If I Fix You

by Abigail Johnson

  He looked away from me, frowning ever so slightly. “Not sure that’s a great idea.”

  I walked to the side of the roof. “It’s actually a brilliant idea.” Maybe.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Not far. We can walk.” I sat and let my legs dangle over the edge.

  After another moment of indecision, Daniel jumped down onto the wall. Before I could roll onto my stomach and shimmy down next to him, Daniel reached up and gripped my hips.

  “I got you.”

  I felt the muscles in his shoulders tense as he supported my weight until my feet were on the wall next to his. The pterodactyls went wild when he kept his hands on me.

  No big deal. No big deal.

  It didn’t matter how many times I told myself that. I stopped believing it the moment I left my roof with Daniel in the middle of the night.

  Big deal. Very big deal.

  I stepped back as soon as I was steady.

  Daniel started to jump to the ground, but I stopped him.

  “How good is your balance?” I took a few steps along the top of the narrow wall. If I pressed my ankles together the very edges of my feet still hung off either side.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Wall walking.” I wobbled. “I used to do it when I was younger and apparently much more coordinated.”

  “You were younger than you are now? That’s hard to imagine.”

  Watching my feet, I kept inching forward but I caught his grin out of the corner of my eye. “You know I’m not going to forget how old I am. You don’t need to keep reminding me.” When Daniel didn’t say anything, I realized that I might not be the one he was reminding.

  The rough cement was scratchy under my bare feet as I shuffled along the wall, and there were a few loose pebble-sized pieces that dug into my heels. Odds were good that I’d be airborne before too long. Odds were equally good that Daniel wouldn’t follow me.

  Every time I glanced back at him, I saw the same conflicted expression cloud his face. He wanted to come with me, but it wasn’t only about want. He wanted it to be okay to want to come with me; we both did. It was a fine line we’d been walking so far; I didn’t think I was the only one who noticed how unsteady things were becoming. That was one of the reasons I suggested leaving my roof. Maybe if we were moving, it’d be easier to avoid how close we were getting, since we both knew we couldn’t get any closer.

  I reached the intersection where the wall separating my yard from his met the two neighbors behind us, and stood waiting for him. It felt like such a loaded question when I asked, “Are you coming with me?”

  He fought his smile and lost. “Apparently. Which way?”

  When I pointed left, his warm fingers closed around my hips again and I startled, but Daniel only helped me keep my balance as he stepped around and in front of me. His hands left my hips, but he caught hold of my hand rather than let me go entirely.

  Medium deal?

  Although I felt more uncertain of my balance than I had before I’d taken Daniel’s hand, I didn’t let go of it. Instead I looked up at him, barely a foot between us, and watched his smile slide away. It did that more and more often when he looked at me. Butterflies filled me, head to toe. “I’m trying to imagine you at sixteen.”

  “I was a mess, like everyone is supposed to be at sixteen.” He said it almost like an accusation.

  I couldn’t resist. “Would we have been friends?”

  Daniel didn’t hesitate. “No. I definitely wouldn’t have been friends with you.” He flicked a look at me over his shoulder. “And no, you don’t get to pretend like you don’t understand what I mean.”

  I stopped walking and our hands separated. “I wasn’t going to pretend anything.”

  “No?” He stopped too. “Then why’d you ask me that? Do I wish we were both sixteen? No. Do I wish you were twenty-one or even eighteen?” He waited a breath. “Yeah, Jill. I wish that a lot.”

  I guess I had been kind of fishing for the answer he gave me. Not necessarily the way he gave it. I wanted the crooked smile, the teasing response. I didn’t want the almost harsh honesty.

  I was kind of surprised when he took my hand and started walking again, although maybe he’d finally noticed that I was wobbling like I was on a tightrope.

  It was dark out despite the stars. The streetlights were on, but they didn’t give off enough light to make us more than shadowed silhouettes atop the wall.

  Several houses later, I pulled Daniel to a stop and pointed to one that was half a block away.

  “Who lives there?” he asked.

  “No one, I think. It’s a foreclosure.”

  Daniel turned to look at me. “What are we doing?”

  My confidence in my brilliant idea was somewhat shaken by the tone of his voice. “You wanted a pool. I got you a pool.”

  “You want to break into someone’s pool?” His face caught the moonlight just enough for me to see him raise an eyebrow. The tone he used that time made me smile.

  “It’s not breaking in.” I really hoped it wasn’t considered breaking in. “And no one lives there to mind anyway.” Daniel was seconds from caving, I could tell. “But we can go back to my roof if you want. Maybe there will be a breeze.”

  Daniel laughed once. Then again louder. We walked the last few yards to the house before stopping. “You do this a lot?”

  “Nope.”

  “It just popped into your head?”

  “Maybe you’re a bad influence.”

  “I’m definitely a bad influence.” Daniel dropped my hand and pulled his shirt off over his head before tossing it over the wall. I was suddenly grateful for how dark it was. The pterodactyls would have knocked me over if I saw him clearly without a shirt.

