Ripple

Chapter Twenty-Four

When I walk into school on Monday, I float through the halls, still a little dazed by the unexpected turn of my life. How is it that a week ago, I knew nothing of Erik, and now I owe him everything?

“Please tell me it’s not about him,” a voice calls over my shoulder. I spin around and see Cole leaning against the wall.

“Who?”

Cole pushes away from the cinder block and walks up to me. “Erik.”

I hesitate. I don’t want to hurt him any more than I have already.

“So what’s the deal? Just trade one guy for another?”

“It’s not like that,” I say.

“I thought we had something real.”

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

He stares right at me for a long second. “Every time something goes wrong, every time life gets hard, you withdraw.”

“Please, just go.”

“I’m already gone. Have a nice life.”

Cole turns and walks away. I’m left standing there near tears, wishing more than anything I could run after him and explain it all. But all that would do is ensure that the next time I see him walk away, it’ll be forever, no going back.

If he knows what I am, he’ll never talk to me again.

Just like my dad.

The next evening, Erik takes me to the boardwalk, with its indoor putt-putt golf, bumper boats, and Go Karts. He slides his cash under the window as I stand, fidgeting, beside him, excited about going on a real date, one that isn’t tainted by a thick layer of secrets. The teller hands him a handful of tickets, and Erik tears off the first two. He shoves the rest in his pocket.

“Just because you’re a girl, don’t expect me to go easy on you,” he says, grinning widely as he leads me out the big double doors and toward the chain-link fence. A small shack squats along the outer ring of the rubber-tire-lined, asphalted Go Kart track.

“Oh, please. You’re going down,” I say, grinning right back. I’m glad he wanted to do this tonight. I need this after the blowout with Cole.

Erik hands two tickets to a guy in a fluorescent-orange vest and then reaches over and grips my hand. His hand is so much bigger than mine that it feels lost in his as he pulls me through the gate and leads me over to the idling Go Karts.

“I’ll even give you a head start,” he says, pointing to the lead car, a fiery red Kart.

“Oh, no way. I take that one, and when you lose, you’ll blame it on my lead position.”

I don’t wait for him to respond. I bound over to the orange Kart that rumbles from its second place position.

“Fine,” he says. “And when I lap you, you’ll have to admit defeat.”

I snap the five-point harness on and tighten the straps. I wait for the little light to turn green and test the pedals with my feet, listening as the engine roars to life. I’ve lived in this town my whole life and have never ridden these things. It’s something silly the tourists do, something the locals scoff at.

But, despite that, it still seems like the best idea I’ve ever heard.

The light turns green, and I slam down the gas pedal so hard I bump the back of Erik’s Kart. He glances back at me, a little surprised, but I just give him a devilish smile and do it again. The attendant scowls and points at a NO BUMPING sign as I fly past him. My hair, loose again, floats out around me as I pick up speed.

Erik veers around the first series of turns, a serpentine of lefts and rights and lefts. Then he goes down a small hill and around a sharp hairpin to the left. I’m inches behind him, my hands gripping hard at the wheel, waiting for my chance. Erik glances back, and it’s enough to throw his concentration off. When a sweeping, curving turn bears to the right, he takes it too wide, and I see my shot. I slam the gas to the floor, and my bumper nudges inside his.

I could slip by him. I could coast between his steel railing and the inner wall of the track. But it’s just him and me on the racing surface, and I don’t want to.

I want to have a little fun. So just as I reach halfway up his car, I yank hard left, and his eyes widen as the wheel jerks violently in his hands and his car starts to skid sideways.

I grin as he turns so far that he’s facing me head-on. I manage to blow him a kiss as I hit the gas again and speed past him.

By the time I come around again, the attendant is standing in the track, waving his hand across his throat as if to say, “Cut it out.” He flags me back into the lineup of cars, even though I only went one lap around. But it’s not enough to deflate my mood. My adrenalin is raging so hard it’s impossible to wipe the grin from my face as I pull to a stop, shrugging at the worker. I pretend to be apologetic, but I suspect my dopey smile counters that impression.

Erik coasts to a stop behind me, bumping me, just a little. I unsnap my harness and jump out. “You just got owned,” I say, still grinning.

“You cheated!”

I put a hand to my heart. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

He chuckles and throws an arm over my shoulder. “You win this round, but you haven’t won the war.”

“What’s next?”

“Putt-putt.”

I look up at him, my eyes wide and innocent. “You know my uncle is a world-class golfer? He’s played against Tiger Woods.”

