“We’re not going to be able to make it all work,” I heard Dad say to Mom on one of these occasions, but I was too wrapped up in my own teen angst to concern myself with their grown-up problems.
The only intermissions from my anxiety were the mornings with Charlie in the water. I hadn’t bothered telling my parents that I was going to swim across the lake again. Mom and Dad had gone back to the city early—something involving the house, I hadn’t paid much attention—and wouldn’t be here for the last ten days of summer. On the day of the swim, I met Charlie on the dock like any other morning, gave him a nod, dove in, and took off. I didn’t even wait for him to get in the boat, but soon enough I could see the oar hitting the water beside me.
That long, steady swim across the lake was a reprieve from everything that had been nagging at me, and when I’d made it to the beach, my limbs burned in a way that felt pleasant, that felt alive.
“Thought you’d forgotten how to do that,” Charlie called over to me as he pulled the boat up onto the shore next to me. He was wearing a bathing suit and a sweat-soaked T-shirt.
“Swim?” I asked, confused. “We’ve been training every day for almost a month.”
Charlie sat down beside me. “Smile,” he said, nudging me with his shoulder.
I reached up and felt my cheek. “It felt good,” I said. “To move . . . To escape.”
He nodded. “Who doesn’t need to escape from Sam every now and then?” He wiggled his eyebrows as if to say, Am I right? Or am I right?
“You’re always so hard on him,” I said, still grinning into the sun and catching my breath. I was almost giddy from the endorphin rush. I wasn’t looking for a response, and he didn’t give me one. Instead, I asked, “So did it meet your expectations?”
He tilted his head.
“You said you wanted to watch the swim up close. Was it everything you dreamed of?”
“Absolutely.” He threw in a dimpled smile for emphasis. “Although in my dreams you were wearing that little yellow bikini you used to strut around in.” It was the kind of classic Charlie line that I’d once shrugged off, but today it hit me like jet fuel. I wanted to bask in it. I wanted to play.
“I didn’t strut!” I cried. “I have never strutted in my life.”
“Oh, you strutted,” Charlie said with a perfectly straight expression.
“You’re one to talk. I am fairly certain your photo is under the word ‘flirt’ in the dictionary.”
He laughed. “A dictionary definition joke? You can do better than that, Pers.”
“Agreed,” I said, laughing now, too. “Did you know you were my first kiss?” The question tumbled out of me—not intended to carry any weight, but Charlie’s dimples disappeared.
“Truth or dare?” he asked. I’d sometimes wondered if he’d forgotten. He clearly hadn’t.
“Truth or dare.”
“Huh,” he said, looking out at the water. I don’t know what reaction I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. He stood up suddenly. “Well, I’m hot as balls. I’m going for a dip.”
“Figures the one time you decide to wear a shirt is the only time you really shouldn’t have,” I quipped as he stood up and yanked it over his head. I usually tried to keep my focus squarely on Charlie’s face when he was shirtless. It was too much—the expanse of skin and muscle—but here it all was, deeply tanned and coated in sweat. He caught me staring before I could scrape my eyes away, and flexed his bicep.
“Show-off,” I muttered.
I lay back in the sand, eyes closed to the sun while Charlie swam. I’d almost dozed off when he sat beside me again.
“You still writing?” he asked. We hadn’t really talked about writing before.
“Umm . . . not much,” I said. I hadn’t felt particularly creative this summer. Not at all, was the truth.
“They’re good, your stories.”
I sat up at this. “You read them? When?”
“I read them. I was looking for something in Sam’s desk the other day and found a stack of them. Read them all. They’re good. You’re good.”
I was looking over at him, but he was staring out over the water.
“You’re serious? You liked them?” Sam and Delilah were always so effusive, but they had to like them. Charlie wasn’t in the habit of doling out compliments that didn’t involve body parts.
“Yeah. They’re a bit weird, but that’s the point, right? They’re different, in a good way.” He looked over at me. His eyes were a pale celery in the sun, bright against his browned skin. But there was no hint of teasing in them. “Might help with the escaping, to write something new,” he said.