Never.
But I had to. I put one foot in front of the other, fought every urge to turn back, just to make sure she didn’t sink under. She’d given me no choice. I was going to make an even bigger mistake than I already had just by letting myself get into this situation. I passed her rumpled clothing, got as far as the trees, but, unable to breathe without keeping my eyes on her, I turned and looked back. I tensed when I couldn’t find her but a few seconds later, my eyes adjusted. On shore, she put her clothes back on. Once I was certain she wouldn’t be getting back in the lake, I went to the truck, found some greasy towels behind the seats, and wiped myself down. I sat and watched through the windshield. I couldn’t even bring myself to turn on the heater or music.
After a few minutes, she trudged back up to the passenger’s side door.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked when I looked over, her window still partly down. “I’m wet.”
Her nipples were hard, so I averted my eyes and passed her a towel. It was dirty but better than being soaked. Once she’d dried herself a little, she climbed into the cab.
I put the key in the ignition, but the engine only turned over. “Great.” I pounded my fist against the steering wheel. “That’s just fucking great.”
The whole bench shook with her shivering. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Even though she faced me, her shoulder and half her back were pressed up against the door, as far away from me as she could get. She looked so small and breakable, tucked into the corner, the opposite of how she’d acted just a few minutes ago. In her lap, she wrung her hands around something. She breathed audibly, maybe trying not to cry. In. Out. In. Out. The t-shirt clung to her breasts, outlining them, the only two wet spots.
How could I stay pissed? All she wanted was more time. I wanted the same. “I’m not mad,” I said. “I worry. I worry so goddamn much, Lake.”
“Why? I don’t understand.” Her voice was tiny, frightened. “I’ve been swimming in the ocean since I could walk.”
I gripped the steering wheel, even though we weren’t going anywhere. The difference between Lake and every other person I’d come across the past eight years was that it felt as if her goodness could actually be enough to heal my ugliness. To fill the hole in me. I wanted to tell her. Knowing what I’d been through meant knowing me better than anyone since Maddy.
I turned the key to see if at least the heater would come on; it did, along with the radio. I lowered the volume and sat back in my seat. “My sister drowned while I was thirty feet away.” The words were foreign. Saying it out loud was as hard as I thought it’d be. It changed the air around us. The molecules rearranged. The truth sat between us like a third person. In a way, it was. Madison was never far from my mind. I still carried her around, one long piggyback ride until the day I’d die. “I couldn’t save her.”
Lake didn’t move an inch. She sat still so long, I looked over to make sure she was still conscious. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t realize.”
By the look on her face, I’d scared the shit outta her. I couldn’t just leave it at that. “We had a pool, but that wasn’t what killed her. It just sped up the process.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “What do you mean?”
“I told you my parents used to fight. It was a war every time. They’d married young—for love.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Nah. Not when you’re fundamentally different. My mom’s family was middleclass, my dad came from the wrong side of the tracks. They didn’t grow up the same or want the same things. That might be okay if you’re not as passionate as you are different. Long story short, they fought as hard as they made up.” I wasn’t sure Lake’d understand what I was getting at, so I glossed over that. “Once in a while, something in my dad would flip, and he’d go too far. He’d hit her, apologize in tears at her feet, and that’d be it. He beat me up a few times, stupid shit like finding my dishes out after a particularly bad day at work. He hurt Madison only once as a kid. When I hit puberty and got bigger than him, never happened to either of us again, just my mom when I wasn’t around.”
Lake seemed farther away, her back glued against the door. Even in the dark, I could see her ashen face. Fine. She needed to hear this, and maybe it was best if it scared her off me. She’d grown up as sheltered as anyone I’d ever seen. Whatever schoolgirl crush she had on me, maybe this would cure it.
“He went after your sister, and you wouldn’t let him.”
I must’ve misheard her. “What?”