  I flexed my toes and looked down. The pool was dark, the water rippling ever so slightly in the almost nonexistent breeze. I inhaled hot, dry air, and imagined how deliciously cool the water would feel. I’d been sweating even before we started walking, and my tank was sticking to me.

  I reminded myself that no one lived there. We weren’t breaking into anything. People pool-hopped all the time. And it was fine for me and Daniel to hang out as friends.

  I stepped up next to him and took his outstretched hand. “On three?”

  His smile was a thing of beauty. “One.”

  “Two.” I squeezed his hand back.

  We jumped together on three.

  CHAPTER 19

  Daniel didn’t let go of me when we hit the water. We sank down together. The darkness was so complete that our hands, our fingers, our skin, were the only things that existed.

  The tips of my toes brushed the bottom and I pushed off, breaking the connection with Daniel. There was a brief moment of tangled limbs as we bobbed against each other trying to tread water while we were too close.

  The water that wrapped around me was warm, like bathtub warm, from baking in the sun all day, but it felt so good. Everything with Daniel felt good.

  “I didn’t think you were going to make it with those short legs of yours.” Daniel dipped below the surface and his fingers encircled my ankle before I was yanked down with him.

  I pushed up and splashed water in his face. “Short legs? I haven’t been short since the fifth grade.”

  “When was that? Last year?” He swam to the side and pushed himself up to sit on the edge.

  “The age jokes are getting old,” I said. “Just like you.”

  He stood up. “Wanna jump again?”

  It was so dark I could make out only his outline, but I could see the hand he extended, and again I took it. He pulled me up so fast that I stumbled against him. All of him. It was one of those moments where I desperately wanted him to tease me about being young, because I felt young. My
heart raced and, pressed against him, I felt his heart lurch under my fingers.

  And I panicked.

  And I pushed him backward into the pool.

  He surfaced and spun around. When his eyes found me his smile had a predatory edge to it that sent a thrill straight through to my toes. “You are so dead.”

  “You looked hot.”

  Daniel’s smile grew. “So you pushed me away? You may have gotten that backward.”

  “Hot as in warm,” I said, glad it was too dark for him to see the blush I felt rush up my cheeks.

  He took a few leisurely strokes toward me. “Go on. Jump. You look...warm.”

  I laughed in a way that betrayed how nervous he was making me. “Not with you waiting to attack me the moment I hit the water.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to attack you?” He swam closer.

  “Aren’t you?”

  Instead of answering, he reached the pool’s edge and climbed out with a speed that had me leaping backward, excited and scared in an exhilaratingly mixed-up way. Daniel caught me with an arm around my waist and another under my knees. Before I could freak out about him holding me, he twisted and launched me into the pool.

  Hitting the water stung and I spluttered as I surfaced. But the pool and surrounding deck were empty. I spun around.

  Nothing.

  The pool light was off and I suddenly felt irrationally afraid of what I couldn’t see in the dark water. Arms snaked around me from behind and I was lifted up, up, nearly all the way out of the water and tossed across the pool.

  When my heart started beating again, I came up laughing and choking a little. The chlorine stung my eyes and my throat. I started for him.

  “Be careful.” Daniel shook his head so water sprayed around him in an arc, the drops slapped against my forehead. “Right now we’re even.”

  I could hear the anticipation in his voice. I was still in the deeper end of the pool, my legs treading water to keep me up, but I felt my toes finally brush along the bottom as we moved, circling each other. I smiled at him, showing all my teeth.

  “You look crazy.” Daniel laughed and lunged for me, but I pushed away, moving around behind him before he could stand.

  I levered myself up on his shoulders and pushed down with all my weight, dunking him. I whooped out loud and made my escape to the other edge of the pool. “Now we’re eve—”

  He grabbed both my ankles when my fingers were inches from the pool’s edge, pulling me back against his chest so that I sucked in a startled breath. His hands lowered to my waist and my pulse raced before he tossed me again into the deep end. His laughter filled my ears as I splashed back up. “I told you.”

  He waited for me to move again, matching my direction when I swam left or right, closing the distance between us with each stroke. We chased each other, splashing and dunking and, in my case, swallowing at least half the pool. We made way too much noise and didn’t care in the slightest.

  I got used to feeling his hands on me, his arms wrapped around me. And at the same time I’d never get used to them.

  Daniel called truce before I did, releasing me when I tried to squirm around behind him. I dunked him again for good measure, then echoed his call for truce when he surfaced. I moved to the middle of the pool and was only a little disappointed when he didn’t pursue me. I was too waterlogged for any more.

  “Screw your roof.” Daniel rested his elbows on the pool ledge behind him. “This is where we’re meeting tomorrow.” He sank lower and dropped his head back, eyes closed, a look of total contentment on his face.

  While he soaked, I slowly swam the length of the pool, back and forth, fueled by a buzzing energy I couldn’t account for. I turned over on my back and floated so that the tips of my toes peeked out of the water.

