In Honor

by Jessi Kirby

  I hugged my arms to my chest and glanced around. “What time is it?”

  “Five something. Sunrise is soon.”

  “I don’t know. I . . .” I’d felt so much braver the night before, sitting next to the fire and planning an adventure, until Rusty’d gone and ruined it.

  Wyatt motioned with his head at the picnic table. “He’s out cold over there. I don’t think he’ll be up for a few hours.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just . . . I don’t know how to scuba dive, or what I’m supposed to do, or what I’m even doing here . . . and I should probably just get back on the road, because this whole thing is just—I’m kind of on a deadline. . . .” Wyatt nodded slowly as I stuttered, waiting for me to finish. A lump rose in my throat. “It sounded like a better idea in my head.”

  He shrugged simply. “That’s okay. A lot of things do. You can just come watch if you want. There’s a big rock you could sit on and see us from. And the sunrise’ll still be great.” He nodded over at where Rusty must’ve been laid out. “C’mon. He’s not going anywhere.”

  I leaned against the car and considered again what it’d be like to see the stars from beneath the water and watch the sunlight wash over them, wiping the sky clean for a brand-new day. I needed one. Finn never would have passed up the chance. And he maybe even would have understood what I was doing here. I took a deep breath and looked up at the stars twinkling in the purple-black sky, then back to Wyatt. “Okay. I’ll try it. Since I’m up and all.”

  Wyatt broke into a grin. “Got a bathing suit?”

  I went to the trunk for it, and Wyatt followed. “I knew you had it in ya.” He heaved a large bag over one shoulder, then looped his other arm through mine. “Let’s move on out.”

  It didn’t look like the sun had any plans to come up soon, but according to Wyatt it would, so we needed to hurry. We jogged across the deserted highway, and he ducked under a chain that was stretched across the entrance to the parking lot for the dive center, holding it up for me to do the same.

  “Are we sneaking in here?”

  He glanced back at me. “Sort of. It’s just not open yet, is all.” He stopped and hitched his bag back up on his shoulder for the tenth time since we’d left the campsite. “I don’t think anyone will be out here for a while, though. Only Corrie would come up with something like this. She’s . . . creative.”

  I smiled. “Do you guys do this a lot? Come up with random adventures that you go on together?”

  “They try to make a thing of it, Sam and Corrie. They’re good together that way. They’re all into that whole carpe diem thing.” He was a little out of breath from lugging his bag. “And usually, they don’t mind if I come, which is cool. Sam’s pretty mellow as far as older brothers go.”

  He stopped short, like he’d said something wrong, and neither one of us said anything as our feet crunched over the gravel in the empty parking lot. We came to a low rock wall, where Wyatt set his bag down. He looked at me, concerned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  This time it was me who stopped him. “It’s okay. You can say the word ‘brother.’ It’s fine.” I looked past the wall and caught a glimpse of the water’s slick, black surface. “His name was Finn.” I paused at the pang in my chest and waited for it to pass. “Anyway, he would have thought this was great.”

  Wyatt nodded but was quiet.

  “And I think he would have liked you, too. Rusty was just being a jerk last night for whatever reason.”

  “Whatever reason, huh?” He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah . . . I don’t know what that reason could be.” He held my eyes a moment, and I decided not to bother explaining that it wasn’t a protective thing or a jealous thing. It was an asshole thing. Wyatt clapped his hands together. “You ready? It’s right over there.”

  We climbed over the wall and made our way down the slope to where Sam and Corrie’s silhouettes whispered as they cinched straps and clicked together buckles. Corrie saw us first and came over to me, arms wide. “You made it!” She gave me an awkward, equipment-laden hug, then pulled me back by my shoulders. “You nervous? Don’t be. Here.” She grabbed my hand and led me over to a bench carved into the surrounding rocks. “Wyatt can get you all set up. We need to hurry if we wanna beat the sunrise.”

