With Sam, I didn’t feel pressured to maintain a steady stream of conversation topics. Being with Em was usually the exact opposite; she interpreted silence as an indicator that something had gone terribly wrong. She pulled words out of me with both hands, her heels dug into the ground for leverage. Even when I was exhausted, even when there was nothing else to say.
I had the feeling that if I didn’t say anything to Sam, he wouldn’t say anything to me, and we would continue in that cycle of silence until all that was left was the chirping of crickets and the chirping of frogs. The pond had both of those things. For the first time, it felt like summer.
“Tell me about the saddest you’ve ever been,” I said. Because I didn’t want that silence to stretch on forever. Finding a balance: that was the key.
“A lot of people I knew have died,” he said after a minute. “It never gets any easier.”
He didn’t offer any specifics. I wondered if that was the sad smile I so often saw on his face. Was Aunt Helen’s death reminding him of all the losses he’d already experienced? “I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s just life,” he said. “A part of life.”
I sensed him pulling away, withdrawing into himself, letting that sadness overwhelm him. I took his hand and squeezed. “Tell me the happiest you’ve ever been,” I said.
He leaned back on the blanket, propping himself up with his elbows. “I like meeting new people,” he said finally. “I like seeing new things.”
“But the happiest,” I said.
“The driftwood tower. When we jumped. That was happy.”
“But that’s not the happiest.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t police my happy.”
“You need a really good happy memory. Hold on—I’m feeling inspiration hit.” I stepped off the blanket and kicked my shoes off into the grass.
Aunt Helen had said to break the rules, and I suddenly didn’t think skipping a few rocks into a pond was quite good enough for that.
“Lottie? What are you doing?” Sam asked.
I was wearing shorts and a tank top. Good enough. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and winked at him.
“Chasing some happiness,” I said, and then ran full speed at the lake.
It was colder than I expected—an iciness that took my breath away. But I didn’t stop; I didn’t hesitate. I pushed myself farther, and once I reached waist-deep water I dove forward, shrieking when the water hit my face. I kept swimming underwater, paddling fiercely toward the middle of the lake. Finally I resurfaced and turned around. I could just make out the shadow of Sam standing by the edge of the lake.
“Don’t overthink it!” I said.
“We probably wouldn’t have been arrested for skipping rocks, but for actually swimming . . . ,” he said, trailing off, looking behind him.
“Oh, who’s going to arrest us? Do you see many cops around here?”
“Who knew you had this rebellious streak, Lottie Reaves?” Sam said, but I could see him slipping out of his shoes and pulling his shirt over his head.
I watched him take a deep breath and then wade carefully into the water.
“Oh, come on,” I said.
He looked up at me and rolled his eyes, then mimicked my dive. He was much more graceful than I; he hardly made a ripple as he disappeared into the water.
He surfaced a few feet from me and shook the water out of his hair.
“This isn’t happy,” he said. “This is cold.”
“It is pretty cold, isn’t it?”
But it also somehow didn’t bother me—even as I shivered I felt happy, exhilarated.
“You definitely have to pay my bail money if we get arrested,” Sam said.
“Deal.”
“What are we doing out here, anyway?”
“Getting our minds off things! Loosening up a little! All of the above!”
Sam ran his arms through the water and dipped down up to his neck. “Okay,” he said. “I’m warming up.”
“Great! Okay, what’s the maddest you’ve ever been?”
“Maddest. Hmm. When I had to read Wuthering Heights for an English class. That’s a terrible book.”
“You’re not answering any of these truthfully!”
“I’m trying,” he said, laughing. He let his feet rise up and performed an admirable dead man’s float. “What about you? How come you get to ask all the questions?”
“Because it’s my game, and I make the rules. Now—what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “It’s too bad.”
“Come on. It can’t be that bad.”
“If I told you—”
“Right, right, you’d have to kill me, whatever. Just tell me.”
“The last person I told didn’t take it too well,” he said seriously and stood up in the water again. In his floating he’d moved around me, and I saw him look past me to the shore, his eyes growing wide. “Oh shit,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Shh!” he said and grabbed my hand, spinning me around to look toward shore, to where a flashlight bobbed over the grounds of the Glass House.
“Oh shit,” I repeated.
“It doesn’t seem like he’s coming down by the lake. Just be quiet,” Sam said. He took a step toward me and put his arms around my shoulders; we sank into the water so just our heads were above the surface.
It wasn’t an excellent time to be wondering what Sam had meant by the last person I told didn’t take it too well, but still, I couldn’t help myself. Had he been joking? It didn’t really seem like it.
I couldn’t lie, though; this was kind of nice. My heart was beating straight out of my chest, sure, as I watched the security guard and his flashlight make his rounds around the property, but Sam’s arms were still resting on my shoulders and it felt . . . really nice.
“We’re going to jail,” Sam whispered dramatically, and I couldn’t help but laugh (he pressed a hand over my mouth and rested his chin on the top of my head). I felt the same rush of adrenaline, the same sense of fear and excitement as when Em and I had jumped off the cliff.
I peeled Sam’s fingers away from my mouth. “Look, silly, he’s walking away.”
I turned around in Sam’s arms and became acutely aware of how close we were, how wet Sam’s face was, how his hair dripped little beads of water onto his shoulders.
And for one second I thought maybe he was leaning closer—but then no, he had pulled away, he was wading silently back to shore.
I wondered again what he had meant and whether the worst thing he’d ever done was actually bad, like more-than-I-had-expected bad.
I followed him to shore and searched his face for that sad smile again, or for any sort of hint as to what he was thinking. But he was harmless, smiling to himself as he rolled up the blanket and slung his T-shirt over his shoulder. We crept away from the Glass House by moonlight, and I tried to tell myself the chunk of doubt wedging itself into my brain was an unwelcome intruder, unfounded and meaningless. I wouldn’t give it any more fuel.
“This is the last time I follow you into a lake,” he said, but he was smiling, and he took my hand and didn’t let it go until we said good-bye.
Alvin’s hand was shaking. It was shaking so much he could hardly make out the words on the paper, words scratched haphazardly, tripping over themselves in their rush to be read: I HAVE YOUR SISTER.
TELL NO ONE.