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“This still doesn’t solve my swimming problem,” I said. I couldn’t keep from smiling as I met Caleb’s gaze.
“That’s the easy part. ” He rested his hand on the wall, inches above my head. Short, blunt stubble spread out over his chin, glittering in the light of the lantern. “I can show you how to swim in a day. ”
“One day?” I asked, wondering if he could hear the banging of my heart. “I don’t believe it. ”
“Believe it,” he said. He leveled his pale green eyes at me again. We were in a contest to see who would look away first. One, I counted in my head. Two, three . . .
I broke, finally, ducking under his arm and into the tunnel. “Well then it’s a plan,” I said, starting back toward my room. When I spun around, his eyes were still locked on me. “Good night,” I called over my shoulder, feeling the warmth of his gaze as I walked down the dank, musty hall and settled back in my bed.
Chapter Sixteen
WHEN WE REACHED THE SHORE CALEB PEELED OFF HIS T-shirt and dove into the lake, his legs together, kicking just beneath its sparkling surface. He shot out into the deeper water until he disappeared under the inky black.
I waited. A minute passed. Then another. I scanned the wide expanse of blue but he was nowhere to be seen. “Caleb?” I called out. I took off down the shore, searching for any sign of him, but the lake was eerily still.
Finally he broke the surface, almost a hundred yards away, the water splashing white around his head. I let out a deep breath, gasping with him, as though I’d been holding my breath.
“Show off!” I yelled.
I dropped the pilled towel from my shoulders, revealing the “bathing suit” I’d put together to swim: a pair of jean shorts under my beaten School jumper—the fabric ripped where the crest used to be. I’d cut it off that morning with a knife, thinking of Pip.
I dipped my toes in and my pulse quickened. The water was cold. The sun was dropping below the trees, the air more biting than usual. I felt dizzy as I stared into the spot where the lake grew deeper and darker. I let the smooth stones massage the soles of my feet and tried to work up my nerves. I was feeling more comfortable, more confident, brave even. Arden had shown improvement; she remained in bed, but she was drinking more and eating more, and the color was returning to her face. I didn’t wince when I passed Leif in the corridor anymore, and I was no longer afraid to explore the camp. Slowly, surely, I was easing into our temporary home.
Caleb swam back, his muscular body turning side to side as each arm came up before plunging back into the deep. When he reached the shallow water, he threw his head back. “Now is as good a time as any,” he said, gesturing with one hand. “It’s not deep here. ”
The water was only up to his waist. But I thought of that night at School, of the choking feeling as the ground slipped out from beneath me. I moved forward slowly, carefully, letting the cold lake cover me inch by inch. Caleb came forward and offered me his hand.
I took it without thinking, feeling the same heat I’d felt in his room. My skin buzzed from the closeness.
“See?” He smiled, as the water beaded on his tanned, freckled chest. “It’s not so bad. ”
After a few steps the lake rose to my waist. I looked down, startled by the sudden disappearance of my feet. I wanted to go back, to return to the shore and stand on certain ground. But Caleb grabbed my other hand and stared at me, his pale green eyes demanding that I meet them. We walked together into the deep.
“Are you okay?” Caleb asked when the water was up to my shoulders. I nodded, waiting for my heart to slow. “All right then. Now we’ll dunk. One, two—”
“Wait!” I yelled. “You want me to go under?” I needed more time—to adjust to the temperature, to prepare.
“Yes. Let’s stay under for as long as you can. On three. ” I was about to protest, but Caleb started the count again. “One, two, three,” he said, and I took in air, my lips pressing closed as we slipped below the surface.
I was completely submerged, my heart pounding in my ears. I could hear my lungs as they let out air, the bubbles floating up to the sky, leaving me below in the cool water. Caleb was two feet in front of me, eyes open, hands in mine. His face was so soft, so earnest and sweet that I forgot, if only for an instant, that we were different. That he was of the other sex, the one I had been warned about. The one I had spent my life fearing.
Right then he was just Caleb. I smiled and he smiled, our arms forming a circle in the stillness of the water.
WE STAYED OUT UNTIL THE SKY DIMMED. I PRACTICED holding my breath, dunking under repeatedly until I didn’t flinch when the lake swallowed me. Caleb taught me how to tread water and kick forward beneath the surface. He showed me how to float, his fingers resting on the small of my back as I filled my stomach with air. I closed my eyes, trying to pretend that my pale legs weren’t exposed, that the wet jumper wasn’t clinging to the curves of my body.
The sky was turning from purple to gray as we walked back through the woods, the dried pine needles breaking beneath our feet. I wrapped the towel around my shoulders, but I couldn’t stop shivering. Caleb took off his sweatshirt and offered it to me, rolling up the sleeves for me to stick my hands through.
“I finished the book. I stayed up all night reading it,” I said as I pulled the thick, soft material down around me. It still held some of his body heat and I felt warmer already. “You were right. It’s not quite the story I was told. ”
“I thought it might be better a second time. ” Water dripped from his dreadlocks down his back, winding around the ropy muscles of his shoulders.
“I’ve been wondering . . . ” I started. “How did you learn so much about the world outside the labor camps?” I asked. “How did you get here? How did you know where to go? Tell me everything. ”
Caleb waited for me to catch up. We started through a narrow path, ducking under low tree limbs. He walked in front of me, pushing branches up so I could slip beneath them, then getting ahead of me so he could do it again.
“Those weeks after Asher died were strange,” he said, keeping his eyes on the trail. “Leif refused to work, and was in solitary confinement most nights. All the other boys were scared to do anything that would anger the guards. The one thing we were allowed at the labor camps were these black metal radios, and the boys would all lay out on their bunks listening to the broadcast from the City of Sand. ”
“I’ve heard some of those broadcasts, too, at School,” I said, ringing water out of my long hair. Once a month we would sit in the auditorium and listen to the stories of what was happening in the City. The King would tell of the giant skyscrapers that were being built or the new Schools that were opening up for children inside the City’s walls. He was building in the desert—something from nothing, as he said—and the City would be surrounded by walls so high everyone would be protected. From rebels, from disease, from the dangers of the world. At the time, I’d found comfort in his words. “The King made it sound so noble, so exciting. ”
Caleb kicked a pebble with his bare feet. “I remember that voice. I’ll remember it forever. ” Caleb punted the rock into the woods, his expression turning darker. His skin flushed red. “He never mentioned the orphans who worked in the City. How boys as young as seven were disassembling buildings for fourteen hours a day in one hundred and ten degree heat. How some were crushed by collapsing walls or fell from the skyscrapers. Or the girls who were being used as broodmares. He made it sound like The New America was for everyone, that we would all be included, but it was built on the backs of the orphans. The only place for us was under their feet. ”