“Okay,” I said, hesitantly.
“Are you seeing Michael?”
I set my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. “Yes.” No point in lying now.
“Okay, then, your grounding ends now, but there will be rules about the time you spend at his apartment and the time he spends at ours. There will be no unmonitored visits either way. I realize that you’re almost seventeen, and that’s a very tricky age to deal with, but there’s a lot we haven’t talked about where boys are concerned.”
I groaned. “Mom, I don’t need a sex talk.”
We pulled into a shopping center, and she grabbed her purse from the backseat. “I am not having a sex talk with you right now. I know you know how everything works. But I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything if you need to.” Her face seemed to lose some of its buoyancy then. “Maybe if I’d been more open with you, you would have felt like you could come to me about not being on the team.”
“It’s not that I felt like I couldn’t talk to you. I just didn’t want to make matters worse with everything that was going on.”
She sighed and nodded, her eyes going watery. “I know I’ve been distracted lately, but I promise I’m fine. You can talk to me about anything.”
“Okay.”
She wiped her eyes. “Okay, now. I thought it might be a nice time for a wardrobe update. Fewer swimsuits, more normal-teenager clothing. What do you say?”
“Sounds great.”
* * *
“Are you sure you feel comfortable going out?” I asked Michael as he locked his apartment door.
He smiled over his shoulder at me. “Everything’s fine. I really want to take you out, okay? So let’s just go.”
We held hands all the way down to the parking garage and climbed into his mother’s station wagon, and I tried not to smile at him as he drove us half an hour out of Portland, to a dance club off the highway. He knew I liked him, but I didn’t need him to know that I was incapable of looking away.
“Are you sure I’m going to be allowed in?”
Michael pulled into a parking space outside the club. “It’s all ages on the weekends. It’ll be totally fine. It’s not like we’re going to try to drink.”
He walked around the car and opened the door for me. I took a step toward the club, but he stopped me with a hand on my waist. He pressed his face into my neck, and I let him leave a kiss there before stepping away from me again, but I didn’t miss the sweep of his eyes down my body. I’d felt self-conscious putting on high heels. Even though I liked wearing skirts and dresses occasionally, high heels had never been something I’d gotten used to. But if the way Michael was looking at me was any indication, he really liked them.
He spun me around and tucked me into his side as we moved toward the door. Nerves settled in my stomach. I’d never been in a club, and I’d certainly never been in a club where I was expected to show off the skills I’d only recently gained in front of a bunch of people who were probably going to be much better.
Inside, every inch of the place was packed with people, drinking, talking, dancing. Most people looked college age or older.
I thought we might sit down and get a soda, but Michael had other plans. He held my hand, pulling me into the riot of color that was the dance floor. It was orange and pink and had swirls that made me even dizzier than I already was.
“Hey,” Michael said into my ear. “Don’t be nervous. Nobody’s paying attention to us. It’s just me and you here, okay?”
He took my hands in his and started a step in time with the music, done so smoothly it was an art in itself, and I just watched him. I tried to remember the beats and where my feet were supposed to go as he was going, twisting his hips so effortlessly that I was jealous.
He dropped my hands for a second to put his hands on my hips, helping me move them loosely with the aid of his fingertips through the fabric of my skirt. I laughed and let him take my hands and spin me, bungling the turn and tangling our legs together.
When we’d straightened out, he pressed a kiss to my cheek, and we tried again. Around us, other couples were dancing beautifully, moving in circles and masterful moves that had them intertwining and coming apart in just a few steps.
Michael put his fingers under my chin and moved my face close to his. He bit his lip and turned in my arms, once, twice, three times, in different ways before getting me to do another turn. The trumpets were loud in my ears in a rhythm that was impossible not to move to.
Without warning, the music changed into something slower, something with drums and a romantic cadence to it. Michael slowed his steps slightly, pulling me a little closer to him and lacing our fingers together between our bodies.
I was caught in his eyes, dark with something I’d never seen in them before. He pulled me against him, moving our hips to the beat while our feet stayed glued to their places. His hands pressed into my hips, and I thought I might melt right into the floor. Then he slid them up my back and into my hair, and he leaned forward to kiss me, holding tight to me.
There was something intoxicating about being kissed there, in the midst of all those people, with the music loud in the air, both of us sweating and trying to catch our breaths. He sighed against my neck. He led me off the dance floor then, to a table where we drank soda and ice-cold water and laughed and kissed and held hands. I wanted to stay there with him for as long as I could.
“So, what do you think?” Michael asked, his hand on my knee underneath our table.
I sighed, happy and tired. “It’s loud.”
Michael laughed. “That’s it? It’s loud?”
I shrugged and moved a little closer to let him put his arm around me. “It’s nice. But I’m definitely not good enough to dance with these people.”
Michael smiled. “They’re not professionals or anything like that. They’re just people.”
“Not sure I believe that.”
He laughed again, and I was caught by the sound, low under the beating of the drums and the shout of the trumpets. “Are you ready to go home? I should probably get back to Mom.”
I glanced out at the dance floor, at the colors and the lights and the couples dancing so confidently. “Just one more?”
