Float, page 21
Three minutes later, the dish was empty, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t had half of what’d been in it.
“I can’t believe we did it,” I moaned, pressing my forehead against the table. Blake was too busy licking hot fudge sauce off his spoon to comment on my state of distress. “I’m so proud of us. But I think I need a nap.”
“You can sleep in the car.”
I tilted my head so I could peer out the window. Jesse’s beat-up Jeep hadn’t rolled off the cliff during our meal, but it did look pretty far away in my current state.
“I’m not carrying you,” Blake said, as if he could read my mind.
I sat up and reached across the table to smack him on the shoulder, but he just chuckled at my efforts. His laughter proved contagious, because by the time Carol strode up to our table with the check, Blake and I were snickering like five-year-olds.
“Here you go,” Carol announced.
It wasn’t until Blake reached for his wallet that I realized I didn’t have any money with me.
“I’ll pay you back,” I declared as Blake pulled out a few crumpled bills and tucked them into the black booklet with the check.
Blake shook his head. “No, you won’t.”
“Yes, I will. I swear, I’ll write this down so I don’t forget—”
“I mean I’m not letting you.”
Blake slid the check onto the edge of the table. A moment later, Carol plucked it up.
“Thank you,” he told her, “it was delicious, as usual.”
“You’ll be back and visit me next week, then?” she grinned, casting a look in my direction that seemed to ask, And you’ll come too?
“I’ve got the day off on Thursday,” Blake replied.
“It’s a date!”
I felt my cheeks flush at her choice of words. Not helping, Carol.
“Goodness, boy, I wish you’d quit that lifeguard job,” she continued as she gathered up our empty sundae dish. “You’re too busy, and it’s too dangerous. I don’t like those Holden beaches.”
“I’m always careful, Carol,” he insisted.
Carol paused for a moment, her lips pursed into a tight, lipstick-stained line as she gazed down at him with a sort of maternal worry I hadn’t seen in person in a long time. She reached out a wrinkled hand and brushed her thumb across the pale white scar above Blake’s left eyebrow, her eyes flashing with untouchable melancholy. She blinked, as if to collect herself, and the pain was replaced with a teasing glint.
“Do me a favor and get yourself a haircut before Thursday,” Carol scolded, flicking the locks of dark hair that’d fallen over his forehead, and then she was gone.
Blake was still smiling, the gesture a little sad and his eyes a little unfocused, when we stepped out of Bayside Burgers and back into the gusting wind, which had picked up strength considerably during lunch. I trailed along at Blake’s side as we crossed the street and made our way to Jesse’s Jeep, my brain working in overtime as a second question started to take form inside my head.
Blue eyes, not like George’s.
That little white scar above his eyebrow.
The way he’d completely panicked at the pool a few weeks ago when he’d seemed so convinced that I’d drown in four feet of water and had sputtered about some big secret.
It was all so obvious. But I wanted to hear it from him.
So when Blake turned to me from the driver’s seat of Jesse’s car, smiling contentedly and patting his stomach, and asked, “Didn’t I tell you that was gonna be the best burger of your life?” I replied with, “How did your mom drown?”
Waverly Lyons, Queen of Tact. Bow down.
Chapter 17
I truly believe that every person on this earth has one special talent.
Some people are naturally gifted when it comes to athletics. Others are better at performance arts or painting or composing classical music. I once read a news article about a guy who recited, like, fifty thousand digits of pi. It took him three days. The Guinness World Records officials wouldn’t even let him go to the bathroom by himself in case he had the digits written inside his underpants or something. Sometimes I can’t even remember my parents’ cell phone numbers, so I sort of wish that I’d been born with a useful gift like that.
But no, my special talent is something far less helpful. My brain has the unique ability to calculate the exact combination of words that are least appropriate for a situation.
Basically, I’m really good at sticking my foot in my mouth.
The smile Blake had when he’d turned to face me from the driver’s seat, still completely and utterly unaware of the verbal punch I was about to unleash on him, was still on his face. Only it kind of looked more like a grimace now. I’d never wanted to disappear so badly before in my life. I wanted to push open the Jeep door, army roll out of the vehicle, and hurl myself over the nearest cliff.
Which, conveniently, was only a couple of steps away.
It felt like a small eternity passed before Blake made a strangled noise at the back of his throat. He suddenly straightened his spine, faced forward in his seat, and flattened his lips into a thin, expressionless line. Then he reached out to turn the keys in the ignition and grabbed hold of the steering wheel.
He didn’t look at me again as he pulled out of the parking space.
He didn’t look me as we started down the street either.
He still wasn’t looking at me when we rolled up to a stop sign.
“Is that your second question?”
He’d spoken in monotone, his words slow and deliberate, cautious even. His face didn’t give away anything. I thought I could see a pinch between his eyebrows, but it was hard to tell when I was staring at his profile.
Please, don’t do this, I pleaded in my head. Don’t shut me out.
