Already Gone

by Bridget E. Baker

  He already knows what happened and he’s got Hope’s journal, so he’s probably figured out that it’s all my fault. Things went about as wrong as they could have gone. Fights. Missed school. Police. Drugs. Juvie. Possible expulsion. And the one bad thing no one ever seems to want to talk about.

  I can barely breathe and I look away. Sniff and wipe my eyes.

  She died.

  The rest of the stuff doesn’t even matter compared to that.

  But looking back on all that mess, in the cluster my life has become, no one's asked for my side of the story. Not the judge, not a single teacher, not my friends, no one. It’s like they’re all afraid of the answer.

  And maybe they should be.

  It all started the day I met Mason. Is it ironic that the first truly great day of my life was probably also the very thing that set in motion the events leading up to the worst? Or does life always work like that? Mom lost Dad right after Hope was born. Maybe bad always nips at good’s heels like a moronic, overeager puppy, shredding everything and peeing in the corner.

  Dr. Brasher still stares at me expectantly and I realize I haven’t spoken a word. "I guess it all started with Mason."

  Dr. Brasher rifles through a pile of papers on his desk and then he looks back up at me. "Mason Montcellier?"

  I nod my head, impressed when he pronounces the difficult last name correctly. "Yep."

  "Why don't you tell me about him."

  I bite my lip. I don't want to talk about Mason. It hurts. Not crippling pain, like when I think about her, but thinking about Mason hurts in a different way. Plus, I honestly don't even know how I feel anymore. I cared for Mason more than I thought possible, and now I have no idea how to feel about him. Do I love him? Do I blame him? Do I feel anything at all?

  I clear my throat. "It was your typical story, I guess. Outrageously attractive boy meets nerdy girl. It was the 'happily ever after part' where things started to break down."

  Chapter Three

  Hope

  Dear Diary:

  I'm totally not the kind of girl who writes in a diary. I suck at writing, but Ms. Littleton said she'll give me extra credit if I write five pages or more in this one at least three times a week until the end of the year, and boy do I need it. My grades are not good. I wouldn't really care actually, except that I can't swim if I fail any of my classes, and I'm like a teeter-totter in English. Passing, failing, passing, almost failing.

  Eligibility.

  It's a dirty word on swim team. Probably with any sport in high school, but definitely with Brazosport High School's swim team. I'm the captain this year since I'm a senior and pretty much the best swimmer we’ve got. I thought it would be awesome to be in charge, but I do a lot of paperwork, which blows. I have to take attendance, check eligibility (ugh), and plan out our practice outlines. It's not even the same practice plan for everyone, since the swimmers in distance events have a completely different (and more boring) workout focus than sprinters.

  I'm a sprinter, obviously.

  I have no idea how those distance swimmers can just plonk their faces in the water and not resurface for like two whole hours. I think I'd fall asleep. Or go crazy. Maybe both. I want to get somewhere as fast as I possibly can, then pop up and look around to hear people cheering. I swim freestyle mostly, but I'm also pretty good at backstroke and butterfly. It makes me helpful in filling holes in relays. Now that I'm captain, I have to worry about that kind of crap.

  Today's meet should’ve been perfect. It's a Thursday in the winter, so I worried some of my best swimmers would be sick, but when we checked in, they were all present. Plus, everyone had all their stuff: swimsuits, goggles, and parkas. We all made it to the bus on time. The bus worked like it should and there was no traffic. We even got there five minutes early. I knew it would be a hard meet, swimming against one of the powerhouses in the greater Houston area, but we were ready.

  I’d gotten on and looked at the Friendswood website, so I knew they had dozens of championships behind them compared to our zero, but our team was ready this time. We sucked hardcore a few years ago, but we've come so far since then. I've stolen a half dozen great athletes from dance team, of all places, and a few more from track. Although, when I stole a promising new (former) runner two weeks ago, the track coach Mr. Benitez went to the principal. Apparently I can’t hang out around the high school track after swim practice any more. But the point is, Friendswood and Brazosport are almost the same size, so we both had a lot of talent to draw on. Friendswood High School may be richer, but I figured we were as ready as we'd ever be to take them down.