He grinned. “Yeah, okay.”
* * *
Michael gave me one more long, heated kiss against the stairway railing between the second and third floors of our apartment building, then whispered into my ear about how beautiful I was.
At my door, he was leaning in for something a little more chaste when my phone rang. It was Harris.
Michael read the screen. “Answer it,” he said, but I didn’t want to. I wanted this night to be perfect. I wanted the happiness that had taken up residence in my chest to be allowed to live there for just a few more hours. So I silenced my phone and let Michael kiss me.
Seventeen
The next morning, I tried to call Harris, but he didn’t answer, and I stared at my phone, hoping it would ring.
“Everything okay?” Lily asked, coming into my room and dropping down onto my bed. She had a box of chocolate-chip cookies in her hand, and I reached out and grabbed one before she could pull the box away.
I shrugged. “Harris isn’t answering his phone.”
She shoved a cookie into her mouth. “He’s probably just busy.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Well, sure, but he’s a busy guy. I bet he’s just hanging out with his girlfriend.” I didn’t answer, and she nudged me. “Hey, what’s the big deal?”
“It’s never been like this with us, you know? He’s my best friend. We should be talking on the phone and sending emails and figuring out how to visit each other, but it seems like I just keep getting blown off.”
Lily blinked at me. “It’s been a month. You guys are going to be fine. You’re just going through an adjustment period.”
“I guess.” It didn’t feel like an adjustment period. It felt like Har
ris was living a whole different life without me. It felt like he was turning into a stranger, and I couldn’t figure out why. Was this just because of my dad? Just because I was gone?
“Dad called me yesterday.”
I dropped my phone onto the mattress. “Are you kidding? Did you answer?”
She shrugged, her shoulders sliding along my comforter. “Yeah. He wanted to talk about school and Tom and stuff.”
“What did you tell him?”
She scoffed. “I just told him that I was figuring things out and let him go at that. It wasn’t like we had a heart-to-heart or anything. It was awkward.”
I nodded.
“He asked about you.”
My eyes shot to her, and I felt my pulse kick up. She munched away for a second, like she was afraid to tell me something. This was it. She’d told my father about me quitting swim and any second now, he was going to call and demand an explanation. I didn’t want to care about my father’s opinion. He wasn’t controlling me anymore, and logically, I understood that. But I’d spent almost ten years trying to make him proud, and I wasn’t ready to handle him after he found out I’d quit.
“Did you tell him I quit the team?”
She pushed herself up until she was sitting beside me on the bed. “Of course not. I told him that if he wanted to know what was going on in your life, he should call you.”
I sighed, the tension going out of my shoulders. “Oh. Okay.” I tried to sound relieved, but I wasn’t. I tried to imagine what I would say if he took Lily up on her advice and called me. I wouldn’t answer the phone. I couldn’t.
“Kate?” She bit her lip, like she was nervous. “Do you think maybe you should talk to him?”
I shook my head so aggressively that my ponytail slipped a little. “Absolutely not. How can you even suggest that? Have you forgiven him for what he did to Mom?”
“No!” She practically shouted the word. “No, I haven’t forgiven him, but it’s different with me. We weren’t as close as you two were, and if what he did to Mom is what made you want to quit swimming—”
“I would have quit either way.”
She leveled a look at me. “If none of this had ever happened, and you were still living in Salem, you would have quit?”
No, I wouldn’t have. Of course I wouldn’t have. “That’s not what I mean. I just mean even if I forgave Dad right now—which I couldn’t do—I still wouldn’t want to swim anymore. I think maybe that part of my life is over.” I hadn’t said the words out loud like that before, and it sent a little ball of panic into my stomach.
“Really?” Lily seemed just as surprised as I was by my words.
“Really.” But maybe something better was starting.
* * *
We were slated to present our elements blanket the next day. Even though I knew all I had to do was stand in front of our class while Marisol, who was way better at public speaking than I was, talked about it, I was still nervous.
The blanket was folded in the middle of our lab table, Marisol and Patrice huddled over it, picking off little glue strings that we hadn’t caught the week before. I sat down next to Roger and neither of the girls seemed to notice me.
“Hey.”
I jumped, startled. I hadn’t actually realized that Roger was awake. He was looking at me now with a confused look.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
Across the table, Marisol and Patrice laughed.
“I doubt it,” Patrice said, “considering you’ve been asleep since she enrolled.”
I snuck a look at her, but she and Marisol were whispering to each other, and it took me a second to realize they were speaking Spanish, just like on my first day.
“Hello there,” Roger said. He had green eyes, almost as light as jade. Who knew?
At his greeting, Patrice stopped talking and sent him a severe expression I’d never seen her use before, but before I could question the reason behind it, Dr. Stewart started class.
“Lab table number one,” he called out. “Dazzle us with your creativity.”
They’d chosen to depict their periodic table of elements using pieces of nature glued to a trifold board. It included twigs, leaves, rocks, feathers, and other miscellaneous items. Dr. Stewart inspected it closely while they gave a speech about being closer to nature because they chose twigs, and how they felt like it gave them a better understanding of science.
