“Um, yeah, I guess. Just go through that door.”
I watch as she goes out the door to the patio. She’s very odd and unpredictable. She’s nothing like the girls I’m used to. They’re all conformists, doing whatever everyone else does to fit in, which makes them very predictable. They wouldn’t dare do anything out of the ordinary, fearing they’d be judged for it. But Ella just does what she wants, not caring what people think. I wonder if she was always like that or if she got that way after I destroyed her reputation at school. When I made her an outcast, she no longer needed to care what people thought because they’d already made up their minds about her, thanks to me. It didn’t even take much to do it. I spread some rumors about her, made people think she was strange, and soon everyone started avoiding her. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t done that. I could’ve just left her alone. She never would’ve been popular, but she would’ve had more friends.
Going out to the pool area, I see her lying on one of the loungers, her eyes closed.
I sit down next to her. “What are you doing?”
“Breathing in the air.” She smiles, her eyes still closed. “I love the smell of pools.” She inhales the air and slowly breathes it out.
“You love the smell of chlorine?” I say with a laugh.
“I love the smell of the water, which includes the chlorine but it’s more than that.”
“You’re strange.” I lay back on the lounger, looking up at the sky.
“I just know what I like. That’s not strange.”
“But what you like is strange. Hardly anyone likes the smell of pool water.”
She turns her head and looks at me. “What do you like that people would think is strange?”
“Nothing. And if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell people.”
She closes her eyes, inhaling the air and smiling. “If I had this pool, I’d be out here all the time.”
“You swim?”
“I love to swim, but I never get to because I don’t have a pool.”
“You can come use this one.”
Her eyes pop open. “Really?”
“You’d have to check with me first. We don’t let just anyone come over and use our pool. Or sniff it.”
She laughs. “I’ll be sure to call first.”
As we sit there staring up at the sky, I feel a calmness come over me. I take a deep breath, noticing my chest isn’t tight. It’s always tight. I notice my jaw isn’t clenched. It’s always clenched.
This is a rare moment when I actually feel relaxed. I inhale a deep breath, like Ella’s doing, trying to keep this going for as long as I can because I may never feel like this again.
“Briggs!” I hear my dad’s voice and sit up.
There goes my moment of peace. I can already feel my chest tightening.
“You need to go,” I say to Ella.
“Briggs, where are you?” my dad yells from inside the house.
“Is that your dad?” Ella asks.
“Yeah, and he sounds like he’s in a bad mood so you should probably leave.”
Actually, he always sounds like that, but Ella doesn’t need to know that. I’ve already told her more than I should have tonight. She doesn’t need to know any more.
“There you are,” my dad says, coming out to the patio. “What are you doing out here?”
“Talking about our assignment.” I motion to Ella, who’s standing beside me. “This is Ella. She’s my lab partner in AP Chem.”
