Authors: Autumn Doughton
“Tell me,” I say in a conversational tone as my mouth skims the bumps of her ribs and moves farther down her body. “What did you think of me when you first saw me?”
Aimee pants and her body tenses beneath mine
. “You mean aside from the part where I thought you were gorgeous?”
I chuckle against her warm skin. “Yeah. Aside from the obvious.” My wet tongue dips into her bellybutton and I hear her suck in a sharp breath. I lift my head and rest my chin on her stomach. “What else, Aimee?”
“I—I thought…” Fuck. Her breathing is crazy hard and it’s such a turn on. I’m not sure that I’ll make it through my little game. “I don’t know. I g-guess that I was a little scared.”
I stiffen. That’s not the answer that I was looking for. “Why would you be scared of me?”
Aimee tilts her head and her eyes
meet mine. They are desperate—nailing me in place. “Because I knew that you could change everything.”
Cole
On Sunday afternoon I t
ell Aimee to get her bathing suit on because I’m taking her to the beach.
The truck windows are down and the air is rushing in all around us. She leans her head toward the open window and her loose hair whirls in over her face. Once, when she comes closer, I get whipped in the eye by a long dark tendril but I don’t ask her to put it up because I like it. I like
her
. I like her this way—smiling and all sunlit and relaxed like she’s something other than sad.
I follow her through a canopy of palm trees to an open stretch of white sand. She drops her bag and kicks off her flip-flops and shorts and I stand back and appreciate the sight. She’s so incredibly hot in a dark green bikini and I can tell that she doesn’t even know it.
After opening up both towels, s
he braids her hair to one side and asks me if I want lotion. I don’t really give a shit about getting burned but I like the idea of her hands on my body so I say yes. And when she’s rubbing circles in my skin, her slender fingers sliding over my shoulders and down my arms, I start wishing that we were alone. I close my eyes and lean my back against her front so that I can feel the perky mounds of her breasts. She stills. In those few quiet seconds the world blurs and comes back into focus. Then Aimee sighs and wraps her arms across my chest and she kisses my neck. I feel her eyelashes flutter against my jawline. Fuck me.
We lie out
on our towels and pass our phones back and forth to take turns choosing songs. I get her an ice cream cone because she saw some kid with one and started drooling. Two scoops. One chocolate and one strawberry. She lets me have a few licks and when I run my tongue from the cone to her wrist, she laughs and flicks ice cream at me. I lick all of the way to her elbow. She’s sweet and sticky and I’m getting caught up in all of it—all of
this
.
After awhile, the blue water starts calling out to me. I tilt my head and make a sound and it’s like she can tell what I’m thinking because she squeals and makes a go for it but I’m a lot faster. I run track for Christ’s sake. It would be pretty fucking disappointing if I couldn’t catch up to my girl.
Under a breezy sun-filled
sky, I scoop her up by the waist and make a big show of throwing her into the surf. She sputters, splashes, swims out past me and resurfaces. If she was beautiful before, she’s unbelievable in the water. I go to her, lower my head to her skin. Her shoulders are salty and tipped with sun. Today she tastes the way that the air feels.
Later, when we’re back on the sand, our bodies warm and raw with dried saltwater, I thread my fingers with hers and I think about telling her how I feel. I turn to her, take her chin in my hands and kiss her deeply. That’s when I hear the scream.
There’s a lady at the shoreline yelling her head off and people are jumping up from their towels going apeshit. I quickly figure out that it’s because some little kid went under and didn’t come back up. Within seconds, I’m moving into the rolling water along with a bunch of others, my heart pumping furiously and my eyes scanning in every direction. And that’s when the fucking kid comes up and he’s waving and smiling and it’s clear that it was all a game to him.
“Holy shit.” I look at this guy who is standing to my right and we both sort of laugh nervously. When I get back to Aimee, I’m still shaky with adrenaline.
“He was pretending to be a dolphin,” I say in a can-you-believe-this-shit voice. That’s when I see her face.
She’s so white that she looks transparent and her eyes are wide and blank. I know in an instant what she’s thinking of and I can’t stand it. I pull her into my chest and I cup her head with my palm. I tell her it will be okay but I’m not sure if that’s what she wants to hear.
***
“I drove after Jillian died,” she says simply.
I look over at her and I wonder if I heard her right. We’re back in my truck and this is first thing that she’s said since we left the beach. I shift in my seat but I don’t make a sound.
Aimee continues to stare out the window so that all I can make out is the back of her head in the dying daylight. Her legs are curled up on the truck bench beneath her. “People just assume that I don’t drive because of the accident and I get that, you know? It makes sense because she died in my car.” She stops, catches her breath. “Did you know that it wasn’t the impact of the crash that killed her? Everyone thought so at first… but it was actually the water. That was what the coroner told us in the hospital.”
“Aimee…”
She twists her body around but her head is still bent to the door. I think about pulling the truck over so that I can look at her and see into her eyes. This feels important.
“I don’t drive because I can’t drive. I have a suspended license.”
My head is spinning in too many directions. But she wasn’t even driving the car that night. How would she have a suspended license?
Aimee sees the thoughts spilling out of me and answers them. “Last June,” she whispers. “I took a bunch of pills and crashed my car into the side of my grandparent’s house.” She pauses. “I tried to kill myself, Cole.”
Aimee
I’m not sure what to expect after my revelation. Curiosity? Disgust? Pity? All week I steel myself for the inevitable reaction and the questions but they never come.
Cole is just… well… he’s the same.
And that’s weird.
