Chapter 2
Iused to spend all summer in the water. My parents had to drag me kicking and screaming from the pool.
I wouldn’t even swim, not really. I’d just sink below the surface and float, imagining myself in another world.
I’d look up at the sun reflecting through the water and wonder if that was how a fish saw things.
I’ve been obsessed with marine life for as long as I can remember.
My parents affectionately blame The Little Mermaid for my affliction, and maybe it was, I don’t know.
I just know I’ve been fascinated by the ocean since I was a girl.
They thought it was a phase, I’m sure, until tea parties with narwhals turned into documentaries about dolphin hunting and autobiographies about deep-sea exploration.
Even then, I think they assumed I’d grow out of it, until I announced I was going to live with my aunt in Brooklyn for the summer so I could accept the high school internship position I’d been offered at the New York Aquarium.
Five hundred kids applied, and I got it.
There was no way I was passing that up, even if it meant learning how to navigate the subway on my own.
I mostly cleaned tanks and smelled like fish for eight weeks straight, but I loved every second of it.
My mom was a nervous wreck until I got home.
I think that was when it clicked for her—seeing the absolute glee in my eyes. This wasn’t going away.
Then everything changed.
The doctors said I would have died if I’d struck anything except for water.
They said I probably should’ve died anyway.
The car spun out on a causeway after hitting a puddle.
I was hanging out the window on a dare, screaming into the storm, drunk and half delirious already.
The moment we started hydroplaning, my stomach swooped.
My body sensed the danger before my laughing lips did.
It wasn’t until we hit the guardrail and I went flying that I knew to be afraid.
By then I didn’t have time. I crashed into the reservoir at full speed, my bones crushing on impact, my brain immediately jumbled.
All I remember is the water rushing into my throat when I tried to breathe, the weight of it on my body, pulling me down into the darkness while I thrashed and flailed, white-hot flashes from the pain as my screams drowned right along with me.
So yeah, I survived. But at what cost?
I can’t swim anymore. Can’t go near the water. Can’t even think about it without being dragged back to that night and that horror.
The second I hit the lake, I’m back in the reservoir. Dark water envelops me. Panic takes over. If I could just calm down for a moment, I know how to swim. Somewhere deep inside, that girl who lived for those stolen minutes at the bottom of the pool still exists. But I can’t find her.
My body is on fire.
Pain or fear, I don’t know. I can’t tell them apart.
Memories invade, past and present clashing in a confusing jumble as I search maniacally for the surface, not sure if the light I’m chasing is even real.
I’m lost in the chaos, my limbs flailing in every direction.
Bubbles race past me as I sink farther into the murk.
An arm wraps around my torso.
Mabel.
She’s here to drag me down. She’s here to take me with her.
Your turn, she demands, wild laughter on her lips.
The last words I ever heard her say.
This time, I refuse to be her puppet. With every ounce of my being, I fight against the restraints, thrashing harder, so focused on getting away I don’t notice we’ve broken back through the surface until I hear him.
“Would you calm the fuck down? I’ve got you.”
His firm voice cuts through the noise. I inhale sharply, lungs burning as the oxygen hits, going straight to my head.
The fog clears and I blink, the world slowly coming back into focus.
An arm wraps firmly across my chest. Fingers dig into the side of my ribs.
A broad chest presses warmly against my back.
For a split second, I feel so perfectly safe, so perfectly protected, I don’t want to move and shatter the illusion.
Then a ripple crashes into my face, doing it for me.
Droplets splatter across my cheeks. Water fills my mouth and I sputter.
I find his muscled forearm with my hands, desperate for something to grab.
The rest of me seizes up. I can’t think over the wild thud of my heart slamming into my ribs.
He doesn’t budge, his hold ironclad.
“It’s okay,” he says, softer this time. “I’ve got you.”
I want to say thank you. I want to tell him I understand.
The only sound that escapes is a whimper.
When we reach the shallow area closer to shore, he swoops his free arm under my knees, no longer needing it to swim.
I’m trembling too much to walk even if I wanted to.
And I don’t. I turn into his hard chest, closing my eyes so I can imagine I’m somewhere else as the water sluices from my skin.
I cling to him, to the safety of his hold just a little bit longer, too weak to face the riot of emotions rolling within me.