  When I felt the water roll against me as Daniel pushed off from the edge, I let my legs drop and watched him glide toward me. I had a weird but not entirely unpleasant feeling that he’d been watching me.

  Neither of us could reach the bottom, so we bobbed. Occasionally my foot would slide against his, or his calf would brush mine. Only once or twice at first, but then with more frequency as we drew closer until I could count the drops of water on his eyelashes.

  I was treading water, but my rhythm became less controlled and I was beginning to drift higher and lower with each movement.

  Daniel moved closer, his arms stretched on either side of him, skimming over the water, like he was calming the ripples I was making.

  He was so close. His eyes lowered to my mouth and I forgot to swim for a second. That was the moment where he was supposed to make a joke about me still having my baby teeth or offer to buy me training wheels for my bike.

  Instead Daniel breathed my name. His eyes met mine for half a second before he dipped his head.

  And that’s when the light flicked on.

  CHAPTER 20

  My stomach bungeed from my throat down to my knees, slamming into the kaleidoscope of butterflies created by Daniel’s mouth inches from mine.

  One profane phrase zipped through my brain as I jerked around and saw a silhouetted figure pass through the window of the VERY OCCUPIED house behind me.

  The porch light illuminated a host of panicked thoughts involving me being arrested, going to jail in soaking wet clothes, and Dad never letting me get a Spitfire—never letting me anywhere near Daniel again.

  It took half a second for these thoughts to flood my body with adrenaline. I swear I broke some Olympic record crossing that pool and climbing out, and Daniel was right there with me.

  He jumped up and straddled the wall before leaning down to help me. I grabbed his shoulders while his hands squeezed tight on my waist, lifting me up and over the other side.

  If I thought my heart had thudded before, it was nothing compared to the way it raced as I took off again. I ran along the side of the house, ducking past windows, dodging a bunch of barrel cacti, and stumbling before nearly going into cardiac arrest when hands grabbed me from the shadows of an overgrown mesquite tree.

  Daniel rolled me into his chest and held a finger to his lips.

  In the sudden silence, I realized stealth had not been foremost on my mind as I’d torn through the backyard to the front. “Did they see us?”

  Daniel shook his head. “I don’t think so. We weren’t making any noise and no one called out. Hey, maybe they were breaking in too?”

  Breaking in too. I was fighting a losing battle with nausea just from thinking about us in that category.

  The sound of his laughter startled me. “You look totally freaked-out. We’re fine. No one saw us.” He raised a hand and brushed his thumb over a few drops of water that clung to the skin on my cheek.

  As comforting as I was sure he meant the gesture to be, it wasn’t until my own senses confirmed his words—no one was yelling and stalking around their yard looking for us—that I willed my pulse to slow. A minute later I heaved a true sigh of relief when I saw the patio light go out.

  But that only replaced one heart-pounding emotion with another.

  Without the pool surrounding us, I felt crazy exposed in my dripping wet clothes. Not cold in the slightest, but warm down to my bones. A sensation born from how very aware I was of Daniel. Without a shirt on.

  Even when he lowered his hand from my cheek, he didn’t step back.

  Suddenly it was like no time had passed between that last moment in the pool and this one. Daniel shifted closer, not touching me, but I could change that with a deep breath. I shivered a little when his hand slid up my arm, over my shoulder, and curled under my jaw. He wasn’t tracing a scar.

  “Jill?” he said. And it was a question, a request.

  All I had to do was look up. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my skin, the heat from both our b
odies. I wasn’t sixteen to him in that moment.

  But I was to me.

  I stepped back. I half expected to hear him sigh or something, but he didn’t.

  I hated that I couldn’t bring myself to look up at him. Had I just ruined everything? Why couldn’t I have moved that half step forward instead of back? I wanted to kiss him. Wow, did I want to kiss him. But kissing Daniel wasn’t something I could just want. I almost couldn’t believe he’d been about to kiss me. He knew better, and he’d almost done it twice in less than ten minutes. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten how old he was or how old I wasn’t. Kissing me would be so much worse for him than it would for me. And then there was that whole thing that he probably kissed on an entirely different level than I would. It sent my heart hydroplaning.

  “No, you’re right.” He ran both hands through his hair. “I wasn’t thinking.” And then in a quieter voice, almost to himself, he repeated it.

  “Well, we have opposite problems, so we should go before we wake up all the neighbors.” Without waiting for his response, I moved past him to the sidewalk, leaving the shadows cast by the tree.

  “Jill, wait.” He jogged up and stepped in front of me. “Hey, I—”

  I gasped.

  Daniel was standing directly under the streetlight, illuminating what the dark water and shadows had concealed before. The muscles I had felt, but not the myriad of scars that stood out against his pale skin in a way that blinded me to anything else. Burns swirled in ugly patterns along his ribs, recently healed gashes mixed in with shiny patches of older, scarred skin.

  I breathed his name, my hand reaching out toward him.

  He jerked back from me, the soft look in his eyes hardening in an instant.

  I felt dizzy looking at one scar that curved around his stomach from navel to just under his armpit. “What happened to you?”