He’d been so open in the restaurant, so willing to welcome me in. Maybe, if I hadn’t been so tactless with my last question, he’d still be smiling. I clasped my hands in my lap, squeezing my fingers until the bones ached and my skin stung.
I shook my head, feeling breathless.
“That’s not, um—I mean, I know she drowned, I just . . .”
I squeezed my eyes shut, desperately trying to grasp onto any idea as to how I could close the distance I felt growing between Blake and me.
“I’m not here by choice,” I blurted.
For a second, silence hung in the air.
“I didn’t force you to come.” Blake’s tone was dark, bordering somewhere on angry, but his voice cracked a little.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” I cried, clamping my hands over my face and sinking into my seat. “I meant I didn’t ask to be in Holden this summer, to see Rachel. It wasn’t my choice. I’m only here because my parents didn’t want me on either of their expeditions.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Blake’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. But now that I’d started to speak, the words just kept bubbling up in my throat and spilling over.
“I’m dead weight. I’m not good at math or science or navigation or basic survival skills. And I’m not good at any of the arts, like Aunt Rachel, so it’s not like I provided any entertainment value. I’m just . . . there. No talents. No skills. Nothing to bring to the table. My parents finally cracked and sent me out here because it was getting embarrassing to have to cart me around in front of all their colleagues. Neither of them have called me yet to ask how my summer’s going, and I know I should give them the benefit of the doubt, because cell reception can be so spotty up there, but I don’t think they care. I really don’t. I could probably drown in the Atlantic Ocean and they’d—”
The car jerked to a stop.
I looked out through the window for a moment before I realized the front wheel of the Jeep was two inches from the curb.
Blake had pulled over.
Shit.
I’d thought that maybe, if I opened up a little, he’d feel more comfortable telling me about his mother. Friendships are about trust, after all. I couldn’t just sit here and interrogate him. But I’d dug a little bit too deep into my own story, and somehow I’d ended up telling him exactly how miserable I was.
Miserable and untalented and useless.
I kept my hands clasped in my lap, refusing to look anywhere else but out the window. My breathing was rapid and a little uneven—the same way it was after I tried to do anything that involved running farther than the distance between the living-room couch and the refrigerator—and I sounded like I was panting in the silence of the car. For what felt like the longest time, it was just the sound of my erratic breath in that beat-up Jeep.
Finally, Blake shifted in the driver’s seat.
I squeezed my eyes shut, half expecting him to unlock the doors and tell me to take a hike.
“Hey,” he said.
The word was spoken softly, but not in that gentle tone people use to comfort you at someone’s funeral. It was calm, asking for a moment of my attention. I peeled my eyes open and took a deep, steadying breath before I met Blake’s gaze. There were no signs of pity in his expression, like I’d been both expecting and dreading.
Instead, he looked determined—sure of himself.
His hand came out over my lap, and I felt his fingertips brush against my clenched fists. Almost immediately, the tension in my muscles unraveled. The fingers on my right hand untangled themselves from my left, only to be replaced by Blake’s.
His palms were hot and a little bit sweaty, but I didn’t mind.
“I wanna show you something,” he told me.
His fingers tightened around my hand just a fraction, silently asking me if that was okay.
I nodded.
Blake nodded back, and then he slipped his hand from mine and grabbed the steering wheel. The warmth of his skin lingered, though. He pulled Jesse’s Jeep away from the curb and started back down the street but took a left turn at the next intersection. We drove for another two minutes before I spotted a large, clinical blue and white sign emerging up on the left.
Marlin Bay Medical Center.
I bit my tongue as we turned into the hospital parking lot because even though I was really curious about where he was taking me, I didn’t want to end up saying anything stupid. Again.
Instead of blurting out all the questions I had, I turned to peer through the car window. The hospital at Marlin Bay looked like it’d been painted white when it first opened but had since faded to a slightly muddy shade of cream. The building wasn’t anything fancy, really, just a pair of rectangular blocks stacked atop one another—the bottom horizontally, the top vertically. There was blue trim around the windows and a blue awning over the front sliding-glass doors, but other than that, the whole structure looked pretty bland.
Blake didn’t stop to park in the front lot.
Instead, he kept driving. It was only once we’d started down a little street that ran along the side of the building that I noticed the rest of the hospital, which had been completely concealed by the main building from my view back in the parking lot out front. There was another large building, just as cream-colored and plain as the first, which appeared to be connected to the front building by a fully enclosed bridge lined with glass walls.
Blake turned the Jeep down the street between the two halves of the Marlin Bay hospital. The road was wide enough so that perpendicular parking spaces ran along both sides of the road, but two cars could still drive past one another without clipping mirrors. The two structures flanking us weren’t all that tall—maybe five stories, at most—but if the small trees planted at the back of the front building were any indication, the buildings blocked out most of the wind.