I hate myself for it.
I hate him a little bit too—for putting me in this position, for seeing me so raw.
“We’re out,” he says after a minute, his voice low, for my ears only.
I lean back on instinct, look up. It’s a mistake.
Our gazes collide, and I’m stuck. He’s Nova’s brother.
He has to be. His irises are the same brilliant shade of green, but where hers have been nothing but warm and enthusiastic all day, his burn with an intensity that sees right through me.
My pounding heartbeat shifts. Shame burns at the corners of my eyes.
He knows.
It’s clear in the way his dark brows furrow, the way he studies me beneath the messy swoop of black hair dripping water down his face. He doesn’t know exactly what happened to me, but he knows my reaction was caused by more than just not being able to swim—he knows enough.
Charcoal streaks smudge my clean slate.
This isn’t a new beginning. It’s the same damn shit all over again.
I jump out of his arms to make a hasty escape, not realizing how tall he is. My ankle twists in the uneven sand, and I end up flat against his chest…again.
Great. Now he probably thinks I can’t swim or walk.
Nova said he was an athlete, but it’s impossible not to notice just how solid he is as he grips my shoulders and steadies me, movements sure, not at all thrown by the force of my full weight slamming against him.
I should probably be grateful. I should probably thank him.
Instead, I’m irrationally pissed off that he’s so freaking unflappable while I’m one wrong move from falling apart.
“Let go of me,” I snap.
Disbelief flashes across his face and his brows arch.
“No swimming!” a shrill voice interrupts, stopping whatever biting remark I know Nova’s brother was about to unleash. I can read it in the way his nostrils flare, the way his lips purse, deepening the cleft in his chin.
A spotlight beams on us both, and I flinch away. He doesn’t move. His gaze remains on me, burning into the side of my cheek. A tingle creeps down the back of my neck.
“Oh, it’s you,” the security guard says, his eyes on Nova’s brother as he lowers the flashlight.
I fight the urge to glance up, to figure out why a college student holds this much significance, because I’ve got my opening.
The rules were very clear—no swimming after dark—and there’s no way in hell I’m sticking around to face a suspension on my first day.
So I run.
“Clara, wait!” Nova calls out. I’m already headed in the opposite direction, back to the dorms, when I hear her add, “God, Logan, you’re such a douche.”
The crowd envelops me. Glazed-over eyes peer at me from all sides, drawn in by my soaking-wet clothes and general aura of complete desperation.
In moments like these, I so badly wish I had just a little bit of Mabel’s spirit.
She would’ve defiantly jutted out her chin and let them stare.
She would’ve found some way to become part of the joke, not the butt of it.
I can already hear the whispers in my head as I break free of the party and cut through the shadowed walkway back to building one.
That girl who fell in the lake.
That girl who made a total scene.
That girl who ran away.
I’ve got my label. There’s no escaping it now.
My entire freshman class was out on that quad.
Even if they didn’t see, the story will spread like wildfire.
And it’s all his fault. For picking me up when I didn’t ask to be manhandled.
For dropping me so abruptly. For letting me fall.
Sure, he saved me too, but that’s beside the point.
I wouldn’t have needed to be saved in the first place if not for him.
I could’ve coasted under the radar for weeks, but now I’m that girl on everybody’s lips.
Fuck you, I seethe as I stumble back into my room. Fuck this. Fuck my stupid, messed-up brain. Fuck—
“—ing hell, you’re fast!” Nova finishes the thought for me as she collapses onto her bed, completely out of breath.
Willa follows behind, a note of worry in her kind blue eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Logan’s such an ass.” Nova groans and looks up from her pillow. “This is all my fault. Well, my jacket’s fault. Ugh. I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be.” I wave her off and shrug, uninterested in their pity. “I’m fine. It’s fine. You guys should go back to the party.”
“I was getting bored anyway. And hungry.” Nova rolls into a seated position and slides open her desk drawer.
It takes a second of digging, but then a grin lights up her face.
She pulls a plastic bag from the depths and holds it up with such fervor, she might as well have found the Holy Grail. “My secret stash.”
“Sour straws?!” Willa shrieks with unbridled glee, clearly drunk as she bounds across the room and leaps not-so-gracefully into an empty spot on the mattress.