Ripple

by Mandy Hubbard

  Cole narrows his eyes. “Everything okay? We don’t have to . . .”

  I realize I’m giving him a total panicked-animal sort of expression and try to act as if everything is okay. “I just need to go home,” I say.

  “No biggie. Let me walk you to your car.”

  I nod, and he trails me as I walk, too quickly, to the rusted-out brown Toyota. The contented feeling has been replaced with melancholy. This is my reality. Why did I think, even for a moment, that I could change it? “Thanks for the movie,” I say, yanking the door open with a loud screech. I’m about to fling myself into the seat when I feel his arm on mine. I turn to face him.

  For a long moment neither of us moves; he just stares right into my eyes, as if to prove that he can see the tears threatening. He wants me to know that I can’t hide this from him.

  But instead of saying anything, instead of pushing for answers I’ll never give, he just leans in slowly until his lips brush against mine—a whisper of a kiss.

  But it’s still a kiss.

  A real, beautiful, perfect kiss. Everything inside me turns inside out, upside down.

  And then he pulls away, his lips curling ever so slightly upward as he studies my reaction.

  I smile a little, blush creeping up, and slide away from him, finally dipping into the car and plopping down onto my seat. I reach over and twist the key, and the car churns to life. My heart gallops in my chest.

  “See you Monday?” I ask, staring down at my hands, suddenly shy.

  “Yeah. See you then.”

  He lets his fingers slip off the car door, then pushes it shut, and then the window is between us.

  He waves, but doesn’t move as I start the car and reverse out of the parking spot.

  I watch Cole in my rearview mirror until I turn a corner and he’s gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It’s grocery day today, so I’m standing next to the passenger door of the Toyota, holding my arm out to help my grandma to her feet. Today she’s wearing a blouse with some kind of bright goofy pattern that might have been cool in the ’70s. Maybe the ’60s.

  “I got it, I got it,” she says, waving me away when I offer her my arm. I reach in through the back window and grab her cane, and we shuffle to the front steps. I grab us a cart. She likes to push it, so that she doesn’t have to use her cane.

  She grips the handle, and we head through the second set of automatic doors. It’s warm inside, and the scent of the fried chicken from the deli makes my mouth water. “How is chemistry going these days?”

  “Good. We haven’t gotten our grades from the last test, but I think I only missed maybe one or two questions. Easy A.”

  “That’s good. You want to keep those grades up this year.” Gram waves at someone she recognizes, a smile lighting her face. Then she turns back to me. “They’re reviewing scholarship applications at this week’s rotary-club meeting,” she says, one gray eyebrow raised over her warm blue eyes.

  I nod. If I have any hope of going to college, I need a few scholarships. Gram knows that college means leaving her behind, and yet she still wants me to apply to all these schools, even the ones across the country.

  She pushes the cart into the produce section, where mounds and mounds of fruits and vegetables shine under the bright fluorescent lights. She stops next to the bananas, and I fight the urge to point out that the bunch she’s grabbing are clearly overripe. Instead I just turn away and move further into the section, my grandmother and the squeaking cart trailing behind me. I pause at a big pallet of tangerines and grab a bag.

  When I look up from the tangerines, I glimpse Sienna, standing next to the bagged salads. Her hair is pulled back in a surprisingly casual low ponytail, and she’s got on jeans and a baby blue hoodie. She looks more relaxed than I’ve seen her in a long time.

  Gram shuffles toward me, the wheels of her cart squeaking louder than ever. Sienna turns around and, in that moment, seems to freeze, no more certain of what she should do than I am.

  We stand and stare at each other, the tangerines and a trough of potatoes stretch on between us. I grip the bag of tangerines even tighter in my hand. If Gram is paying attention, she’s going to see something’s not quite right between us.

  Sienna takes a step away from the salads, and I think she’s just going to leave, but she doesn’t. She heads in my direction, and suddenly I wish I’d stuck with a glare or a scowl.

  “Hey,” she says. Then Sienna turns to my grandma, who is behind me. “Hi, Mrs. Wentworth,” she adds.