  I looked back at Wyatt and thought for a second I should tell him that Rusty never needed any reason to act the way he did. You never knew what you might get with him. But he had already taken his bag over to where Sam was, and they were laughing together as he unzipped it and began pulling out equipment. I looked around. Even in the dark I could tell the Blue Hole was big. Bigger than any swimming pool I’d been in. I pulled off my boots and let my toes press into the cool stone that lined the edge.

  “So, this is natural? Nobody put it here?”

  “Nope.” Corrie stepped next to me. “All natural. Crazy that it’s here in the middle of the desert, huh? Wait till you see it in the light. It’s the most perfect shade of blue you’ve ever seen.” She handed me a thin shirt. “Here. Put this on over your bathing suit. It’s a rash guard. The water’s pretty warm, but this’ll help a little bit to keep your heat.”

  I set it down and glanced around for a place to change.

  “Don’t worry, it’s dark. They won’t see you from over there.”

  “True.” I nodded and stepped back into the wall—as much as I could, anyway, while Corrie put on what looked like a backpack with the scuba tank attached to it. “I’ll see you over there,” she said. “You’re going to love this.”

  A wave of nervousness went through me. “Okay.”

  In the dark, I changed into my bathing suit beneath my dress without too much trouble. Once it was tied, I pulled the dress over my head and replaced it with Corrie’s rash guard, which fit smooth and tight.

  “Hey.” Wyatt came back over, wearing just his trunks. “Here,” he said. “I’m gonna give you just a little bit of weight to help you sink when we get in.”

  “Sink?” That just sounded bad. I preferred to swim, or float, like Lilah and I and whatever boys she rounded up did on the river on hot summer days. “I don’t know . . .”

  “You’ll be fine,” Wyatt said, holding up a belt with two pouches on it. “Put your arms up.” I did, and he slid the belt around my waist. I kept my eyes down, trying not to smile as his hands brushed my stomach and cinched it tight. “That feel all right?”

  He was looking at me, close, and smiling just as cute as he had the night before.

  “Yeah.” I dropped my eyes back to the belt that hung heavy on my hips and forced back the fluttery smile that crept over me. “That’s, um . . . that’s good.” He stepped back, and I rolled my eyes in the dark at the sudden nervousness that tingled in my stomach.

  Sam came over, already wearing his air tank on his back. “We don’t have any extra fins, but you’ll be hooked up with Wyatt anyhow.” There was a smile in his voice as he said it, and my cheeks burned despite the cool morning air. He turned to Wyatt. “You guys can just follow the line down. That way, you’ll know how deep you are. Don’t take her any deeper than twenty or so, okay?”

  Wyatt nodded.

  “Corrie and I need to get in so we can make it to the bottom in time for the sunrise.” He turned back to me, his voice reassuring. “Wyatt’ll take you through what to do, but really, you just have to breathe nice and slow, and stay relaxed. He’ll do the rest.”

  Wyatt nudged me with his shoulder. “Remember, good hands.”

  I looked at the black water and took a deep breath. “I don’t know why, but I trust you.”

  Sam gave my shoulder a squeeze, then walked over to a ramp at the edge of the hole, where Corrie was waiting. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him before their silhouettes disappeared with a splash into the water. A light flicked on below the surface and illuminated them in the center of a cloud of bubbles, ringed by a blue-green circle of light.

  As they started to sink, the light grew dimmer, cre
ating a deep green glow in the middle of the large pool. Aside from the soft gurgle of air bubbles breaking the water’s surface, the morning was perfectly still, and in that moment it seemed so beautifully fragile that neither one of us spoke. There, in the quiet space between the stars above us and the fading light below, everything in me seemed to soften just a little.

  We stayed there like that, so quiet, until Wyatt spoke—reluctant, I imagined, to break the silence. “Worth it to wake up at dark thirty, right?” He was watching the same circle of light as it faded.

  I stared at it, trying to etch the image in my mind before turning to him. “Yeah. This is beautiful. Thank you for getting me.”

  He held my eyes for a long moment. “Wait till you see it from under the water.” He pointed to the pool, now only faintly lit. “Come on. I’ll show you what to do.”

