Chapter 51
“Alex!” A scream rips from my throat. Panicked, I stumble down the stairs, missing the last step and twisting my ankle in my haste. I force myself up with a gasp. I can’t get to her fast enough.
“Alex!” I yell again. Ignoring the sharp stabs of pain, I hobble across the pebbled beach, kick off my sandals and drop my phone, and wade into the water frantically, heedless of my orange mod print dress, which instantly plasters itself to my body and slows my progress.
“Alex?” I yell again. Alex isn’t moving.
She’s still face down in the water. My heart is pounding so hard in my ears I can hardly hear my own voice.
I’m straining against the water, thrashing, trying to get to her as fast as I can.
“Oh God, please don’t let it be too late.” I plunge forward, lunge the last few steps and grab her around the waist, hauling her up with a grunt of effort. She’s surprisingly heavy.
And surprisingly conscious. When my arms close around her, her entire body reacts as though she’s being electrified.
She comes up out of the water with a shriek so loud it could raise the dead, flailing around and almost hitting me in the face.
I rear back instinctively. “Alex, it’s me,” I yell, my feet scrabbling for a foothold on the loose pebbles at the bottom of the lake.
My sprained ankle throbs in agony at the movement.
Alex claws her way free from my grasp and turns on me, eyes wide and wild. We stand chest deep in the water, facing each other, dripping and gasping for air.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand at the same moment she cries, “Why did you grab me?”
I stare at her in shock. “I thought you were drowning!” I retort, my panic slowly melting to a righteous sort of indignation. I put my hands on my hips.
Alex crosses her arms and looks sulky. “I was watching the little silver fish,” she says, her tone unapologetic. “You scared them away.” She actually sounds sort of accusing, which is galling.
“I was trying to save you!” My tone is sharp with exasperation.
“I don’t need saving,” she replies, her expression mutinous.
“Well I didn’t know that. And why in the world are you still wearing your clothes to go swimming?”
And all of a sudden I am crying. I don’t even feel the tears come.
I thought I’d cried all my tears for my dad years ago, but suddenly, it’s overwhelming.
The panic melts into a deep sense of grief.
I’m wet and shivering and crying. Not delicate crying either, but big, ugly sobs that wrack my entire body.
I wrap my arms around myself, trying to draw comfort, but there is none to be had. Alex looks at me, alarmed.
“What are you doing?” she asks hesitantly.
I don’t answer her, just keep sobbing uncontrollably. She looks increasingly uncomfortable and unsure. “Sorry,” she mutters finally. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s not you,” I tell her after a few minutes, through the tears and the snot. “I mean, I was scared you’d drowned. You were face down and just floating there. You weren’t moving!” I sniff and wipe my nose with the back of my hand, calming a little.
Alex hesitates. “Is this about…your dad?” she asks finally. I just nod.
“Was this where he…” She doesn’t finish the sentence and I’m grateful. I nod again.
“They found him in the water, out a little farther than this. He died when he was swimming.” I can feel my heartbeat starting to slow now.
I take a big, shuddering breath. I feel completely wrung out.
“It’s why I haven’t come back to Italy for so long.
It’s why I avoid the lake. It hurts too much to remember what happened to him here. ”
Alex glanced behind her, out over the water. “That sucks,” she says.
“Yeah, it does.” I chuckle a little, a dry rasp. Her words are not eloquent but they are true.
We face each other for a long minute.
“So this is where your dad drowned, and you jumped in the lake and swam out here to save me anyway?” she asks tentatively. There’s something I can’t quite decipher in her tone of voice. She sounds…touched. I nod.
“Of course. You’re my half sister.” I think of Nonna’s disapproving voice telling me there are no half sisters. “We’re family,” I amend.
Alex glances up at me quickly, startled and a little skeptical. “Really?” she asks. “I always thought you kind of wished I’d never been born.”
I wince. It’s not entirely untrue, but it sounds so ugly coming from her.
I think of her angry words on the patio earlier, her confession about being so lonely and feeling so unwanted.
And I am ashamed for my part in that. I’ve blamed her unfairly and kept my distance without thinking how she might feel, how she might need a sister for solidarity.
I’ve always had Dad and Aurora and Nonna.
Through no fault of her own, Alex has had no one. She’s always been alone.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
She looks surprised. “For what?”
“For not making you feel like you are part of the family.” I meet her eyes, knowing these are things I need to say.
“You know stuff with Lisa and my dad was…really complicated. It was hard for us when Lisa left, and I think I just lumped you in there with everything messy that happened, but that isn’t fair to you.
I’m sorry.” It feels good to say the words, and even better to realize I mean them.
“I’m sorry I didn’t try harder before,” I tell her. “I should have cared more for you.”
Alex shuffles her feet over the rocks at the bottom of the lake, looking down almost shyly at her toes in the clear aqua water.
“I’ve always wanted a sister,” she admits.
“I used to make up pretend sisters when I was little, imagining what it would feel like to not be the only one. I always envied you and Aurora because you had each other.”
“Well, now you have real sisters,” I tell her. “And you’re an aunt too, you know. Wait till you meet Aurora’s kids. They’re so much fun. Maybe I could take you down there when you have a school break sometime?”
It’s the only gift I have to give her, and I wait to see if she will accept the olive branch.
I’m nowhere near as close to Alex as I am to Aurora, at least not yet, but Alex and I have built something in the weeks we’ve been together.
She feels like a friend now, and that’s a good start.
She cocks her head and considers. Her hair snakes over her shoulders in wet strands.
She looks so tiny in her heavy, drenched black clothes. She nods. “I’d like that.”
She hesitates a long moment. “Thanks for coming in after me,” she says finally. “I’ve never had anyone try to rescue me before. Even if I wasn’t drowning.” Her lips quirk a little at the irony.
I nod. “Anytime,” I tell her with a relieved smile. I feel a little giddy now that the adrenaline is fading. “Can we start over?” I ask, holding out my hand.
She nods, then clasps my hand in a firm handshake. Impulsively, I pull her in for a hug. Unfortunately, I forget momentarily about my injured ankle, lose my balance, and end up dunking us both in the lake. We come up spluttering and laughing.
“Wow.” Alex wipes the hair from her eyes. “That was an epic fail.”
“Yeah, another epic fail.” I giggle. She smiles and rolls her eyes, then instead of wading back to shore, she swims off a few yards and treads water.
I hesitate. I’m cold and soaked and starting to shiver.
It’s getting toward late afternoon and the air is cooling.
But there’s something in her smile, an invitation or a dare.
I follow her out farther from the shore.