  I was an idiot.

  I’m sort of dating my co-captain Dave, which might have been my first mistake I guess. I tried to tell him to move Anna to the medley relay, but he just smiled at me and did what he wanted. I told him we needed a pre-meet pep talk, but he said that was a waste of time.

  “We aren’t cheerleaders,” is actually what he told me.

  I tried to make everyone keep their parkas on when we unloaded, but he said to let them do what they want, warm muscles don’t matter. Coach Collins lets us manage the little things. He says it helps us grow together as a team. He's as big an idiot as me. Although if I’m being honest, probably none of that would’ve made much of a difference anyway.

  I was in the first relay, the meet's very first race. When my turn came, I felt completely calm. I stood up on the starting block, goggles in place. My foot placement was perfect, my right front foot at the edge, my toes curling over the block. My left foot was about a shoulder's width behind, and my hands had a firm grip when Vivian approached me swimming the breaststroke. I didn't jump in too early and disqualify us, but I flew forward the second Vivian tapped the wall.

  We were slightly behind Friendswood when I leapt into the water, but by the time I finished my fifty meters of fly, we had a pretty good lead. Faith kept that lead and we won. Dave pulled me in for a hug, since he was standing behind me waiting for the men's relay. He swims backstroke, which means he's up first and he starts in the water. I should've been watching Dave reaching up and grabbing the block. He's sort of my boyfriend and he's really good looking, too. He has blonde hair and light green eyes. He's also got a long, lean swimmer's body, in spite of the fact that I poached him from track just last year. Maybe Coach Benitez had a point.

  I wasn't looking at Dave as his relay started. No one from our team was. It was the first time I'd ever seen him.

  The race started and I wasn't even cheering. I was conscious of the fact our team was winning, but my focus was split. Dave got out of the water just as I saw him mount the block. Dave was looking for a high five, a hug, or really any kind of congratulations I think, but I ignored him, my eyes glued to our competition. Dave huffed and walked off, talking to one of his buddies behind me.

  I couldn't stop looking at one of the largest guys I'd ever seen at a high school swim meet. He had to be more than just a few inches over six feet tall, and his skin was dark, as though he'd been in the sun every day of his life. His size, his shaggy black hair, his enormous muscles, they were all impressive, but what drew my eye was a huge, black, whale tail tattooed across his shoulders and down his back that rippled with muscle as he moved. Above the whale tale was one word in black block letters. Moby.

  Our team was still winning. And just in case you don't know Ms. Littleton, seconds count in swimming. In fact, split seconds matter. They often make the difference between winning and losing. So it’ll tell you something when I say his teammate reached the wall, and before he bothered to jump in, this guy looked back over his shoulder and winked at me through his goggles.

  I gasped, I know I did.

  Then he leapt straight out over the water. He had the most beautiful entry, and then the most gorgeous butterfly I've ever seen. If you've seen someone swim butterfly badly, you probably thought they were drowning, but if you've seen it done right, it's a thing of, like, really amazing beauty. I've seen videos of Matt Biondi from the Olym
pics in the eighties and nineties and his butterfly is so perfect it almost made me cry.

  Biondi had nothing on this guy.

  Our boys' team lost the medley relay. Badly. Because of that hulking whale man. Once I got over ogling him, I really couldn’t stand the fact that he existed.

  Dave hated him too. Probably more than me since he didn’t like swoon when he saw him or anything. I ignored Dave’s cursing and focused on the races, keeping a silent tally in my head. We were tied after the women's medley, but our team pulled ahead in the 200 free, winning both first and second in the women's, and landing first and third in the men's. I knew we had a tough meet ahead of us because Friendswood has a bigger team with more swimmers to call on, but we were still doing well.

  I was helping one of the freshman girls stretch a stiff shoulder when I noticed my little green-pea track recruit warming up for his first race. Dave was watching, I saw, and he knew. I should have let it go since he kind of runs the boys and I run the girls’ side, but I just couldn’t. I walked over to talk to him.

