“Six fifteen,” I correct. “I like to shower and wake up first.” I’dliketo leave at six thirty like usual, but now my lie is out there, and it’s going to cost me fifteen minutes of precious sleep.
Asher bites his bright yellow corn cob in a slow, straight line, holding my eyes. There’s a smile hidden there, and I try to school my face and the scowl I can feel brewing. He takes the last bite at the end and mouthsding.
I almost lose it.My mother and her stupid stories.A few years ago my mother just had to tell everyone the “cute story” about how I used to eat my corn on the cob like the old-fashioned electric typewriter my grandma had when I was little. I’d eat it in a straight line, sayding!when I reached the end, then start in on the next row.Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, ding! Chomp, chomp, chomp, ding!Only Asher would remember that stupid story a million years later. Does he take notes somewhere? Record all of these stupid family conversations on his phone?
“Six-fifteen.” He smiles behind the cob. “Should be fun.”
Fun.I think he and I have different definitions of the word.
“Definitely. Don’t forget your suit, you can take the leg back,” I say. “I’d be happy to giveyousome pointers as well.”
Asher smiles and our parents chat across the table about winery trips and new restaurants to check out, as if we’ve become invisible again. “Looking forward to it.”
DAY 3
Sidney
The next morning, I am nearly unconscious. You would think, since I’ve been getting up at the crack of dawn every other day of vacation for the last five years, it wouldn’t be an issue anymore—that my body would remember what’s happening and snap into gear—but when 6 a.m. rolls around it’s not familiar, it’s painful. So painful. Like my eyelids will need to be surgically separated if they’re ever going to function properly again. My room is dark and the hallway is dark, and I think maybe I’ve seen the light of day for the last time as I stumble toward the bathroom door. My eyelids are permanently closed. This is my life now.
I slink into the bathroom, opting for the dim light above the vanity, rather than the fluorescent box that hangs over the little shower stall. Stripping off my tank and shorts, I step into the shower, ready to be blasted awake by the cold. I could just wait to jump into the frigid lake, but I’d rather shake off the sleepiness before I start training. Especially for my first morning swim with Asher. Gah, even just thinking about it is miserable. He’ll probably try to run me down with the boat, so I need to be awake when I get out there, in case I need to go all action-movie mode and swim under the boat or something.
Head limp against the cream-colored tiles, I push the clearplastic knob up and to the right, mentally preparing for the onslaught. The strange smell hits me almost as quickly as the cold. It’s familiar, but so out of place—tangy, maybe. Almost citrus, but not quite. It smells like my childhood, somehow. Everything in this house has its own unique smell, but this one is a first, and it doesn’t fit. The cold sharpness against my skin distracts me, but as the pelting water numbs me and loses its bite, I relax and let my eyes slowly crack open.
What the hell?
Red streamseverywhere.My first thought is that I’m bleeding, that I somehow, unconsciously, sliced my foot open. It looks like something out of a horror movie. Like there should be a bloody red handprint on the shower wall next to me. I’m tired, but I would have remembered severing my toe, I think. My eyes travel from the swirling red drain up my stained legs, and to my blotchy red stomach.Red.I’m red all over. My brain is still foggy and I feel a little like I’m in the last dregs of a nightmare.
I look up toward the showerhead, the water lightening in color now, and tentatively stick out my tongue as the smell finally registers.Cherry.It smells like my favorite Kool-Aid, the stuff I used to live off of every summer, back before I cared about how much sugar I drank.
“Asher.” I say his name like a mumbled curse, deep in my throat, my teeth clenched so tight they squeak a little under the pressure.
When I head out, my towel is stained from rubbing, but I still couldn’t get all of the red off of my skin. It’s concentrated around my knees and elbows, and in patches across my stomach—thankfully covered by my swimsuit—and my face. My face, which is turned toward the dock, where my new safety buddy is now standing, waiting to trail me across the lake. He’s lucky I’m too claustrophobic—and easily bored—to go to prison, or he’d need to be worried about being out on the open water with me.
“Mornin’,” he says, his face focused on the can of gas he’s dumping into the tank as I approach the little silver boat. My dad brings a small fishing boat to the lake every year, but for lake swims we always use the little silver rowboat that belongs to Five Pines, and ditch the oars for an outboard motor on the back. Asher reaches forward and I can see his suit sticking out from the waistband of his shorts. His phone is in a plastic bag sitting on the floor of the boat.Clearly he doesn’t trust me, either. Good. He shouldn’t.
I sit on the little bench that stretches across the front of the boat, my eyes fixed on the back of his head as he pours the gas. When he turns, he looks me right in the eyes. His travel from my face down to my splotchy wrists and linger on my knees, which are the reddest parts of my body.Note to self: moisturize your knees once in a while.I lift my little canteen to my mouth and take a casual sip. “Morning.”
The corner of his mouth twitches and I wait for the smile, but it doesn’t come. “You smell nice today,” he says, still on the brink of that smile. I’m not sure if I remember what Asher looks like smiling anymore. Smirking, yes. But smiling is as good as admitting guilt. And that is one of the three unspoken rules of this war we wage each summer.
Never admit guilt
No serious injuries
No snitching
Rule number one means we don’t smile, or laugh, or implicitly gloat. I’m not sure why—maybe because saying out loud that you filled someone’s drink with soy sauce or left earthworms in their bed just sounds mean. Rule number two ensures we never have to break rule number three. We haven’t snitched on each other since we were fifteen and Asher put marbles on the floor beside my bed. I’m not sure if he was actively trying to kill me,or just wasn’t thinking, but I lost my balance and cracked my head on the nightstand. I wouldn’t have ratted him out to my parents, but it was bleeding so much I was sure I was going to die, and I had to get six stitches. All in all it was only a one-inch cut. Asher apologized profusely—the only time either of us has—and maybe the whole thing would have stopped at that point, if I hadn’t retaliated a few days later. Head wound or not, I wasn’t going toliterallylet him land the winning blow.
Asher starts up the engine and takes a seat across from me. We’re not ten feet from the dock when he reaches his silver mug toward me. “Coffee?”
I shake my canteen in front of me. “I’m good.”
“Right.” I can see that smirk about to break through. “You probably filled up on Kool-Aid this morning, huh?”
Asher
Sidney stands up so quickly, I have to cut the engine so she doesn’t topple over the side. Before it has even quieted, she’s climbing over, lowering herself into the water.
“What are youdoing?”
