Authors: Autumn Doughton
I could act offended, but considering what just went down outside, I don’t think that would be entirely fair. It’s Mara’s junior year and I know that she’s worked hard to fit in at college. My sister is the type of girl who participates in life. She’s in a sorority. She goes to parties and bakes oatmeal raisin cookies and joins clubs. Mara Spencer is a girl with a life and an image. The last thing she needs is for me, her unfortunate little sister, to screw things up for her with my special brand of emotional drama.
Returning her gaze, I pull my long hair over my right shoulder to cover the scar and murmur quietly, “I’ll be fine.”
Mara blinks and her expression flattens out. “Just remember that this is the beginning of a fresh start. That’s what you told Mom and Dad that this was going to be. It’s what you promised.”
The
words settle around me. I can feel the weight of implication in them.
You promised.
I guess that I did call it a “fresh start.” I’m not sure if it was ever the truth, but after more than a year of not understanding who I’d become or what I expected from them, I knew that it was exactly the sort of statement that my parents and therapist wanted to hear. And maybe it was what I wanted to believe.
I take an exaggerated breath and nod my head. For my sister, I can do this. I can steady my heart and act the part for the two girls that she introduces me to.
Lindsey and Jenn are exactly what I expect Mara’s friends to be like. Pretty, popular, polite. With matching lip-gloss enhanced smiles, they squeal like meeting me is the greatest thing that’s happened to either of them in the past year. It’s excessive. It makes my stomach turn over, but when Jenn—the blonder one—asks me if I’m coming with them to the recruitment fair to check on their sorority table, I swallow down my uneasiness and say brightly: “Yeah, of course I’m coming.”
I don’t miss the approving smile on Mara’s face, or the way that her shoulders relax.
Keeping up the façade, I smile back and I listen to their stories and I laugh in all the appropriate places because I know that this is what everyone wants—a normal college freshman. They want me to be like Mara. They want me to talk animatedly about hair products and get excited about recruitment fairs and parties and nail polish colors. Nobody wants to know about the nightmares or the riptide of memories constantly trying to drag me under. The world doesn’t want to be forced to look at my scars.
***
“The sorority table is over there!” Mara shouts, grabbing my hand and almost pulling me off my feet. She tugs me toward a wide courtyard nestled between the football stadium and a cluster of brick-faced dorms. The space is open and bright—bursting with tart greens and gemstone blues.
Looking over her shoulder, Mara points out a large fountain in the center and some picnic tables and I nod absently—my eyes bouncing off the unfamiliar buildings and the smooth planes of nameless faces.
Classes don’t start for three days but today there is some kind of informational event on campus and people are everywhere—looking into clubs and fraternities and sororities before Greek Rush next week. The recruitment tables are set up in tiers that spiral outward from the fountain in three large loops. Lindsey is trying to explain to me the dynamic of each of the student groups, but I’m not really paying attention. I’m focused on keeping up with my sister as she weaves determinedly through the crowd trailing me behind her like a limp flag.
We stop in front of a waist-high booth decorated in a blitz of pink and green glitter. Mara, Lindsey, and Jenn are instantly swarmed with squealing, laughing girls. I let go of Mara’s hand and hang back awkwardly—like a strange growth that no one knows what to do about. When I catch a redhead regarding the scar on my neck, I instinctively take a step back from the group and turn away.
Deep breath.
One. Two. Three.
“So you’re Mara’s little sister?” A lone girl walks up behind me. She’s petite with chunky cobalt blue streaks running through her brown curls and a silver stud in one of her nostrils. Her black cutoff jeans are full of at least a dozen purposefully placed holes and her deep purple shirt is cropped so that her tiny midsection is exposed.
I glance at the sorority table and back to the girl standing next to me. It’s the ultimate juxtaposition, kind of like looking at one of those
which-one-is-unlike-the-others
brainteasers. She seems to understand the perplexed expression on my face. “Don’t ask.”
Okay.
“
So, you’re a freshman, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” I answer.
Despite her emo hair and go-screw-yourself outfit, the girl is a ten on the friendly scale and starts to ask me questions. I try to engage, wanting to ease the anxiety coiled in my belly, but every time I attempt to open my mouth, it’s like I’m pulled further into myself.
I lift my hair, now damp and heavy with sweat, from the back of my neck and stand on my tiptoes to search the courtyard for a sliver of shade. Beyond the fountain, I can barely make out the outline of a white tent lined with coolers and students selling waters.
Turning back to the girl, I say, “Will you let my sister know that I went to grab a water and I’ll be back?”
A strange look flickers across her face and I think that she’s going to ask me what’s wrong, but instead she nods her head and waves me off. “Sure. I’ll catch you around campus.”
Leaving Mara and her sorority sisters, I push around the east corner of the courtyard by an improv group and a guy handing out flyers advertising the student radio station. That’s when I see the sign. It’s flat and rectangular—propped up on an easel. Across the top, thick blue letters declare:
SWIM FOR LIFE.
“Would you like to sign up to support the women’s swim team for our annual Swim For Life Relay? We’re raising money for Muscular Dystrophy.”
I whirl toward the sound of the voice, nearly toppling over a girl.
God. What is with me today?
