I don’t answer. I head for where I always head when I’m upset—the jetty. The rain is screaming down from the sky, leaving craters in the beach. My feet don’t sink, since the storm is turning the sand hard. I’ve always loved the beginning of hurricane season for the afternoon thunderstorms and now, even more so, since the rain serves as the perfect camouflage for my stupid, embarrassing tears.
The sea is a moody gray as I kick off my sandals and pick my way onto the jetty rocks. Whitecaps dot the seascape, and the ocean crashes through the rocks, sending up plumes like flare guns.
The rocks grow thicker together the farther out I get. There’s no longer beach on either side of me. The seaweed smell disappears and what remains is a purer, saltier scent that latches onto my skin and soaks through my shirt.
The wind whips around me. Anger and embarrassment still surge through my veins, pushing me out toward the lamppost. I watch it, aim for it. The storm blows a wave sideways into the jetty and my foot slips. I catch myself with my hands, now crawling on all fours. Nearly to the tip now.
The foundation of rocks has narrowed.
“Lake!” I turn back to see my brother waving his arms. He’s saying something else, but the wind is blowing in the wrong direction now and the words get lost.
Shut up, shut up, shut up. I squeeze my eyes shut tightly. I bit Isaiah Fox. I spat on Isaiah Fox. And my mom used mom-voice in front of Isaiah Fox. I had the worst first kiss in the history of first kisses and now all I can think is, Leave me alone.
Everyone, just leave me alone.
This is what I’m thinking the moment I see the swell. But by then it’s already too late. The ocean looks like it has a monster moving underneath its surface. As it grows closer and closer the monster’s back rises, pushing the sea into a mountain of water. I’m frozen on the jetty for a second too long before I move, scrambling over the rocks on all fours. The monster wave rears up, bucks, and crashes. The force rips my hands, stinging from the salt, off the rock.
My ribs drag over the edge of the jetty and I’m plunged back first into the water, with time for only a short drag of breath that fills my lungs no more than a quarter of the way. I can’t tell which direction is up.
I’m being dragged down by an invisible current. Down, down, down. My arms and legs beat wildly. I force myself to count.
Thirty seconds. Thirty seconds without a breath. Push, Lake. Push and stay alert.
I quit counting.
I keep thinking I’m close to the surface, but just when I think I should break free, I don’t. There’s only more water. More and more and more. The undertow is fierce and wild, tossing me around like a marionette.
There’s a darkness creeping into my vision that has nothing to do with the ocean.
I am such an idiot. So stupid. What was I trying to prove?
This is a strange thought to have while drowning, but there it is. I will my legs to keep kicking, but I can already feel them becoming soggy and slow. Then my arm sweeps against something. My fingers grasp and I feel it. Skin, fingers, slippery. I reach for it again and again; there’s hair and bone and muscles.
Please, please, please.
I’m wrenched out of reach. My mind screams with alarm. In that last moment, I can’t stop my mouth from opening. I can’t stop myself from sucking in a deep breath. And I can’t stop water from pouring into my throat and tearing through my windpipe.
I can’t stop anything. Because I’m dead.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I imagine how I must look standing in the doorway to my brother’s room, arms limp at my sides.
My parents and Matt are huddled together. My dad leans on the window seat, wearing regular, non-Spandex clothing. Meanwhile my mom perches on the edge of a chair pulled closer to the group. Dad straightens and positions his hands under his armpits. “Tell you what, Lake?” There’s the flash of a lie there.
“I remember…” My breath trembles audibly. “Dying.” The three of them are speechless. The funny thing is, I always thought my parents were secretly on my side. Like they knew Matt was unreasonable, but they had to take care of him because he was their son and that’s what parents did.
Wrong. They were never on my side. The three of them had their little secret club. Keep-away from Lake. Just like Penny and Will.
I swallow hard and take a step into the room. After all, I ought to be invited now. I know the secret password.
I was dead.
“Is it how you…” I start to ask, “how you became paralyzed?” I’m speaking only to Matt now. My big brother. “It is, isn’t it?” I nod quickly, almost frantically, for him to confirm.
Matt’s gone expressionless.
“Stop it, Matt.” My volume is beginning to rise. “Stop it. Don’t go blank like that. Answer me! Is this”—I point insensitively at his wheelchair—“because of me?”
The tension in his jawline gives him away. “Anyone care to explain what’s going on here?” he asks, boxing me out again.
My dad remains sitting back, studying me with his arms crossed.
“I didn’t tell her,” Mom says defensively.
“Why? Why would you tell me Matt fell out of a tree? Why would you let me do all of this?” I think about how I’ve been traipsing around with Matt, solving idiotic scavenger hunt clues, and I feel sick. There is one day standing between me and my eighteenth birthday. What if I had found out after?
Dad speaks first. “What happened the day of your accident happened.” My accident. It hasn’t sunk in yet. Not Matt’s accident. Mine. “Matt wanted you to have a normal life. He didn’t want what happened to him to be for nothing. He made the decision that he didn’t want you to feel guilty.”
I narrow my eyes. “He must have had some help getting there.”
“It was me, Lake,” Matt interjects. “Don’t blame Mom and Dad.”
I know everyone expects me to gush this big apology, to thank Matt for trying to save my life and for giving it back to me when he couldn’t, but that’s not what I feel. That’s not at all what I feel. “You wanted to hate me,” I say. “And you made me hate you.”
Because now all I can see is what could have been. He could have told me. We could have accepted it and then my dad’s words would have been true maybe. Yes, I would have felt deep pain that I’d caused this accident, but we would have had to accept what happened and we would have had to deal with it head-on. Instead of one big hurt, we let it fracture into a million pieces with sharp points and razor edges. Would Matt have hated me if I had known? Would I have grown to resent him? It’s too late to ever know what it would have been like to have the chance to heal.
Matt’s eyes turn sad in a way that I haven’t seen since we were kids. “Not at first. Maybe a little. I don’t know. But don’t pretend you didn’t cut me off too.”
“I did not.” But when I look to my parents I can see that they both think there’s some truth to what he’s said. “How?” I demand. “How did I cut you off? I tried to read with you. I tried to watch movies with you. I researched outings. I reached out to you over and over and you wanted no part.”
“I needed time,” Matt says, calmly.
“I gave it to you.”