Underwater by Marisa Reichardt
For Jon and Kai
my home
chapter one
I just moved. Not from one town to another, but from one end of the couch to the other end. I don’t usually sit on this side, but I’m trying to listen in on the apartment next door. I’m rather particular about where I sit because I like things to be to the left of me. I need to be able to see what’s there.
The walls of our two-bedroom apartment are thin and covered in the standard off-white paint of a rental unit, but I still can’t make out the words on the other side. I can only decipher the pitch of the voices.
One is high.
One is low.
Girl.
Boy.
And then I hear feet hitting the linoleum floor and the noise of the screen door as it slaps open followed by the double bang of it shutting back into place.
Someone knocks on my door. Their knuckles thrum against the flimsy wood, and the echo of it rings hollow through my apartment.
Yes, I can open the door. But I can’t cross the threshold. That’s my rule: Nothing will ever hurt me if I don’t cross the threshold.
I press my shoulder against the door and grab hold of the knob. “Who is it?”
“Evan.”
“I don’t know you.”
“No kidding.” He laughs. “I just moved in next door.”
I peek through the peephole. It offers up a long, distorted version of whoever is out there. It’s not the best view, but I can tell his hands are empty. That’s good.
Even though Evan will eventually segue from new person to neighbor, I’m not eager to get the introduction ball rolling. This kind of attitude is exactly what guarantees that, by the end of the month, Evan will think of me as the weird chick with the frizzy hair who never goes outside. I’m pretty sure that’s what everyone else in my apartment building thinks of me. They leave every day, and I stay here. They come home, and I’m still here doing the same thing. But right now, Evan doesn’t know all of that, so I should probably open the door even though the thought of it makes my hands sweat. I pull it open a crack. A tiny crack.
Whoa.
Evan is cute.
And he looks my age.
The peephole didn’t do him justice.
He runs his hand through his hair. It’s fluffy and brown with golden sun-bleached tips. His skin is tan, sun-drenched like his hair, and his nose is peeling. He must’ve moved from the beach. Literally. Like, he had a hut on the sand. Something about the way he smells makes me want to stay near him. He reminds me of things I miss. I breathe him in, relishing the aroma of earth and ocean and bonfire smoke.
“Um, hey,” he says. “Are you sick or something?”
I consider shutting the door in his face. How can he call me out so fast?
“Why?” I can hear the edge in my voice, the back-offness to my tone. It’s enough to make him straighten up and push back on his flip-flopped feet.
“Sorry. It’s just—it’s Wednesday. Shouldn’t you be at school? Are you home sick?”
Of course he meant was I physically sick, like with pneumonia or explosive diarrhea. Not mentally sick.
“Why aren’t you at school?” I say.
“Because I’m moving in today and starting school tomorrow.” He says this like I should get it. “I can’t do both at the same time.”
I realize I’m not being the most welcoming neighbor. “Sorry,” I mumble. “I don’t do well with strangers.”
“Does the fact that I now live next door make me less of a stranger?”
“Not really.”
“Okaaay.” He runs his hand through his hair again like he’s frustrated. But also like he’s trying to understand. It’s the same way my mom looked at me on Thanksgiving four months ago when I told her I couldn’t take the trash out to the Dumpster anymore.
“What was it you wanted?” I ask.
He shakes his head, and one of those golden-tipped curls comes loose and falls down over his eye. He shoves it back behind his ear. “Is that your car out back with the tarp on it? It says 207 on the space number. That’s you, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Cool, because my mom needs me to unload the U-Haul. I don’t want to scratch your car. Can you move it?”
My heart rate speeds up instantly. It pounds through my chest like rain on the roof. Evan can probably hear the fast and furious thump of it. I wipe my palms against my flannel pajama pants and grasp for excuses. I actually feel like I’m stretching up, reaching for apples on a really high branch.
“I can’t. I’m sick. I can’t leave. I can’t move my car.”
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. It’s my mantra now.
Evan looks at me. Brow creased. Perplexed. “Wait, I thought you just got mad at me for assuming you were sick. Now you really are sick?”
“Yep.” I cough. “Super sick. And it’s really contagious. You probably shouldn’t get too close.”
He scoots back a couple inches. In the courtyard below, the sunlight smashes against the surface of the swimming pool and shoots a reflection at Evan’s feet so it looks like he’s standing in a puddle. “You don’t wanna move your car?”
“I can’t.”