  “Sienna. So nice to see you, dear. You never come around anymore.” Gram reaches one of her pale lined hands out and pats Sienna’s shoulder as her eyes dart back at me. As if she wants me to leap forward, to prove that Sienna and I are still friends. “Did Lexi get around to inviting you to movie night?”

  My grandma looks my way, accusingly, and I pray Sienna doesn’t give me away. I’m shocked when she just smiles sweetly, as if a movie night with her ex-BFF isn’t the most absurd thing she’s ever heard of. “She did—what night was it, again?”

  Whoa.

  “How about tomorrow? We can pick up some treats with the groceries,” Gram says.

  “Sure! Until then, can I borrow Lexi this afternoon? I want to show her something.”

  Why is she doing this? I can’t be friends with her again. I can’t have friends at all. It’s my number one rule for a reason.

  “Oh, I mean, I’m—” I start to say, but my grandma looks expectantly at me, as though Sienna inviting me over is the best news she’s had in a month. Maybe if going to Sienna’s just for, like, a millisecond eases her stress, I should do it. And then maybe I can weasel my way out of this movie thing while I’m there.

  “Okay, uh, sure. What time?”

  Sienna fidgets, reaching up to play with her simple diamond pendant. Sienna never fidgets. “Three sound okay? You can just drop by for a bit. I have something of yours.”

  I narrow my eyes. It’s been two years since I was last at her house. If she has anything of mine, it can’t be important, or I’d be missing it by now. And yet I can’t help but feel something shifting as we stare at each other.

  I don’t know if we can be friends again. But I get the feeling that she’s not my enemy anymore.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I drive past Cole’s house on my way to Sienna’s, and it’s almost impossible not to stop in the middle of the road and go say hello. I just want to see that dimpled smile for a minute, feel the way I relax around him. It’s more than twenty-four hours since our date, but I swear I can still feel his lips brushing against mine.

  But instead of giving in to my impulse, I go right past the iron gates and turn down the slope of Sienna’s long, black driveway. I roll to a stop near her garage door. Her house isn’t quite as large as Cole’s, but it’s just as pretty. The architecture is more modern, all squares and harsh angles, but it’s coupled with small sections of clapboard accents and oversized windows. Sometime in the last two years, it’s been repainted from a bold red to a warm blue.

  I sit in my car in the driveway, gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles turn white. It only takes a second for the car to cool.

  Two years since I’ve been in that house. The last time was the night I killed Steven.

  I stand in the middle of the living room, gripping an empty beer. It’s loud in here—half the school came out to party. Sienna has cranked up the hip-hop music so that she and Nikki can dance on the couch, much to the pleasure of the guys around them. Sienna has on a flirty miniskirt, the strap of a bright yellow thong poking out the top. I roll my eyes but can’t keep from smiling when she catches my eye and grins.

  I turn away, heading to the kitchen for a fresh beer, purposely bumping shoulders with Kristi as I walk by. “Happy birthday!” she shouts over the music. I grin and mouth thanks, rocking my hips to the beat as I walk. I can’t help myself—I feel on top of the world. It’s all for me.

  The clock on the wall reads ten forty
as I pull another beer from the ice-filled sink. I try to look out the windows as I twist the top, but the crowd obliterates the view. It’s pitch-black out there anyway.

  Sienna used my sixteenth birthday as an excuse to throw her biggest party yet. Streamers twist their way across the ceiling, crisscrossing to create an almost circus-tent-like feel. School started two weeks ago, and we all want to pretend it hasn’t, that the summer will just keep going.

  Steven walks into the room with Cole, his best friend. His back is to me for a moment as the two of them talk. A girl walks up and catches Cole’s attention. She smiles and punches his arm. He laughs, and then Steven turns away, walking toward me. He’s wearing board shorts and a loose-fitting T-shirt, his skin glowing with the tan he’d gotten over the long summer. He’s the kind of guy who everyone notices. One of his friends reaches out, and they bump knuckles. He’s spent three years on the football team. That’s all it takes to be well-known at Cedar Cove High.