  It was a strange sensation, continuing to take in a breath, even as I dipped below the surface of the water. I concentrated on breathing slow and steady like Sam and Wyatt had both said, and the sound of the air moving through the hose made it easy to stay focused on that. My legs brushed against Wyatt’s in the dark of the water, and I was conscious of how close we were at that moment, literally breathing the same air. It sent a little zing through me, and I shivered despite the surprising warmth of the water. He clicked on his small dive light and pointed to his ears, indicating for me to pop mine. Then he smiled beneath his mask and flashed the okay sign. When I answered with my own, he grabbed the rope I already had a hold on, and then pointed down, to where it disappeared into darkness.

  I took another exaggerated breath, and we began to walk our hands down the rope, alternating one after another, down through the water. Our bubbles danced around each other, then sailed upward, leaving a sparkling trail back to the surface. I hadn’t expected the water to be so still or clear, but it was, and our tiny light bounced off the limestone walls of the hole, throwing wavy shadows all around us. I didn’t feel the pull of the weight belt, didn’t notice the pressure I had been nervous about. I was floating downward without the sensation of falling. Sinking, even though I felt weightless.

  We went slowly, face to face, Wyatt constantly checking to see if I was all right, me assuring us both that I was. The deepest I’d ever been underwater was the bottom of Lilah’s pool. We’d spent every summer afternoon there for as long as I could remember, all the way back from the days of ‘Marco Polo’ and ‘Sharks and Minnows’ to this summer, which we mostly spent soaking up both the sun and the last of our time together before we left for different schools. We’d lie there with our magazines and our straps hanging untied until we couldn’t stand the heat anymore and had to get in. Lilah didn’t get her hair wet anymore, just in case she needed to look cute for one of her many admirers who might drop by. By the time we were juniors, she could have her pick.

  I dove in, though, sure that my hair didn’t really matter. I’d yet to have a boy become a boyfriend. As soon as it looked like it might happen, Finn and Rusty were right there to scare the crap out of him, and I was unceremoniously blown off. So, while Lilah got sunscreen rubbed onto her back, I swam. My favorite moment was always the one when I reached the bumpy bottom of the pool, where the only sound was the crackling of the turquoise water all around me. It was well worth the tangly hair and smudged mascara.

  As we descended, I wondered if I could have talked Lilah into scuba diving in the dark with a stranger, in a mask that even made cute, cute Wyatt look silly. I watched our hands leapfrog each other down the rope, brushing each time they did, and figured probably not.

  When Wyatt’s hand landed on a black line, he motioned for me to stop, and I realized we must’ve hit twenty feet. He pointed to his ears again, and I pinched my nose and blew gently, relieving a bit of pressure. I gave him the okay sign, and he pointed to his light, then up to the surface, asking me with his eyes if I was ready for him to turn it off. I took in one more slow breath, let it out, and nodded, just as it went dark.

  For half a second, I panicked.

  But then Wyatt’s hands found mine on the rope, and he held them firmly enough that I relaxed. He waited a moment, then let go. Water swirled by as he swam behind me and grabbed the rope again, so that his arms were wrapped securely around me, anchored by his hands on mine. I wondered if he could hear the unevenness of my breaths at that moment. Our legs tangled languidly there in the dark, and we stayed like that, suspended vertically together, for a long moment before he peeled my fingers, one by one, off the rope. I let him, and when the last one was free, his hands went to my waist and gently pulled me back with him until I was lying back with my eyes to the surface. They caught a tiny light, waving down through the water, and then another and another. Stars twinkled in the paling sky, sending light from the past all the way down to us.

  Suspended as we were, with no horizon line or landscape or anything else to draw a separation between the water and sky, I pictured us up there with the stars. Another story written in tiny lights. We were a constellation put in the sky—two people holding hands, floating peacefully above everything else, in a beautiful, perfect moment.

  Finn told me once, as we sat on the porch watching the sun go down, that one thing he remembered our mom telling him was that life sometimes gives you a tiny moment of peace when you need it most. And that you had to be careful and look out for it or you’d miss it. He’d said it just as the last sliver of sun dipped below the horizon, leaving a flaming pink summer sky behind. We sat quiet in the still heat, and I’d thought I understood what he meant then, because it felt so good and safe to be sitting there with him next to me. Now though, I understood it with a depth that made me want to laugh and cry at the same time, and I wished more than anything I could tell him.

