but the water filling my ears makes it impossible to decipher. I laugh again, and it comes out strange, melodic. It bubbles out and changes, fills the night air with a hauntingly beautiful song.
It can’t be me, singing it, but it is. The notes ring out, stronger and stronger as I pick up an urgent paddle. I don’t know why I’m doing this; I only know it feels right. As if I’ve waited my entire life to sing this song.
Soon, I stop thinking altogether, my arms paddling steadily, until I’m propelled faster and faster, gliding along more rapidly than any other creature in the water. Vaguely, I know Steven is out here with me, but I can’t seem to think clearly. The song grows, intensifying, louder, vibrating in my chest.
But abruptly, as I reach for another stroke, the melody dies in my throat. Silence rings out.
Suddenly, the urge to sing is gone. My head clears, the fog lifting all at once.
What am I doing? Where did Steven go?
I swim upright, treading water, trying to make out the beach in the distance. Did he get out? Swim to shore? I peer into the darkness, but it’s impossible to see beyond twenty feet. The swells rise around me, and I bob along the surface, waiting.
The desire to swim has vanished. The memory, now faint, of my laughter twisting into a strangely wordless song rattles me. I want to get out, and I can’t seem to remember why it seemed so important to swim in the first place. It’s nearly midnight, and a storm is sure to roll in soon.
I flip onto my back and kick my way to the shore. I knock into something with my head, so hard it seems to echo inside my skull. Quickly, I right myself, get my feet underneath me.
The inky darkness makes it impossible to see what is floating in front of me. I reach out, the water rippling with my movements. At first, I’m not sure what I feel beneath my fingers. But then, I know.
Hair.
Skin.
I jerk back, so fast I bob under and inhale a mouthful of water. I have to kick hard to keep my mouth above water as I cough and gasp.
I reach out again, my heart thundering in my chest, my hand trembling as I pull the body around, squinting into the darkness.
It’s . . .
Steven.
A scream rips free of my throat and, for a moment, I’m frozen. My legs no longer kick. I slowly sink. But then I cough up more seawater, and it occurs to me to tread. I watch his body bob along the surface, the waves swelling around us.
My mind clears and spurs me into motion. I hook an arm around his chin and kick hard, propelling myself toward the shoreline. I glide through the water faster than any human could possibly swim, faster than I ever knew I could. It seems to be just seconds before I am hauling him up onto the sand.
But he hasn’t moved, hasn’t struggled in my arms.
No. No, no, no, no.
I lean over and try to breathe life into him. I plug his nose and give him everything I have. I press on his chest, trying to force his heart to beat. He can’t be that far gone. He can’t be. It seemed like only seconds we were apart.
I desperately pound on his chest, try to force the air into his lungs, but it doesn’t work. Tears clog my throat.
“Steven!” I scream at him, pound at his chest, sobbing.
His eyes are blank, glassy. Haunting.
I lean over and cry. For everything he was. For everything we’ll never be.
A truck rumbles by on the street above us, so loud I jump back. It brings reality screeching with it.
Help. Someone can help.
I scramble up the sandy bank, reed grass slicing into my bare feet, until I’m standing under a streetlamp. The night air is no longer warm on my bare, wet skin. The rain that has threatened for days sprinkles down as I step foot onto the pavement.
Headlights swing toward me as a car comes from around the bend. I stumble into the middle of street, waving my hands above my head. The lights beam right onto me, blinding me, until I have to shield my eyes. I must look crazed, soaking wet and half naked.
And then a spotlight joins it and the lights flash red and blue.
It’s a cop.
I play it over and over in my mind, every day of my life, but every time it ends the same. I’m wrapped up in a blanket in the backseat of a police car as Steven’s cold, sheet-covered body is wheeled past me. The bed jostles as they lift it into the ambulance, and his hand slides out from under the sheet, and all I can see is his pale, lifeless fingers.
I blink, hard, washing away the memory. You don’t have to sleep, you don’t have to dream, to have nightmares.
His death was considered suspicious. He was a vibrant seventeenyear-old athlete who shouldn’t have succumbed to the waves—he swam in his family’s pool every day and surfed during the summer. The police never understood why we went swimming on such a dark night; and at the time, neither did I.
I was brought in for questioning again and again. I retold the story over and over—leaving out the part where I sang. Even then, before I really understood what that meant, I knew not to mention it.
Eventually, the police determined that there was no way I could have drowned him myself. At least not by any normal means. Steven was so much bigger than me, so much stronger. When the autopsy came back clean—no bruising, no skin underneath his fingernails, no sign of a struggle—the drowning was ruled accidental.
Reporters speculated that he’d become disoriented in the dark. Unable to find the shore, he simply got too tired to keep his head above water. Others said it must have been a leg cramp, worsened by the growing waves. A sad, tragic accident.
But my friends never saw it that way. They wanted to know why I led him out of the house, toward the beach. Why I didn’t save him. And when I refused to explain anything, even to Sienna, they turned on me.
In the days following his death, I ignored the intense desire to swim, and I shut everyone out. I pulled the drapes closed in my room and lay there all night long, staring at the shadows, pretending I wasn’t craving the feel of the water against my skin.
With each day, I grew sicker. It was just a little fever at first, but soon I could hardly stand it. Eventually, I drove up to an old lake where I used to go swimming with Sienna and Nikki and Kristi.
I sang all night. And by morning, I felt stronger than ever. But the feeling only lasted a day.
Within two weeks, I was swimming every night.
I sigh, rolling over onto my stomach and propping myself up on my elbows. Maybe it’s morbid to be lying here in the grass, just six feet above the bodies. Maybe someone would be horrified if they saw me. But I need this time with him—it’s the only thing that keeps me sane. Luckily, Steven’s grave is hard to see from the pathways because of a few shrubs and the willow. I would probably see someone long before they’d see me.
I reach out and trace my fingers over Steven’s grave marker. Steven Goode. Beloved Son, Brother and Friend. At the bottom is an engraved football. Steven didn’t even like football. I never told anyone that. He did it for his dad, who played through high school and college but never made it pro. That was when I first began to hope that he liked me—he was telling me secrets no one else knew. Secrets he trusted me with.
I never got to tell him mine. I spent three years pining for him; just when things started to shift, just when it looked as if the romance wasn’t all in my head, I killed him.
I set the Chevelle in front of his headstone. Every night, I tell him everything, even about the curse I live with. He’s the only one who knows the truth. Unless I want all my old friends to end up in the ground next to him, I have to keep them away.
I kiss my fingertips and then place them on his headstone. For a brief moment, my fingers linger on the
