Brynna opened her notebook, her pen sliding through palms that were already clammy.
How about now? She wanted to write.
I was really afraid that night when I came out of the water.
She felt the water breaking over her face, the choppy waves at her shoulders, sinking into the loose-weave fabric of her summer T-shirt. She could taste the salt water on her lips.
Her lungs were burning, pulling. It didn’t seem that far out when they walked the pier, but swimming back to shore was another thing entirely. Brynna stopped kicking and started to tread, her legs working as she spun in a circle, searching the slick top of the black water for Erica.
“Erica…” she sang.
But there was no Erica.
“Come on.” Brynna slapped at the water, cold droplets landing on her eyelashes and lips. “Fine, be that way.” She turned and started to swim toward shore again, certain that Erica, the stronger swimmer of the two, was already padding through the wet sand at the water’s edge, cursing Brynna’s name.
Brynna pounded through the water, feeling the slight tug of the surf pulling her backward. But she cupped her hands and stroked until her shoulders ached and her knees banked against wet sand close to shore then stood up, letting the weight of the water drip off her as she reached the pillowy dry sand. Her heart was thundering, and she was breathing hard but smiling, tasting the salt on her lips.
“Whew!” She threw her hands up in a victory V and danced around the beach, wriggling her butt and shaking her head. “That was awesome!”
Michael, Ella, and Jay were jogging toward her, hooting and whistling. “Nice job!” Ella crowed.
“Weren’t you supposed to be naked?” Michael said, that sly grin not skipping a beat. He hiccupped softly, a burst of sugar-sweet, alcohol-scented breath commingling with the salty beach breeze.
“I took my top off. You must have blinked and missed it. Your loss.” Brynna stopped dancing and wrung the water out of her hair. “Okay, where’s the big cry baby? Is she hiding because she doesn’t want to admit that that was totally unreal?”
Michael tossed Brynna a towel and jutted his chin toward the water. “She’s still out there.”
Brynna pulled the towel around her and turned to look. “Really? I thought for sure she’d beat me in.”
“Well…there you go. She’s faster in the lanes and you’re faster in open water. ’Cuz you’re like a shark!” Michael snapped his jaws before planting a smacking kiss on her cheek.
Ella scratched her head, squinting. “I don’t even see her.”
“Erica’s like a snake in the water. You don’t even see her coming and then bam! There she is.”
“Okay,” Jay said, “then where is she?”
Brynna walked down the beach, letting the water crash over her ankles. “Erica?” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Erica!”
The only answer was the sound of the waves smacking the wet sand.
Brynna turned and glared at her friends. “You guys are so stupid. Where is she? She came in way before me, didn’t she? Is she trying to make me think she’s dead? Trying to prove some kind of Erica-point?”
Ella’s face was wan. “No, really, Bryn. She didn’t come in.”
“You’re lying.”
Now Michael shook his head, and the action shook something loose in Brynna. “Really?”
“Seriously. Didn’t you see her when you guys came up the first time?”
Brynna’s chest started to tighten. Sweat beaded along her hairline and upper lip, even as she shivered in the night air. “I—I think so.”
“How could you think so? That was five minutes ago,” Jay said.
Brynna looked at her trio of friends and the hard, worried looks on their faces. “I know but I—I mean, I’m sure I did.” She spun back to the surf. “Erica!”
Jay was stripping off his shirt and Michael kicked off his flip-flops. The sound of their bare feet slapping the sand reverberated through Brynna’s head. She took one look at Ella, chewing on her bottom lip, and dropped her towel, cutting ahead of the boys and diving into the foam-covered waves.
Brynna plunged under the water, feeling the sting of the salt water as she opened her eyes. The water at Harding Beach was murky even in sunlight, and at night, she was met with a wall of blackness. Her feet hit the sandy bottom, and Brynna launched herself, head and shoulders breaking water. “Erica?”
Her voice joined the chorus of Michael and Jay’s. Brynna spun in time to see Ella running up the beach, her figure becoming smaller as she broke the wall of swaying kids on Jay’s back patio.
Brynna dipped back under the water, groping blindly, her fingers sifting through sand, her arms being slapped by kelp as she swam. Underwater, she started to cry.
Erica is playing a trick, she told herself. Erica is trying to teach me a lesson.
It seemed like hours passed, and every muscle in Brynna’s body was screaming in exhaustion, rallying against the pain of pushing against another crashing wave, another swell of surf.
Then she felt the hand on her shoulder.