But it was definitely the right thing to do.
She didn’t like how he looked—shifty, she thought.
Like he might just go out and get himself killed right when they were just starting to be friends.
“I get that, but no. You can find another way to be happy. Maybe make yourself a nice side career in movie reviewing or gradually dial back the wrestling once you’ve earned enough cash. Find yourself a boyfriend with a beard who can earn enough to pay for the fancy New York apartment.”
“You really think I could get a guy like that?”
“I know you could get a guy like that,” she said, so delighted he went with the joke that she didn’t notice his face at first. The smile in his eyes and on his lips slowly faded, until all that was left was a soft warmth that melted her from the inside out.
And that was before he spoke.
“You’re a really good person, you know that? Best I ever knew.”
Her eyes weren’t just stinging after that.
They were actively leaking.
“Great, now I’m crying again. That’s awesome. Good job!”
“I had to say it. You’re here trying to give me the life I want.”
“Anyone would want to do that, Tate.”
“Not the person I stole a life from.”
“You didn’t steal it. You borrowed it. And now you’re giving back way more than you ever took out.”
She expected a quiet nod in return. Or maybe some soft acceptance.
Instead, he threw up his hands. His head went back.
And his voice when he spoke was completely agonized.
“Oh you did not just say that. Why did you say that to me? Now I’m going to start bawling.”
“Hey, you started it! I wanted to have fun and instead you decided to tell me how all your hopes and dreams have basically died. Oh, and that you mostly feel like a big, gross dumbass, thanks to me.”
“No, not thanks to you, no that wasn’t what I was—” he started, but seemed to get so frustrated in the middle that he just stopped. He drew a line through the air with his hands, and decided to take a different tack altogether. “Okay, look, you were right. We need to have fun right now. We need to have, like, the most fun any human beings have ever had. You with me?”
“I’m with you. I’m absolutely with you.”
“Prepare yourself, girl, because fun is coming at you.”
“I’m so ready for it. Hit me with the fun,” she said.
About a second before every light in the place snapped off, with an audible clunk.
When she finally spoke, it was into the strange, still quiet that only happens in total darkness.
“I think that might have been a sign.”
“What? No way. Pitch blackness is perfect for the fun I had in mind.”
“It…it is? Because I was thinking it was more perfect for us getting butchered by the campus killer.”
“There is no campus killer,” he said, tone so sure she nearly believed it. And then he finished, completely deadpan: “The guy who got decapitated dragged that locker down onto himself.”
“There was a guy who got decapitated? Are you serious right now?”
“No, I’m absolutely not at all serious. I just wanted to see how high your voice would go.”
She splashed water—even though she suspected he was miles away. It was kind of hard to get a handle on his position, and not just because she couldn’t see six inches in front of her. She also suspected that he was constantly moving around now, as though the dark gave him freedom to do so. He wouldn’t suggest anything by moving suddenly closer. Or feel gross, when her eyes lit on his body.
And she knew this, because she felt the same way.
She was happy to stand in the shallower end now and reveal her T-shirt-clad body.
“You asshole. You know I crap my pants over slasher movies.”
“I did not know that, but am filing the information away for the horror module.”
That stopped her. Or did it stop him?
There was a sudden lack of splashing water, at least.
“You want to keep working with me after this is done?”
“Oh god no. I was planning on healing all your wounds by never speaking to you again after this semester.” She could almost hear the eye roll. The wonderful, amazing eye roll. “Are you serious right now?”
“I’m definitely rethinking the seriousness, if that helps.”
“It does, considering we’re supposed to be having the fun now.”
“We are having the fun. The fun has increased by a good thirty percent already.”
“See? I know how to get a party started.”
“Is that what we’re going to do? Party? In a deserted, completely dark pool?”
“Well maybe not party, exactly. But think about it—I can’t see you. You can’t see me.”
“Oh are we playing a round of state the obvious?”