My nails have dried just enough when he glances up, his gaze connecting with mine.
I look away. Then back again.
Smooth, Piper.
He raises his hand in a wave, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
Holy balls—his smile is familiar.
A memory blinks into my head: my first kiss was with a tall chestnut-haired boy.
Except, this boy can’t bethatboy.
I wave back, feeling silly for entertaining the idea that a ghost from my past has suddenly reappeared. I feel even sillier when a gust of warm wind lifts my half dozen spare cotton balls and drops them into the pool.
I scowl at the mess. I could leave them, but littering sucks.
Sighing, I haul myself up to grab a net, careful not to ding my manicure. Stewing about my argument with Tati and my run-in with Gabi and what a bummer this day has been—minus myhair, which I really do love—I carefully fish all but one of the cotton balls from the pool. It’s the last, bobbing close to the edge and requiring no real effort, that takes me under.
It’s the boy’s fault. As I’m crouching, reaching into the water with decent balance and a capable hand, he catches my eye again. I grow flustered, wobbly.
I yelp, shattering the pool’s placid surface with my flailing body.
Thank god my phone’s upstairs on my bed, not in my pocket.
I’ve plummeted into only a few feet of water, but I stay under for several seconds, scolding myself for the squeal I let out as I fell, worrying the splash I created was enormous, hoping I’m not screwing up my manicure and my fresh hair color with this unfortunate dip, and praying—praying—that when I surface, the boy will have disappeared into the night.
He has not.
He’s standing on the deck, right above me.
He’s doubled over with laughter.
He regains his composure long enough to reach out a hand.
What a gentleman.
Honestly, I’m reluctant to accept his help, but let’s be real: I could use it.
I let him assist as I drag myself out of the pool, the traitorous cotton ball in my fist. When I’m on dry land, he lets me go so I can wipe the stream of water from my eyes. He only has a tenuous handle on his laughter when he asks, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, mortified, studying my feet and the puddleexpanding around them.
I shake it off—the embarrassment and the water—and with feigned confidence that borders on insolence, I look up.
Itishim.
It’s been three years; he’s gained six inches and a solid fifty pounds, and his hair is shorter—no more boy-band shag. His once-round face is now strong lines and sharp angles, a dignified cleft marking his chin. His braces are gone, leaving his teeth so perfect I can’t even be mad that he’s laughing in my face.
Henry.
All grown up.
That night returns in a rush: Tati screeching with disappointment over a failed summer school test, followed by crushing loneliness and grief, which I hadn’t yet learned to compartmentalize. I retreated to the pool and sat at the water’s edge, sobbing with a hysteria that scared me. A boy came out of nowhere. He sat down next to me, sinking his feet into the pool, putting a paperback copy ofThe Outsiderson the deck beside him. He didn’t try to console me; for the longest time, he didn’t talk at all. But he was there, a comforting presence who knew nothing and asked for nothing and expected nothing.
Eventually, he spoke, a soliloquy about how saltwater pools aren’t really different from chlorine pools because, thanks to this process called electrolysis, the salt transforms naturally into chlorine. It was so utterly random that I was distracted from my tears and unexpectedly charmed.
We hung out until dawn—the first of many times I’d stayout past curfew—walking along the beach, exhausting subjects not important enough to recall. I didn’t tell him about my dead parents or my mean sister or the world geography class she’d insisted I retake over the summer even though I’d passed with a C+ the first time around. He didn’t tell me anything personal either, though he talked almost constantly about the tide and the constellations and the novel he was reading.