  Steven’s eyes light up when he spots me, making me feel warm all over. The last couple of months, things have been shifting between the two of us. It’s like he’s finally noticing me when I’ve been here all along. I can’t stop myself from the intense hope that he might be harboring the same feelings I have for him.

  “Hey,” he says, stopping right in front of me. Inches away. He leans in to be heard over the music, his breath warm on my ear. “Having fun?”

  I nod and take a swig of my beer. I can’t think of anything witty to say, so I take another drink, and then another, and soon I’ve emptied the bottle. I drop it down on the counter with a hollow thunk. Even after all these years, how is it that he makes me so nervous?

  Steven leans even closer as he reaches to grab a beer from the bucket behind me, and my body temperature shoots up a few more degrees. “Do you want to go up to the deck?”

  I’m not sure if he spoke the words or breathed them, right into my ear. He produces two beers and hands me one, nodding his head toward the staircase. Condensation trails down the amber glass as I take it from his hand.

  I follow him through the house, leaving the thumping base beat behind, along with the forty or so classmates that fill the bottom floor. As we ascend the steps, I can’t stop staring at the spot where his navy-andred board shorts meet his lower thighs. Steven leads me through a den with dark leather furniture and teak bookshelves, then onto the balcony that overlooks the ocean.

  As the door slides open, desire shoots through me, like nothing I’ve ever felt.

  But it isn’t just for Steven.

  It’s for the ocean, too. It’s in plain sight now, swelling and flowing under the dark. All I can see is the white froth against a black backdrop. A breeze, balmy for September, whips across the deck and then dies.

  Tingling waves trail up and down my limbs. It’s as if the ocean is right there on the deck with me, whispering in my ear, calling my name. I watch the waves, entranced. Swimming is the only thing I want.

  No, it’s swimming and Steven, both all at once.

  I stop in the door as Steven plunks down on a wooden Adirondack chair, popping the top on his beer and taking a slow drink. When he sets the bottle on the armrest, condensation trickles down, pooling on the red cedar boards. I stare at his fingers where they grip the bottle. My gaze lingers on his arm, then moves up to his thick biceps. He’s spent three years on the football team. And it shows.

  The scene in front of me, him waiting with a warm smile, patting the chair beside him, is everything I’ve ever wanted, but for some reason it’s not enough.

  “Let’s go swimming,” I say.

  He furrows his brow for a moment and glances out at the ocean. “Really?”

  I nod. “Yes.”

  “But this party is for you.”

  “We won’t be gone long. Twenty minutes. Just say yes.” I grin then, feeling a strange wave of excitement pulse through me. “It’s my birthday, which means you’re not allowed to say no.”

  He smiles and walks to me. And as I stand there, time slows down. He leans in closer, presses his lips against mine. And then, before I know it, he pulls away. It happens so fast I can barely react. “Well, then, birthday girl. Lead the way.”

  As we walk down the steps, walk through the party, I float. Steven kissed me.

  Steven. Kissed me.

  Steven. Kissed. Me.

  We leave through the sliding door, the sounds of the party muting as he shuts it behind us. He takes my hand, and we walk over the dunes, tripping a little bit in the dark. I nearly go down, my feet twisted in the grass, but Steven’s hand on my arm saves me. And we laugh, and he finds me in the darkness and kisses me again.

  And now today, I am stuck sitting in Sienna’s driveway, replaying the same thing over and over, staring at my white knuckles. But I can’t sit here all day. I let go of my death grip on the wheel and wiggle my fingers a little bit to get the blood pumping again. Then I shove the door open. It gives its usual screech as I slam it and walk to the front stoop before I can change my mind.

  Sienna swings the door open before I can even knock, which only makes me hope that she hasn’t watched me sitting in front of her house for the last five minutes.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey!” I’m surprised by how bright and airy her voice is. As though this is normal for us. “You’re just in time—I can’t decide between peanut butter and chocolate chip.” She holds up a recipe card in each hand, waving them both around. They’re bent up, smudged with flour and butter all over. A weird, melancholy wave courses through me as I look at the cute little daisy on each corner. I recognize them. The stain on the peanut-butter recipe is from the dirty mixing spoon I absentmindedly set on it three summers ago. It had been the fourth cookie recipe we’d tried, and by that point, it was all we could do to get off the couch and fetch the next dozen cookies out of the oven. We ended up watching a marathon of bad reality television, completely blissed out on sugar.

