“Excuse me,” said someone nearby.
We turned to see The Boy standing ankle-deep in the water. Looking at us.
He’s shorter up close, was the first thing I thought. But still, wow.
“Hey,” Kendall said to him, Oscar-winning cool and casual.
“That rope out there,” he pointed to the line dotted with red-and-white buoys that looked almost exactly like my antidepressant pills. It marked the far edge of the swimming area. “What happens if you go on the other side of it?”
“The lifeguard yells at you,” said Kendall.
“That’s all?” asked The Boy, raising his eyebrows.
“He uses a loud, scary voice,” I added.
“There’s no giant lake squid that comes up from the deep and swallows you whole?”
Kendall and I shook our heads. Dani stepped out of her spin to stop and listen.
“No patrol boat chases you down, scoops you up in a net, throws you in Lake Jail?”
“Not that we’ve seen,” I said, laughing a bit.
“Huh,” was all he said, scanning the off-limits area of the lake, something lighting up behind his expression. He then dove into the water and sprinted out to the boundary rope.
Kendall, Dani, and I fell silent, all watching him swim a trail of white froth through the dark water. When he got to the rope, I expected him to dip underneath it into the forbidden zone. But he turned for the raft tied to the corner of the rope and hoisted himself up the ladder.
“I’ve got to get some intel on Sunscreen Guy,” said Kendall after a few moments.
“I’ve just been calling him The Boy.”
“See? We can’t go on like this. I’ll talk to Mabel.”
Mabel had been running the lake’s snack shack since the 1980s. Mabel absorbed details about people like osmosis.
As Kendall headed off on her mission, I went waist-deep into the water to meet Danielle. She wrapped her arms and legs around me, buoyant and effortlessly huggable. Her cold wet against my warm dry. That moment of shock, until we became the same temperature.
“Will you throw me out like garbage?” she whispered in my ear.
I lifted Danielle away from my body. “You’re no good anymore!” It was part of the game. “I’m chucking you out with the trash!”
Then I tossed her as far as I could into the water. She shrieked with joy.
“Again!” she said when she came back up for air. “This time, let’s pretend you’re putting me in the recycling bin. It’s blue and it’s prettier. Now, go!” So I went. Again, and again, and again. Dani was the best distraction ever.
Ten minutes later, Kendall swam out to meet us, and even with her mirrored sunglasses I could tell she had a mischievous glint in her eye.
“Camden,” Kendall said simply, paddling a circle around me.
“What?”
“It’s weird, but that’s his name. Camden.”
“All you got was a name?”
“He goes to Dashwood.”
“Oh.”
Dashwood was a private alternative school on the edge of town, halfway up a mountain, surrounded by forest. Nobody I knew had even seen the place. Most people called it “Crunchwood” because there were few teachers and no classes. Students did what they wanted, when they wanted to do it. The rumor was they didn’t even need to wear shoes if they weren’t in the mood.
Kendall lowered her sunglasses so she could give me a look. “We think he’s cute, right?”
I grimaced. “Cute’s not the right word.” I hated that word and anyway, it didn’t belong on the same plane of existence as this boy. Camden.
“International Sex God?” Kendall offered with arched eyebrows, pulling out an old phrase from our private best-friend language.
“Perhaps,” I said, giving in to the smile.
“I won’t tell Lukas,” added Kendall.
“Lukas is just a friend.”
“Who you made out with.”
“That was before.” I didn’t need to elaborate. Before meant, before January. Before my night at home alone with a Lady Bic razor and a bag of frozen peas.
Kendall looked pained, then covered it up and said, “So? He still likes you. He’s not scared away.”
“He will be, eventually.”
She kicked me under the water. I splashed her back.
“Why are you always so hard on yourself?” asked Kendall, but I knew she didn’t really want an answer. “I thought we agreed, that’s something that would make you happy. To have someone. You’re close. I wish I were that close.”
“I don’t need ‘someone.’ I have my whole family. And lucky for them, they have me.”