My hands go out to steady her. “Oh—I’m so sorry. No, I’m—oh, uh…”
My stomach does a backflip
and I have to press my fingers to my eyelids to hold on to my precarious balance. The girl standing in front me is tall with long, muscular legs, deep caramel skin, unruly black hair, and familiar brown eyes.
Noelle Melker is a year older than me. We swam together back in high school and had one of those competitive relationships that morphed into a muted friendship after too many hours cramped on the team bus together.
I watch as
shock loosens her lower jaw. “Oh my God. Aimee?”
“Hi Noelle.” My gaze darts around nervously.
Please don’t let anyone else be nearby.
“What are you doing here?”
Noelle is looking at me like ten noses have sprouted up on my face. “What am
I
doing here? The swim team is putting on a fundraiser and I drew the short straw so I’m stuck at the sign-up table today.”
“Oh,” I say stupidly. “Well, it’s great to see you. It’s been a long time, huh?”
“I think that’s the understatement of the century.” She snorts and shakes her head. “It was like you fell off the face of the earth. You disconnected your cell phone number and your Facebook account right after Ji—after school let out, and none of us heard a word from you again. I mean, what happened to you?”
A stream of air leaks out of my lungs and I realize that I’ve been holding my breath. My eyes drop to the ground. “You know what happened, Noelle.”
Noelle makes a strange sound from deep in her throat. “Of course I know what happened, but…” She pinches her forehead and sucks her bottom lip into her mouth as she tries not to stare at the scar on my neck. “Where have you been all this time? Sorry… I just can’t believe that you’re here.”
I swallow against the lump in my throat. “Honestly? If it makes you feel better, I sort of can’t believe that I’m here either.”
“I did try to get in touch with you. Your parents and your sister wouldn’t tell anybody anything. By January, a few of us were convinced that you’d been recruited by the CIA to be the youngest operative or something.”
Despite my anxiety, I chuckle. “Uh, not quite.”
“The
point,
” she says, flicking her wrist and widening her milk chocolate eyes at me, “is that no one knew where you went so we were forced to invent ridiculous fantasies about your life.”
“I hate to be a complete letdown, but I’m sure that the reality is less exciting than whatever your imagination came up with.” I shrug my shoulders. “My grandparents live in Portland and I went to live with them for my senior year.”
“Okay.” She blinks. “Not that I’m complaining, but why did you decide to come back?”
I think about telling Noelle the truth—all the complicated things about myself that take up space and fill the dark corners of my brain. I could try to describe how lonely and sad I was in Portland. I might even try to explain how, despite everything it took from me, I missed the blue-green Florida water. Or how I dreamed about the way that the powdery white sand felt squishing up between my toes. If I were stronger, I’d tell Noelle about the night back in June when I hit rock bottom, and how I woke up in the morning feeling lucky to be alive.
What would she say to that? Would she understand?
Sighing and catching the ends of my hair between my fingers, I decide to stick with the well-rehearsed lie that my mother came up with.
Just tell anyone that asks how you hated the awful Oregon weather. This is Florida, the Sunshine State. Everyone will understand.
“I guess that I just got sick of the cloudy weather and the cold.”
Noelle chuckles in disbelief. “That’s it?”
“Well, no… That’s not all of it, but it’s the shortened version and the rest can wait while you tell me how
you’ve
been. You look great by the way.”
“Girl, you’re too sweet,” she says, batting her eyelashes exaggeratedly.
Just then, I feel a presence at my back. I turn and my eyes collide with tarnished green irises so intense and electrifying that the air around me seems to quiver and reshape itself. Recognition only takes another heartbeat, and when it arrives, it buzzes through me with such force that my eyes go in and out of focus and I have to lock my legs so that I don’t tip over.
Cole
Fuck. She’s blushing and I’m hooked. Just like that.
I’ve got to admit something. I love a girl who blushes and if I know girls—and I do—this is one of those chicks that blushes all of the time.
My eyes move over the thin scar on her neck and drop to the dark shorts and the loose fitting blue top that does not even come close to doing those eyes of hers justice. I’m used to girls parading around in tight shirts with their tits pushed up in my face, so her laid-back outfit is a nice change of pace. And she doesn’t have to prove a point with her clothes because I know that underneath all that fabric she’s got a tight body. I felt it when she fell onto my lap an hour ago.
I take a step closer, drawn in to the gentle lines of her face. She twists a coil of her long, wavy dark hair over her shoulder and breathes in through her nose. Her clear blue eyes widen and she does it again.
Wait. Is this chick smelling me?
“Ivory,” I say in amusement.
She looks confused so I clarify: “My soap. I use Ivory in case you were wondering.”
Jesus. If you had asked me five seconds ago, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for her skin to go even redder, but I would be wrong. Now, she’s stammering and her breathing is all funny and I sort of regret the joke. My intention wasn’t to make her uncomfortable. I’ve just been wondering what it would be like to see this girl smile—to be the one to
make
her smile.
Afraid that if I look at her too much longer, she’ll bolt or something, I tear my eyes from her face. “Noelle, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Oh no, you don’t!” Noelle puts a hand on her hip. “I am very familiar with this little game and I’m advising you to go flash that devilish smile elsewhere. If you think I’ve forgotten about Rachel and Deena then you’re mistaken.”