  Wyatt squeezed my hand, and it was light enough now that I could see his free hand pointing to a tree silhouetted against the pale morning sky, one tiny star barely visible above it. I blinked and it was gone. The others dissolved into the morning almost as quickly and were replaced by a cloudless swath of pale sky, tinged blue around the edges. Above the surface, it might have been a moment where I glanced over at Wyatt and he understood. He would’ve maybe even leaned in and kissed it softly into my memory. It might have made me feel less lonely and lost. But beneath the water, we didn’t move and we didn’t speak, and my moment of peace faded slowly into the blue around us.

  8

  “That was amazing! Wasn’t that amazing?!” Corrie lifted her mask, clearly euphoric as we bobbed on the surface.

  “Best idea you’ve ever had,” Sam agreed, sending a spray of water droplets high in the air.

  “Hands down, best moment of this trip. Aside from meeting my dream girl, of course.” Wyatt looked over at me, and his gentle brown eyes searched mine for some sort of reaction. There really had been a moment there with him, beneath the blue of the water, but it wasn’t the kind of moment he meant. I didn’t say anything, but managed a feeble smile and a nod, and when I felt the lump rise at the back of my throat, I knew I couldn’t trust my voice.

  Wyatt’s eyebrows drew together, and he dipped his chin into the water, blew a few bubbles. Sam and Corrie looked from me to each other, and I knew I was acting odd. I knew I should have been giddy and laughing like they were when they surfaced. I should have been elated and proud that I’d tried something so out of my small range of experience. I should have smiled or squeezed Wyatt’s hand, which still held my own. But all at once, I wanted to get out and go far away from the possibility of losing it in front of them all. I didn’t want to cry over Finn in front of them—in front of anyone, for that matter.

  For a long time after our parents died, I cried a lot. Anything set me off, and nothing anyone said or did made it any better—except for Finn. He knew what to say, or what not to say. And he never cried. Not that I ever saw, at least. He was the strong one of the two of us, and if I gave in and let myself cry for him now, there’d be nobody there to stop it.

  I let go of Wyatt’s hand and loo
ked over at the ramp we’d used to get in. He nodded wordlessly, and we made our way to the edge together, leaving Sam and Corrie floating in the middle of the blue. When my toes scraped the rough stone of the bottom, I stood slowly, avoiding Wyatt’s eyes, and began to unhook myself. My fingers fumbled when they got to the buckle of the weight belt around my waist, and I clamped my lips together, angry at this little thing that was about to break me.

  “Here.” Wyatt’s hand stilled my own. “I’ll get that one. It jams sometimes.” I let my arms fall at my sides, and he unclicked it easily, then bent down and forced me to meet his eyes. Water droplets still clung to his face. “You seem like you’re not okay.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek and looked down. “I’m sorry. That really was beautiful, and you . . . it’s just . . .”

  “It’s all right.” He bumped my shoulder gently with his. “I have that speechless effect on a lot of girls, really.” I smiled but didn’t say anything. When he spoke next, it was softened, sincere. “I’m really sorry about your brother, Honor. I’d be a lost wreck if something like that happened to Sam. But you seem strong to me, which means you’re probably doing things right. Like I said, people deal with stuff in all different ways, and maybe you’re someone who needs to keep moving. . . .” He kind of trailed off, maybe realizing what that meant.

  My eyes went to his, and I felt a rush of gratitude for Wyatt. For the second time, he had said the right thing at the exact moment I needed it. I didn’t know how he could understand, but that didn’t really matter.

  “Thank you” was what I said, but there was so much more behind it, it didn’t seem enough. I wanted to tell him that he was the kind of person you don’t meet very often—one who is good and kind and really sees people. The kind I wished I’d met under different circumstances, when I wasn’t in the middle of a ridiculous road trip, with Rusty tagging along, and an impossible goal. The kind of guy I might have fallen for without a second thought.