Brynna’s lips felt numb. “No, no. She was here.” It was barely more than a whisper, but the statement seemed to hang in the air between them as Teddy’s eyes scanned the concrete around the pool. There was nothing there. No wet footprints, no water droplets. There was nothing except for the square of wet concrete where Brynna pulled herself out of the water.
She blinked up at Teddy. “You didn’t see—”
He shook his head, something like sadness or apology in his eyes. “I didn’t see anyone else in here, Bryn.”
Tension stiffened Brynna’s spine. “Then why did you come in here? Were you—”
The apology in Teddy’s eyes immediately vanished. His cheeks pinkened in the dim light. “I wasn’t stalking you or anything. I was just coming back from football”—he pointed to the discarded sporting goods at the door as if for proof—“and I heard screaming.”
Instinctively, Brynna’s fingertips washed over her throat. “Screaming?”
“I looked in and saw that it was dark. But I heard you—I didn’t know it was you then—scream again, so I came in and you were just coming out of the water. What happened? Why were the lights off? You weren’t swimming out here alone, were you?” He looked strangely skeptical. “In the dark?”
A tremble coursed through Brynna, and she felt the sting of tears behind her eyes, that heavy tension of holding back tears pressing on her temples. “I don’t know what happened,” she whispered.
Teddy stared at her for a silent beat before pulling Brynna into him. His cut-grass smell and warm sweatshirt comforted her, and something inside her broke. She was suddenly crying silently, body-wracking tears that strained every fiber of her being. Teddy brushed his lips over Brynna’s forehead then rested his cheek on her head, his arms engulfing her completely until she couldn’t cry anymore.
???
“Come on, I’ll drive you home,” Teddy said.
“Actually, my mom was going—” She glanced down at her cell phone and slid the text message icon. “Well, she’s going to pick me up in forty-five minutes.”
“I’ll take you.”
Brynna fell into step with Teddy then paused. “Didn’t you tell Darcy you biked today?”
Teddy looked sheepish. “I may have kind of lied.”
Brynna raised her brows.
“Darcy can be kind of…rough. Besides, I saw she got a ride home from one of the guys on the baseball team anyway. She’s never really hurting for help.”
She smiled, feeling a modicum better. Teddy didn’t want to be with Darcy. Not at all. The thought made her warm, even as her skin stayed ice cold.
Teddy drove Brynna, still wrapped in her towel, home. She wore her flip-flops and clutched her goggles and swim cap in one hand, her backpack hugged in her other arm. She worked the stitches on her backpack strap, the movement rote and comforting even as the nubby fabric rubbed the skin on her fingertips raw. Teddy tried to speak every so often, and Brynna wanted to respond but her eyes—her mind—were so consumed with finding Erica that every movement outside the dark car windows made her jump, made her already queasy stomach roil.
It was Erica, the voice in her mind repeated.
It couldn’t have been Erica, another voice countered.
They never found her body…
“It’s this one, right?”
Brynna jumped, her heart hammering against her rib cage. “W-what?”
“This one.” Teddy’s eyes cut across Brynna’s face as he glanced toward her house, hulking in the darkness.
“Oh, yeah, right.” Brynna hadn’t realized how long they had driven, how far they had gone. She gathered up her things then looked at Teddy. “Hey, how did you know which house it was?”
Teddy shrugged nonchalantly. “You told me you guys were one of the only lived-in houses out here, so I kind of assumed.”
Brynna nodded, feeling slightly ashamed for questioning him. “Oh. Well, thanks for…the ride…and everything.” The interior of the car was dark, but a sliver of silver moonlight illuminated the hard planes of Teddy’s face. It made his light eyes look dark, like deep, jeweled pools, and Brynna instantly feared she would go under.
She wanted to lean forward and kiss Teddy, to get lost in that prickly feeling that came when his lips founds hers, when his arms wrapped around her. She could feel his heartbeat then, thundering with her own, and she felt safe, connected. But this was a different Teddy and she was a different Brynna: naked, exposed. Teddy didn’t lean in to kiss her, and his gaze only grazed her as he turned to stare out the windshield directly in front of him.
He thinks I’m crazy. He—knows—I’m crazy.
The reality hit Brynna like a solid pop to the chest, and she nearly lost her breath, finding the door handle and pressing herself out into the cool night air before she could. She gasped, but the sound was snatched away by the roar of Teddy’s engine as he revved it, the red taillights of his car like sharp, accusing eyes fading into the blackness.
The house was dark when Brynna sunk her key into the lock, and inside, the only light was the pale gray glimmer of a television on in the family room.
“Mom?”