Erik’s jaw goes slack. “Seriously?”

I snort. “Nope!”

He laughs, rolling his eyes at me. Then he leads me off the track, back into the big warehouse, with its overhead fluorescent lighting and saccharine-sweet pop music. A group of tourists—obvious from their sunglasses and floppy hats—gather around the front ticket booth. A few groups linger in the putt-putt area, but the first few holes are empty. I follow Erik to a long rack of golf clubs, selecting one with a neon-pink-and-black polka-dot grip. Erik grabs a longer one with a powder blue grip.

I follow him to the start of the green Astroturf, and take in the first hole. It involves a long winding strip of green carpet bordered by white-painted boards. Erik hands two tickets to a woman sitting next to an enormous trough of golf balls and picks up two of them, tossing one my way. I barely catch it in time.

“Ladies first,” Erik says, gesturing to the rubber mat where I’m supposed to put the golf ball. I raise a brow and regard him skeptically, wondering if there’s an advantage to going second. Then I decide it probably doesn’t make a difference and trot over to the beginning of the course.

I place the ball on the small rubber mat, then stand up and study the course with fake seriousness. I lick a finger and hold it up to the air, as if checking for wind even though we’re inside. Erik snickers.

I don’t know why I’m being so silly, but I feel like I need this—to be utterly, stupidly goofy, to finally make up for the two years of nothing but melancholy emptiness.

Finally, I take the shot. I hit the thing so hard it ends up bounding right over the top of one of the boards, ultimately coming to a stop in the fake gravel. “Ooopsie,” I say, grinning for the thousandth time.

Erik rolls his eyes even as he smiles. He has a beautiful, wide, all-encompassing smile.

He looks back at the course and chews his lip. “So… uh…what’s your favorite ice-cream flavor?” he asks, bending over to place his ball on the mat.

“Huh?”

He stands up and turns to look at me. “Shouldn’t we know more about each other? If we’re going to try and make this work?”

I smile. “And ice-cream flavor was at the top of the list, huh?”

He shrugs. “Ice cream is pretty life changing.” He hits the ball gently, and it rolls across the turf, knocking into one of the boards. It crosses the curve and hits another, then another, pinging back and forth until it finally rolls to a stop a few feet shy of the hole.

Huh. Maybe he will win this one. I walk over to the fake rocks and retrieve my errant golf ball, then line it back up at the beginning of the course. “Vanilla. With chocolate syrup. You?”

“Rocky road. Favorite color?”

I hold up my wrist, where Sienna’s bracelet dangles. “Blue. Aquamarine. Teal. Anything like the ocean.” I pause. “Which is stupid, because then it just reminds me of swimming. But I can’t help being drawn to it anyway. It’s a love-hate thing.”

To take my mind off this turn in the conversation, I abruptly go back to my golf ball and give it a whack, a little gentler this time. It nearly jumps the course again, but instead just bounces hard off the boards, pinging back and forth much faster than Erik’s, more like a pinball.

But then it rolls right into the hole, and I turn back to him, triumphant.

“Nicely done,” he says, walking over to me. He picks up my hand and for a second I’m confused, but then I realize he’s trying to get a better look at the bracelet. Goose bumps race up my arm. There’s something strangely electric about his touch.

I wonder if that’s because we really are meant to be together.

He lets my fingers slide through his, but just before letting go, he twists his hand and takes mine in his, so our fingers interlace. “I prefer red myself.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The opposite of the water. Nothing like the curse.”

“Oh.” That makes more sense. But still, somehow it doesn’t seem right to me.

He lets go of my hand and steps over the Astroturf, walking to where his ball still sits, a few feet shy of the hole. He plants his feet shoulder width apart and rests his club on the turf for a second as he lines up the shot. “What do you want to major in when you go to college?”

Before I can respond, he taps the ball, and it rolls gracefully toward the hole, dropping in with a quiet clack.

I shrug. “Something with science. I’m not sure exactly. I was afraid to dream big before. You?”

He leans down and fishes our golf balls out of the hole. Then he walks back over to me. “I used to think I wanted to be an engineer. Build great big buildings, create a legacy that had nothing to do with the water.”

He places my golf ball in my hand, and I grip its cool, uneven surface. “And now?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I stopped dreaming a while ago, when I started to wonder if I’d ever succeed in finding you.”

My cheeks warm, and I look away, toward the next hole. It’s romantic that he spent so long looking for me. He’s so sure I’m the only girl he could ever be with.

