Coach closes the small gap between us and slaps a hand against Asher’s shoulder, giving it a rough squeeze. “Can’t ask for a better summer coach,” he says, and Asher seems to light up at the praise.
Asher gives the coach another half-hug, and pulls me farther from the door. On the wall to our left, a built-in tile bench stretches across the width of the large space. Asher sits down and motions for me to join him. Ahead of us, six lanes stretch out like watery roads. A row of diving blocks rises up in front of us, and I can’t help but think of that picture.
He stretches an arm out toward the far left lane. “That’s where I broke the school record for the two-hundred-yard fly my sophomore year.” He points to the middle lane. “And that’s where I broke the state record.”
My whole body twists toward him, shocked by this revelation. “Seriously? You broke astaterecord?”
“Ouch.” Asher throws a hand of mock anguish up to his chest as I turn back toward the pool. “Ouch,Sid.”
I poke him in the ribs with my elbow. “Oh stop, I didn’t mean it that way and you know it. How did I not hear about this? My mom tells me the dumbest stuff about you, and she didn’t tell methis?”
“I made my mom promise she wouldn’t tell her.”
“You didn’t want me to know?” He would have to be deaf not to hear the hurt in my voice.
“I—” He stretches his legs out toward the pool, crossing one foot over the other. “I wanted to tell you myself, I guess.” He folds his legs back in and sets his elbows on his knees. This is what he’d look like between races, watching his teammates, waiting for his turn. Less clothes. “Which sounds delusional, because we didn’t even talk, and you hated me. But I wanted to tell you.” He turns and smiles at me, but there’s something new there, something a little guarded. There’s a self-consciousness I’m not used to seeing.
“I didn’t hate you.”
He lets out a little grunt that says,Sure you didn’t.
Another elbow to his ribs shuts him up. “So tell me all about it. I want to hear everything.”
Asher tells me about the meet. About how close the race was and how his lungs burned and he had no idea if he was even in the lead. How the win wasn’t as dramatic as he would have thought—how you’d think it would have been deafening or something, like how it is in movies, but the swim meets aren’t that popular in a small school. But then his teammates hoisted him up and threw him in the deep end, and everyone went out to celebrate. And then he called me.
That one missed call. The call I was so sure was a pocket dial. It was the biggest day of Asher’s life, and he called me. I can’teven wrap my brain around that. It’s hard to think that this place—somewhere I’ve never even been before—could have such an impact on us. On who the two of us are. Who we could have been a long time ago if I wasn’t the world’s pettiest person.
“Do you mind if we swing by my house before we head to the party?” Asher looks a little nervous when he asks, just as we’re walking out of the building. “I need to grab Todd’s present, and I want to show you something.”
Asher
I open the door and let Sidney take two steps into my room as I pray that I didn’t leave anything weird lying around. If there’s a pair of old underwear shoved somewhere, my chances are probably shot. Suddenly I’m thankful that my mom makes us deep clean the house before we leave.No one wants to come home to a dirty houseis her motto. Plus, I’ve been packing for college, purging stuff I don’t need, and tossing half of my belongings into boxes for my mom to sell at her garage sale. My room actually looks a little neater than usual. It looks more like Sidney’s room at the house than mine.
“This is actually why I wanted you to come with me this weekend.” I hold a hand out and encourage Sidney to step into my room. “Well, part of the reason.”
“To wow me with your bedroom?” Her sassy tone has me hopeful. Things already felt different after we left the pool, but I still have some lost ground to make up for.
“Not exactly.”
Sidney takes two more steps into the room, as if the floor could open up in front of her at any moment, and I stay in the doorway, letting her. It goes against every instinct I have to let Sidney snoop through my room, but I know this is part of winning her trust back. Letting her see the real me—the me she doesn’t get to see ten months out of the year. The me thatdoesn’t hide the fact that I’ve pretty much been in love with her since the first summer we met.
She glances back at me, eyebrows popping up and a smile tugging at her lips, and I nod toward my stuff. “Go for it,” I say. “Lurk your little heart out.” I try to keep my voice calm, as if I’m not panicking about how this is actually going to unfold. There’s a chance she decides that I’m completely unhinged to have had a crush on her for this long. I’m not entirely sure I’m not.
She lets out a melodramatic squeak and her head darts from one side of the room to the other, like she doesn’t know where to start—the large dresser along the left wall, my bed and nightstand straight ahead, or the walk-in closet to our right. She veers for my dresser and I swallow down the panic that has started to creep up my throat. It’s one thing to say you’re going to let someone look through all of your stuff—personal stuff you didn’t even curate for them—and it’s another thing to watch it happen.
Watching her step up to my dresser is pure torture. My bedroom dresser looks a lot like my dresser at the lake house, except that this one is low and wide. And just like on vacation, I keep most of the stuff I should keep in the bathroom there. My hair gel, my deodorant, the glasses I hardly ever wear. Her hand touches every item gently, picking things up and turning them over in her hands. She smells my deodorant, tries on my glasses, and then glances toward the other end of my dresser.
My dresser goes from everyday essentials to prized possessions. All of my favorite things are huddled on that far end. Tacked on the wall above it are my favorite photos. There’s me and Todd dressed up as cheerleaders our junior year, me on the beach the spring break we went to Florida, stubs from concerts and baseball games, a napkin Michael Phelps signed for me when my dad randomly saw him at the airport during a business trip.
I watch Sid’s head bounce from photo to photo like a pinball, until it comes to a sudden stop. And I know she’s looking at aphoto from the lake. Me and Sid, sitting on the dock, our legs pressed together like we’d known each other forever and not for a few weeks. My mom took it from the shore, and the two of us were oblivious, caught up in conversation, our heads tipped toward each other. She puts a finger out to touch it, like she’s not quite sure it’s real. I had started to think it wasn’t. After so many summers at odds, that first summer had started to dim around the edges. Then her fingers trail down, to the dresser, where all of my weird little trinkets are.
My mom calls me the best kind of pack rat, because I hang on to everything that holds any sort of happy memory for me—I’ve done it since I was a little kid. There was a period, when I was nine, when I refused to take off any of the wristbands I had gotten at concerts and amusement parks and tournaments. They hung on my arm, ratty and faded, until my mother swore she’d cut them off during the night if I didn’t do it. I have a drawer with every newspaper article I’ve ever been in, every swim meet roster, every good moment in my life. But the very best things are sitting on my dresser or tacked to my wall.
“You kept this?” Her voice is soft, and it might just be because she’s facing away from me, but I think it’s more than that.
I know what she’s looking at, but I walk up behind her anyway. Sidney is stroking the smooth rock like it’s some sort of magical crystal that may grant her a wish.
“You gave it to me that first summer.”