  “Why are you wearing swim trunks, Adam?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. No new swimmer, especially someone who used to run, wants to wear a speedo. They just don’t. As some kind of stupid rite of passage, the guys never tell them why they actually need to wear one. They always say it’s the drag. Wearing trunks will slow them down, they say.

  “I’m fast enough,” he said. Because the baby swimmers always say that. The reality is, they’d rather lose than wear a tight little suit.

  I should’ve left it alone. It happens every year, but most new swimmers are freshmen and they all dive in together, which means their swim trunks all peel off at the same time. Everyone laughs at all of them, usually in the same race. This poor kid was a sophomore, and we were in the middle of the season. “You may be fast enough.” His times were pretty good in practice. “But you don’t just wear a speedo because it’s faster.”

  He frowned. “Huh?”

  I leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Those trunks will fall off the second you hit the water.”

  His cheeks flushed and he ran to the locker room to change.

  “Why’d you tell him?” Dave asked. “That was going to be so freaking funny.”

  I rolled my eyes. Sometimes Dave’s a jerk.

  He wasn’t laughing when Moby smoked us in the 200 Individual Medley. It sparked my first real fight with Dave. Ever. I guess we'd never really cared about anything enough to fight about it before.

  "Why do you keep staring at him?"

  "At who?" I tried to play dumb.

  "That Moby freak. Geez, you're supposed to be cheering for our team. You should be looking at me."

  I shrugged. "If I was staring, it’s because he was destroying you."

  "He's only one guy. Swimming’s a team sport."

  "Their entire team is good, Dave. It's going to be a tough meet. We knew that when we signed up."

  I picked up my clipboard and tallied the points. Friendswood was already ahead, not by a huge amount yet, but by enough it would be hard for us to catch up. When the race ended, I barely had time to update the totals before Dave sat down right next to me and slung his arm around my shoulders.

  "Watch it," I said. "You're flinging water on my paper."

  Dave rolled his eyes. "Your paper doesn’t even matter. It's just so you can obsess over every little thing during the meet."

  I shoved his arm off. "What’s your problem anyway? Since when do we sit around all snuggled up?"

  "You're my girlfriend. If I want to put my arm around you, what's the big deal?" He glanced to the right just then and I followed his gaze. Moby was looking at us, smirking. It pissed me off, so I yanked Dave down for a kiss right there in the middle of the meet.

  Coach Collins cleared his throat and I pulled back.

  "Sorry Coach," I muttered.

  "I didn't think I needed to review proper behavior for a meet with my team captains." Coach Collins leaned over and grabbed my clipboard. "Maybe instead of locking lips you two could, I don't know, get ready for your events?" Coach pointed.

  I swore, because I was up.

  I scrambled to find my goggles and reach the block in time. I won the fifty free anyway, but it was my worst time in over a month. Afterward, I barely had time to stretch out before I was up for the hundred fly. I didn't like doing events back to back, but we had agreed to forgo diving which would normally give me a break, and our team needed the points from a few more first places. I figured the fly was my best bet.

  I was back in my groove by the time the race started, and I beat Friendswood's best swimmer by a solid two seconds. I was in the free lanes cooling down from my sprint and working the lactic acid out of my muscles when I saw him. Moby was standing at the pool's edge watching me. I rolled over and backstroked until I reached just below where he was standing, staring at me rudely. I flipped him off with both hands and turned back over. I hoped Coach didn't see it, but it felt good to show him that his team didn't scare me.

  When I went back to our risers to relax until my last event, the 200 free relay, I noticed that both Dave and Moby were ready for their next race too. Both were doing the 500 freestyle, the longest event at a high school meet. I walked by Dave and squeezed his hand before I took my seat in the risers, sliding into my parka to keep my muscles warm.