Very weird.
“Pamela, you’ve met my daughters, haven’t you? Mara and,” my mother’s eyes dart to mine, “Aimee. They’re both in college now.”
We’re on the patio of the country club eating a late lunch. Dad is finishing up a round of golf with Mr. Frank, whom my mom revels in describing as “influential.”
I lean back, shading my eyes from the sun with my forearm. Green crowds my vision and sweat drips down my forehead over my nose. I feel like I’m in hell.
“Of course I remember Mara and Aimee,” Pamela says with a polite nod, her eyes lingering on me for a second too long. She’s a few years older than my mom and she’s so thin that I can see the bones of her shoulder joints through her pastel tennis shirt. I’m trying to place her in my parent’s catalog of completely boring, waspish friends and I’m pretty sure that her husband is some kind of attorney. “It’s lovely to see you both. What are you girls majoring in at school?”
Mara goes first. She taps her fingernails on the outside of her iced tea glass and smiles like the pro that she is. “Finance.”
“Just like her father. She’s also social chair of her sorority and she just joined up with the school’s competitive debate team,” our mom adds proudly.
Pamela turns
to me. “And you, Aimee? What’s your major?”
“Undecided,” I say with as much fake cheer as I can muster. “But I’m leaning toward Library Sciences.”
Pamela’s smile wobbles. “And what is that, dear?”
“Oh, you know…” I take a bite of my salad and make everyone wait while I chew and swallow. “I would be working in a library.”
Her brow furrows. “Like a librarian?”
I point my fork in Pamela’s direction. “Exactly.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
Mom looks uncomfortable. She clears her throat and says, “Aimee is just in her freshman year so she’s still got plenty of time to explore her options.”
Thanks for the vote of support.
I dig at my salad and chew vigorously, too annoyed to pay attention to the rest of the conversation. I despise coming to the club because it always ends up with me wading through a swamp of awkwardness.
I look up and catch Mara’s eyes on me. She smiles sympathetically before going back to her sandwich. After Pamela walks away, my sister steers talk in the direction of our mom’s favorite topic: her social calendar.
Mom clasps her hands in front of her chest. “Let’s see,” she says. “This Wednesday is the annual mixer we put on to benefit that animal shelter east of Regent’s Harbor. It’s a no-kill shelter and I’ll tell you, that costs money. Vet bills, food expense… the building maintenance. It’s a nightmare.” She pauses, signals to the waiter that she needs a refill. “Oh, and then Saturday night we’re going to The Roberson’s for a gala. I think that one has something to do with some kind of cancer, or maybe it’s Alzheimer’s.” She waves her hand and smiles. “Whatever it is, I’m sure that it’s dreadful.”
Elise Spencer is nothing if not charitable.
“Mara,” she goes on, eyes narrowing at my sister. “I actually thought that you might want to drive down next month because we’re having a little event at the house for your father’s firm. It would be the perfect opportunity to introduce you to that Langley boy that I was telling you about. I’m sure that he’ll be there with his parents.”
“I don’t know, Mom. What about Aimee? Maybe she wants—” Mara makes a sound and abruptly drops her gaze to the table.
“What is it?” I ask.
Mom’s face stiffens. Then she shakes her head and fidgets with her silverware. “Not to change the subject, but Mara, didn’t you have a big test last week?”
“What is with you both?” I blow out an exasperated breath and turn in my chair to scan the patio. When my eyes land on them, all of the air is forced out of my lungs.
“Aimee…” Mom’s face is deeply flushed. “I swear that I haven’t see the Kearns here in ages. Nancy told me that they’d given up their membership. I—oh my…” She touches her forehead and squeezes her eyes shut. “I never would have asked you to come today if I thought there was a possibility that they’d be here.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to embarrass you,” I hiss.
My mother flinches like I’ve just slapped her. She coughs, clears her throat. “That’s not what I… Aimee, how could you think that?” She tentatively reaches forward and pushes my hair off my shoulder. “Just remember to take deep breaths. Dr. Galindo said that would help with a panic attack.”
“I’m not having a panic attack.”
Am I?
I glance back to where Jillian’s parents are talking with another couple. Her dad is wearing khaki pants and a crisp white button down and he’s leaning one hip up against the metal bannister. Mrs. Kearns is beside him in a floral dress with a small collar. Her hair is shorter, greyer than I remember and I realize that she doesn’t look happy or sad. She just looks tired.
“Do you want to go?” Mara asks me gently.
I pick up my glass just so that I have a second to think. “I—I’m fine. Let’s…” As if she can sense me, Mrs. Kearns shifts her head to the right slightly and, just like that, we’re looking at each other. I want to go to her and hug her or fall on my knees, but she just goes on staring at me and, my head spinning wildly, I stare back.
This is a woman who made me pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse on Sunday mornings and helped me get gum out of my hair in the fourth grade. Armed with a needle and thread, she fixed the strap of my first cotillion dress when it broke right before the dance. This is also a woman who barred me from her daughter’s funeral and told me that she never wanted to see my face again and wished that it had been me stuck in that car.
My mouth silently forms the words before I realize what I’m doing.
I’m sorry.
Dry-mouthed, white fingers clenching my thighs, I wait for her reaction. One. Two. Three. I take a deep breath and count again. It’s like I’m bleeding out onto the club’s patio and waiting for Mrs. Kearns to notice.
One. Two. Three. Deep breath. One. Two. Three. Before I can take another breath, Jillian’s mother flutters her eyes, wraps her arms around her body and walks away.