He nudges my shoulder. “So this homecoming dance . . . When is it?”

“Two and a half weeks,” I say.

“And do you have a dress?”

I think of the plastic-wrapped gown hanging in my closet, then look down at my feet. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

I nod and meet his beautiful blue eyes, so much like the pair I see in the mirror. “Yeah. I bought it . . . two years ago. Before my, uh, priorities shifted.”

I’ve never told Erik about Steven. Oh, sure, he knows I’m the one who drowned him. But he doesn’t know I was in love with him. Doesn’t know how much I still mourn his loss. Someday, I’ll tell him everything. Someday, he’ll know what happened. But right now? I don’t want to think of it or speak of him; I want to pretend I’m normal.

He steps forward, wraps his arms around my shoulders, and pulls me into his chest. I rest my cheek against his skin. I feel my troubles sliding away, just as if the water were washing it off me. It’s amazing, to think that he knows my biggest secret, and yet he doesn’t care. Two years, and now I don’t have to hide it.

And that’s when he kisses me for the first time, right there in the middle of the golf course. I don’t move at first. Erik is gentle, slow, barely brushing his lips against mine. Until I lean into him and he laces his fingers behind my neck and pulls me closer, deepening the kiss for just a moment.

And then the loudspeaker in the warehouse clicks on, and the blaring voice is enough to startle me away from him.

“I . . . uh . . . I’m . . .”

I’m what?

He smiles, looks me right in my wide eyes. “I knew it could be good between us.”

I nod. Good is an understatement. That was ... amazing.

“Do you want to see where I live?” he says.

“What?” For some reason, I hadn’t pictured him living anywhere. But of course, he must.

He smiles shyly. “I thought . . . I could show you. If ... when . . . we start spending more time together, you know, to try and break the curse.... Well, I thought it would be nice for you to feel comfortable there.”

The idea of this—of having a life with someone—makes me so happy. “Okay.”

He grins and leans forward again, giving me a quick kiss on the lips.

“Come on. It’s just down the street a ways.”

It’s at the beach. That’s all I can think as I stare at it, a quaint little beach shack, so different from Cole and Sienna’s oceanfront homes just a mile or so down the shore. This one looks about a thousand square feet, all adorable clapboard accents and white-trimmed windows. Even though it’s a fraction of the size of Cole’s house or Sienna’s house, it’s far more charming. It’s a home. With a big cedar porch swing suspended on chains and little pots of mums lining the walk to the beach. Round, aggregate steps lead to the sand.

Confused, I look at him, still standing near his car. “You bought a beach house?”

“Rented it.”

“But why? You hate the water.”

“I hate rivers. My curse isn’t like yours. It’s tied to a river, not all bodies of water. And besides, you love the ocean, right?”

It’s weird to think it, but yes. I mean, once the curse is gone . . . there’s no reason to hate it. I think.

I find myself hugging him again, a smile pulling at my lips even though I don’t know why. I just like being around him, not having to hide this side of me. Having someone who gets it for the first time. I don’t have secrets like I do with everyone else.

“How did you get this place? You’re only seventeen. . . .”

“My parents arranged it all.”

I look up at him, surprised. For some reason, I haven’t thought much about his family. But he has one, of course.

“Like I said, he’s a nix and she’s a siren. They want this to work as much as I do. You’ll meet them, eventually.”

Oh. I wonder what it’s like to have two parents who know what you are, understand your struggle. I wonder what they’re like. Maybe someday I’ll get to talk to his mother. She knows what it’s like, being a siren.

He slides open the glass door and ushers me inside. It smells fresh, like he’s left the windows open all day and the salty sea air has streamed indoors. He leads me through the living room, past the quaint wicker furniture that I can only assume came with the rental, to a small back room, lit only by a lamp with a stained-glass shade.

When I see the large king-size bed under the window, I stop abruptly and stand in the doorway. “You don’t think—”

“No—of course not. If you ever want to stay over, I can take the couch.” He comes back to me and tilts my head up, so that I’m looking into his eyes. “Eventually, when we’ve broken the curse . . . you’ll sleep.”

“What?”

He nods. “When we’ve fixed this . . . when you don’t have to swim anymore . . . you will sleep.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “When the curse is gone, you won’t swim, and that means you need to sleep. Just as . . . regular people do.”

I can hardly remember what it’s like to sleep. He leans in to kiss me, and I close my eyes.

I lose myself to the kiss and to the dreams of what will be.