  I'd seen Moby swim twice at that point. I knew he was the best swimmer at the meet. I thought he might be the best swimmer in the greater Houston area. Still, nothing had prepared me for watching him swim the 500 free. I should explain about freestyle. Most people think that the crawl stroke, where your legs scissor kick and your arms slide up and around over and over, is actually the freestyle stroke. That's not true. Actually freestyle just means you can swim however you want. Of course, everyone does the crawl because it's the fastest stroke for the least effort, so it's a no brainer.

  Except for Moby.

  I swear he smiled at me before he leapt in again, but instead of swimming the crawl with the other seven guys swimming, he swam butterfly for the first hundred yards. It wasn't just me staring. Everyone stared. Butterfly is exhausting. No one swims it during a freestyle race. We all watched, transfixed, at his perfect form for the fly. Then he switched to backstroke for the next hundred. He swam breaststroke, usually the slowest swim stroke, for the next hundred. The worst part is that, even swimming those alternative strokes, he pulled so far ahead the other swimmers, Dave included, that he lapped them. Twice. When he finally switched to the crawl for the last two hundred yards, he pulled ahead even further, so far that no one could believe it. He finished the entire thing in under four and a half minutes. To give you an idea, the high school record is something like four minutes and thirteen seconds. That's for someone who was at the end of a taper, not in the middle of the season, and doing the crawl the entire time.

  I hated Moby in that moment. Hated his arrogance and how he was beating us so badly, and I was jealous. And I hated that I was jealous. But I also kind of fangirled a little. I couldn't help it.

  When he stepped out of the pool, he saw me staring with freaking starry princess eyes and he knew. He knew I was completely blown away, and I hated that he knew it. His eyes found mine immediately and he grinned.

  Dave came in almost a minute later. When he stomped his way over to me, clearly embarrassed and upset, I tried to act outraged. How could a freak like Moby exist? Luckily I didn't have long to fume, since I was anchor in the next relay. Our girls team won again. I recorded it and headed over for my last cool down. Moby was in the water, still cooling down from his race.

  I slid into a cool-down lane, one over from him. I waited to push off until he was halfway down so we’d only pass sporadically. Within one lap he had matched me, and we were swimming in sync. Almost every time I came up for a breath I saw him, smiling at me. I finally pulled up against the wall and he did, too.

  "Are you swim-stalking me?" I asked.

  "I was in the water first, lady.
You picked the lane right next to me." He arched one eyebrow. His glorious muscles rippled when he pulled up and sat down on the concrete edge of the pool. "I think that means you're the one stalking me."

  "Why are you still cooling down, anyway? A little worn out from showing off?"

  "You haven't even seen me show off yet." He smiled. "But no, I didn't start until after your medley."

  I started with surprise. "Why?"

  "I like watching you. You're the best swimmer here." Other than him, obviously. His grin said he already knew that, so I didn't acknowledge it.

  "I doubt my boyfriend appreciates your flirting with me." I pulled out of the water then, and I should have stood up and gone back to the risers, hoping to catch the end of Dave's race.

  I didn't.

  "I don't see him here," he said. "Must be busy losing another one."

  I stood then. "You're a jerk."

  He shrugged, still smiling. "Sometimes, but I'm a jerk who always wins."

  I didn't know what to say to that, so I walked back to our risers and tallied Dave's most recent second place win in the hundred back. Even though I won every single race, we were still losing and I was pissed about it. When the last event was called, I watched as our girls teams took second and third. I tallied the races and even with the additional six from the last race, we still had less than seventy points. No matter what our boys 400 freestyle relay did, we couldn't win.

  It still pissed me off to watch Moby's team destroy Dave's by over five seconds, all of them thanks to Moby. I guess it pissed Dave off too. When he finished his cool down laps, he came back to where I was getting my things together. He normally would have grabbed the box with the meet stuff, clipboard, extra supplies, back up timers, a few kickboards and other random crap.

  He just walked off instead, leaving me to lug my bag and the box of random crap alone. "Thanks a lot, Dave," I muttered. Then I slid my bag strap over my head and settled it across my body. Finally I leaned over and heaved the box up.