I gripped the seat belt across my chest with one hand as Blake slowed the Jeep. Most of the parking spaces along the street were empty, so he didn’t have any trouble pulling into one. He cut the motor, pulled the keys from the ignition, and opened his door without so much as turning to face me.
I figured I should follow him, so I popped open my own door and scrambled out of the Jeep.
And then I saw it.
I don’t know why I hadn’t spotted all the bright blue tarps on the sidewalk across the street, or the three ladders propped up against the wall at varying heights. But there, on the flat façade of the back building, was a gigantic, half-completed mural.
Rachel’s mural. It had to be.
My feet moved as if they had a mind of their own, and I walked around to the rear of the Jeep so I could get a better look at the artwork. It was an ocean scene, full to the brim with marine wildlife. Dolphins and swordfish. Starfish and barnacles. A school of shimmering silver fish weaving through vibrantly colored coral and disappearing into the unpainted expanse of wall where I could make out the faint outline of seaweed tendrils and giant sea turtles.
“Wow,” I breathed.
I glanced to my side to find that Blake had walked around the back of the car to stand next to me. But he had his back to the mural, and his eyes were trained on the other building behind me.
“Psst, Blake,” I whispered theatrically, “mural’s this way.”
Blake didn’t respond for a moment.
“Third floor, second window from the left,” he told me, nodding up at the building behind me. “That was my room.”
It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about, but when my brain finally processed his words, I took a couple of steps until he and I were both standing away from the Jeep. My eyes flew up to the building, counting out three floors up and two windows over. I waited to feel some sort of all-encompassing feeling of knowledge wash over me. When it didn’t, I looked at Blake.
My eyes locked on the little white scar above his left eyebrow.
“What happened?” I asked, my voice quiet but not soft. I knew Blake Hamilton well enough to know he’d hate it if I suddenly started treating him like some kind of wounded baby animal.
“My mom was a competitive swimmer,” Blake said, his eyes still locked on that window. “She almost made it to the Olympics back in her twenties, actually. But then she met my dad, and she sort of gave it all up to settle down and raise a family. She kept swimming, though. She was still really good at it. She just didn’t compete.”
There was a knot forming in my stomach.
“When I was about twelve or thirteen, Hurricane Dean went through the Caribbean. We all thought it’d completely missed Florida, so there wasn’t any reason to worry about it. My mom went out swimming one morning, like she usually did, and . . .”
I was going to throw up my Beluga Whale Sundae. Blake seemed to have trouble starting another sentence. He looked down at the ground for a minute and shook his head.
“We—my dad and I—heard about all the residual rip currents that afternoon on television. Hurricane Dean didn’t even brush us, and we’d thought maybe the Gulf would get some weird tides, but we had no idea . . . God, there was this horrible moment when we just both looked at each other and went, Mom’s usually back by now.”
I’d started shaking, but I didn’t dare move.
“Dad called the Coast Guard right away. But I couldn’t just sit there and wait to hear if Mom was alive or not, so I sprinted to the harbor, and I just jumped in Mr. Fletcher’s boat—you know, Lena and Jesse’s dad, he had this dinky little sailboat—and I took it out to sea.”
He shrugged then.
“That’s where this came from?” I asked hesitantly, reaching up to brush my fingertip along the little white scar on his forehead. Blake shivered under my touch, and I realized my hands must’ve been cold.
“It was so fucking stupid,” Blake said, squeezing his eyes closed and letting out a single huff of bitter laughter. “I thought I could just sail out there and I’d find Mom and everything would be okay. I didn’t even make it out of the harbor; currents pulled me right into a wall of rocks along the shore. Mr. Fletcher’s boat flipped and I ended up pancaked.”
Blake shook his head again.
“Just fucking stupid,” he breathed.
“It wasn’t stupid,” I insisted. “It was brave.”
He turned so his back was to the hospital building where he’d no doubt received a couple of stitches, and eyed the mural. It was obvious from the slump of his shoulders and the weary look on his face he didn’t want to talk about his mom anymore. I turned to the mural, my shoulder brushing against his, and changed the subject.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” I prompted.
Blake nodded wordlessly.
“I mean, I knew Rachel was a good artist, but this is—this is amazing.”
My captive audience nodded again. For what felt like the millionth time since I’d arrived in Holden, I felt that ridiculous urge to keep talking.
“You know, I really wish I’d inherited some of the talent genes. I’m no good at science and math, but I can’t draw for shit either. Sometimes I think Rachel must’ve made a deal with Satan to get her talent, because my dad is, like, the least creative person I’ve ever met. I mean, I guess climatologists don’t exactly have the freedom to get creative—”
Blake’s soft, barely there chuckle rang in my ears.
“—but the man can’t even draw stick figures—”
“Waverly.”
“Really, sometimes it’s like the entire right side of his brain never fully developed—”
“Waverly.”
I jumped as Blake’s elbow shot out and nudged me in the ribs, knocking me a little off balance. When I turned to ask him what his problem was, I practically lost all the air in my lungs.
