.
And that feeling stayed all the way down the river, the warmth of the air, the heat on the backs of my eyelids, the gentle sway of the water, the light conversation.
When we got to The Hollow, we pulled the inner tubes onto the bank.
Kennedy Claire stood on the rock ledge and untied the knots of her bikini top and tossed it aside.
Then she wiggled out of her bottoms. I couldn’t help noticing her body, so unlike mine, the long legs, the slim waist and the way it folded rather than rolled as she pulled the bottoms down to her feet.
She caught me looking and winked, then leapt into the well with a splash. Come on, girls. It’s tradition.
In Anhalt, for as long as anyone could remember, kids skinny-dipped in The Hollow, at least once, before graduation. A rite of passage.
Iggy didn’t hesitate. She stripped off her bathing suit and jumped in to join Kennedy Claire. And the other girls followed, one by one like a group of penguins jumping into the Arctic, until I was left standing alone.
Come on, Mel, they said. Not Melanie. Not Melon-ball. But Mel. What my friends called me.
I don’t know. I hadn’t even been brave enough to take off my oversized T-shirt.
We won’t look, Kennedy Claire said, spinning in the water. When else will you get the chance? she called out, facing away.
Iggy and the other girls turned around as well.
With their backs to me, I took off my clothes in a hurry, sat down, and lowered myself into the water.
You actually did it, Kennedy Claire said, and she sounded kind of impressed, and that happiness bloomed brighter.
The water in The Hollow was clear and cool and delicious.
As I flapped my arms, kicked my legs to stay afloat, the bubbles tickled up every inch of me.
I was weightless. We started taking turns swimming deep down into the well.
The first time, I dove under just enough to wet my hair.
I don’t know why, but I felt sexy for the first time in my life.
All of us giggling, the shifting water barely hiding our breasts.
As if, somehow, the water itself connected us, our nakedness, and I could borrow some of their beauty.
The girls pushed me to go down farther, and I did, letting the silence envelop me, feeling the cold increasing as I slipped away from the sun.
I stayed as long as I could, until my ears popped, until I could feel the pulse behind my eyes.
When I burst back up, gasping, everyone was gone.
I spun, disoriented. The ledge was empty. No tubes or bikinis.
On the river, the girls floated off, laughing, some still tugging on their bathing suits. Iggy held up the rope to my tube, dragging it along. In her other hand, high up above her head, she held my dripping clothes like a prize.
All that warm, honeyed happiness drained out of me in an instant, leaving my body raw and cold.
Come on, guys, I called, arms crossing over my chest as I treaded water. My voice cracked into a whimper.
They just laughed harder, paddled faster, putting more distance between us as they floated away.
Please. The word shrank with each repetition, smaller and smaller. Please, please, please.
Until they were gone. And I was alone.
Now I give Dad a squeeze and climb into the driver’s seat, and Hannah and I weave our way through the winding roads of Sherman Ranch along the river.
Hannah is still immersed in her phone when we come upon the bend, when the river widens into The Hollow, the limestone ledges bleached by sun.
The well, an unblinking eye of sapphire blue.
I flex my fingers on the wheel, swallow back that feeling of bile rising up my esophagus.
Hannah looks up from her phone. “Everyone is talking about how badass you are, Mom,” she says, and I can hear the pride in her voice. “I mean, where did that even come from?”
I have never been a brave person. But I look at Hannah now, at her new shiny, soft curls, at the makeup she’s used to cover the freckles that normally scatter her cheeks.
Babies aren’t born with freckles, you know?
I watched each appear on her face, the way you watch the stars appear in a sky sliding from dusk to evening.
Dad says being brave is doing the hard, right thing.
But I know, with absolute clarity, that I would do anything—even the wrong thing—if it meant protecting my daughter.