He hmmed and the confused-looking lab group took a seat at their table, leaving the trifold board on the floor beside Dr. Stewart’s desk.
“Lab table number two,” he called out.
We all shuffled to the front of the class, including Roger. Dr. Stewart rolled his eyes when we unfolded our blanket, and my stomach knotted up. It was a terrible idea. I knew it was terrible. He thought it was awful, and he was going to fail us all.
But what came out of his mouth wasn’t a criticism of the project. “Roger, I’ll give you credit for this project if you can tell me your new lab partner’s name.”
Roger looked over at me, squinting in my direction like he might be able to telepathically conjure the correct name. “Beth?”
Everyone in class laughed, and Dr. Stewart crossed his arms decisively. “Have a seat, please.”
Roger’s shoulders sank, but he didn’t argue. He walked back to the table, immediately putting his head down. None of us said anything for or against him. Dr. Stewart came close to us, like he had before, looking at every nook and cranny of the blanket as the three of us held it awkwardly unfolded against our bodies.
“Why a blanket?” Dr. Stewart asked.
“Well,” Marisol said, gearing up with a smile. “We thought about doing food or plants or something a little more natural, but then we realized that it would be better to use a material that’s made of more than one element. Most of these jerseys are polyester, and polyester is made of all kinds of chemical compounds.” She started to tick them off on her fingers. “Terephthalic acid and monoethylene glycol. This fabric is made of chemical reactions, and so what better way to present the table of elements than to show it in multiple forms?” She grinned, and the whole room was silent.
I blinked at her. Where had that come from? I had no clue what those chemicals she mentioned were, but she knew them well enough not to stumble over them, so I was impressed.
Dr. Stewart seemed to be as well. He stared at Marisol for a second, his finger on his chin, and then nodded. “This was a nice idea.” He pursed his lips. “And thank you, Marisol, for that insightful explanation. It’s a little sloppy, but altogether it looks very nice. It’s great to see the three of you working together on this.”
Relief sang through my bones. I wasn’t even sure what I’d been so nervous about. It was just a stupid project.
“Well, most of us worked together,” Patrice said, and my eyes slid over to her, not sure what she meant. She didn’t need to throw Roger under the bus when Dr. Stewart had already dismissed his participation. Marisol looked down at the floor, and Patrice was looking straight ahead at Dr. Stewart. “I hate to say this, Dr. Stewart, but Kate barely participated.”
I was so shocked by what she said that I almost lost my grip on the blanket. I whipped around to face her and was very aware of the eyes of everyone in the class on us, even Roger. “What?”
“Is that true, Kate?” Dr. Stewart asked, rather patiently.
“No. What are you…?” I looked at Patrice, trying to decipher why she was saying what she was saying, but she wouldn’t look at me. “The blanket was my idea. I helped put it together.”
At that, Patrice finally faced me, her eyes angry and wide. “You mean when you skipped out on our work time to go on a date with Ben?”
My mouth fell open. “You guys made me leave.” My chest was tight, and it felt like the room was getting smaller. I didn’t understand what was happening. Had I stepped into an alternate dimension? Had Patrice completely lost her mind?
“Oh, and did I also make you steal
my boyfriend?”
Horror washed over me, even as everyone in the class started to talk and make oooing sounds.
“I didn’t—” I started to say, beginning to panic, but Patrice spoke over me.
“Oh, please,” she hissed, her hair bobbing around her cheeks as she leaned close to me. To be honest, I was afraid she was going to hit me. “Sarah Miller saw you and Michael making out at some club on Saturday night, so don’t even deny it. We became friends and then you stabbed me in the back.”
I felt sick. And dizzy. My face was burning, and I tried not to focus on everyone talking around us, staring, laughing. “I swear, I didn’t—”
“Okay, everyone, okay!” Dr. Stewart shouted over the din of the class.
I could hear Patrice saying something else, her voice loud and insistent, but I couldn’t understand anything. I dropped my corner of the blanket and left, ignoring the sound of Dr. Stewart calling after me.
* * *
I hid in the bathroom through the rest of first period, and when lunch rolled around, I hid in a stairwell by the gym that I rarely saw anyone use. I wished that Michael was with me, but I took comfort in the knowledge that I would see him next period. All I had to do was survive lunch.
Which was easier said than done.
I pulled my phone out and considered calling Harris, but what good would it do? He was in class right now, and I didn’t think he would leave to take a call from me. I wasn’t a priority to him anymore. He lived in a totally different world now.
I stayed there until the bell rang and then rushed to American Lit, where I only kept myself from throwing my arms around Michael when I saw the way everyone was looking at us. That settled it. Between Chemistry and now, everyone had heard what happened at the front of Dr. Stewart’s classroom. I pretended I didn’t see them.
Michael sighed, his face already looking tired. “Hey,” he said. He’d heard. Of course he had. “How are you?”
I scoffed and took my seat. “Well, Patrice hates me and so does Marisol, and they humiliated me in front of our entire Chemistry class, which may or may not have cost me my grade on our stupid project. So, altogether, I’d say I’ve been better.”
How to Breathe Underwater Page 19