  I’m overcome with the desire to reclaim everything, pretend the last two years never happened, if only for the afternoon. I want to be the girl in the kitchen, gossiping and making cookies and eating more dough than makes it into the oven.

  “Both,” I say.

  Sienna frowns. “I only have enough eggs for one batch, unless you want to go to the store with me.”

  “No, I mean both together. Peanut butter chocolate chip.”

  “Oh.” She brightens. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  I shrug. It feels weird to talk about cookie recipes when we have such weightier issues to deal with. There’s not just an elephant in the room; there’s a whole herd of them.

  I kick my shoes off—I haven’t forgotten her mom’s no-shoes rule—and follow her through the great room and into the kitchen. It’s made to look like one of those kitchens out of a quaint farmhouse, all beautiful yellowed-buttermilk cabinets and an immense sink that resembles an antique washbasin. But, unlike a true farmhouse kitchen, this one is the size of a normal house.

  Maple Falls Road really is an entirely different universe than the rest of Cedar Cove.

  “Where’s your mom?”

  “Bridge, I think. Or Squash. Something lame.”

  I laugh, and the sound makes Sienna look at me abruptly. Her eye shadow is brighter than normal. Pink, set off by dark, kohllined eyelashes. Her surprised expression makes me realize I haven’t laughed in a long time.

  “Melt the butter, will you? I’m going to go grab something.”

  I nod and set to work. It only takes me seconds to remember where everything is stored. Spoons, bowls, measuring cups. It all comes back to me. A desperate urge to get it all back—to be friends with Sienna—overwhelms me.

  I was happy in this house. I was happy as her friend.

  By the time I’m whipping the warm butter in a bowl, Sienna strolls out, a tiny little bag with pink-ribbon handles dangling from her fingertips.

  “What is that?” I ask, trying not to show the weird little panic that bubbles t
o the surface.

  She sets it on the counter in front of me. “Your birthday present.”

  I blink, staring at the cute little bag, then turn back to the bowl, whipping the butter faster and faster, even though it’s ready. “My birthday was two weeks ago.”

  Sienna shoves the bag toward me. One of her usually perfect French-manicured nails is chipped. “This is from your sixteenth. I never got to give it to you.”

  “Oh.” My mouth goes dry. I force my hand to stop whipping the butter, but my grip on the spoon tightens. “You kept this for two years?”

  She nods.

  “Why?”

  She just shrugs and pushes the bag toward me again, until it’s right up against the bowl. Heart in my throat, I smile at her and grab the forgotten present. Delicate—albeit a little squished—white tissue pokes out of the shiny white-and-blue polka-dot bag. I dig my hand into it—the bag is so small my fist barely fits—and pull out the tissue.

  As I unfold it, my heart twists. Inside is a bracelet, handmade out of glass seed beads. Little silver seashells and sea stars dangle from it. It’s held together by a tiny polished-silver clasp. It must have taken Sienna hours to make, alternating the tiny beads in blue, green, teal.... It’s meticulous. Perfect.

  I look up at Sienna, take in the bright, expectant look in her pretty blue eyes. Sparkling like this, they look just like Steven’s.

  This isn’t just a lost birthday gift, returned to its rightful owner. This is an offer. To pick up where we left off. And even though I know it’s probably the wrong decision—the last thing I should do—I smile at Sienna and murmur a thank-you. Then I slip it on to my wrist and let her fasten it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At school the next day, I feel apprehensive. Everything is changing so fast. My nightly swims at the lake are the only constant. As I step through the double doors, I don’t know what to expect. Three steps in, someone shoulder checks me, just a light bump, enough to startle me. Before I can glare at whoever it is, someone else glances my way—a dark-haired guy Sienna is friends with. His eyes dart down the hall, as if he doesn’t want to acknowledge me. But, instead of knocking into me as he did last week, he steps away. A tingling starts at the base of my spine, rippling upward. What was with that look?