Anyway, all the players strapped on team caps and got in the water, and then Dr. McKenze came out for his annual water hoops toss-up. “You kids ready?” he called, holding out the squooshy purple ball.
“Ready!” we all roared.
Up went the ball. “Let the games begin!” he roared back.
I held back while Andrew and Brandon battled it out for the toss-up, and when I saw that Andrew had possession and was making a break for the net, I did a move I’ve perfected over the years—I dived down and came up inside the hoop pyramid, sticking a fist straight up through the net.
Sqooosh went the ball right on my fist, and it punched back out.
I came up, gasping for air, and heard Andrew sputter, “What!” while Brandon whooped and cried, “Way to go, Sammy!”
That was it for me. I didn’t think about Casey, I didn’t think about Heather, and since Holly and Dot were playing, I didn’t really think much about Marissa. I just played.
And yeah, maybe that wasn’t very nice of me, but the rapid-fire pace of the game just sort of blasted away everything else.
Besides, Holly was great at receiving passes and moving the ball forward, and Dot turned out to be a fierce competitor. At one point it was her and me wrestling like mad with the ball, and she flipped me completely upside down and over, and when we came up for air, she said through gritted teeth, “Give up, Sammy. I’ve got brothers,” and around we went again. I finally got water up my sinuses and just let her have it.
People subbed in and subbed out as they got tired or hungry or whatever, so I didn’t really notice the new person on my team until we collided going after the ball. “Casey?” I said, letting him have the ball. “When’d you get here?”
“Just now,” he said, panting a little. “Billy couldn’t find his suit.”
“Billy?” I asked, but I wasn’t thinking about Billy.
Or the ball.
Or the game.
I was just soaking in Casey: His hair curling out from beneath his cap and out of the ear holes. His lashes, so long and clumped together with water. His teeth, so shiny and…smooth. His shoulders, so surprisingly muscular….
And then he was gone, passing the ball, shouting, “Billy! Under! Under!”
It was the most breathless I’d felt the whole game.
And after months and months of running from it or fighting it or thinking the time wasn’t right, I finally couldn’t deny it any longer.
I really wanted to kiss Casey Acosta.
TWENTY-NINE
When Casey took a break to eat, I took a break to eat. When Casey sipped a soda and watched the game from the sidelines, I sipped a soda and watched the game from the sidelines. And even though Holly and Dot and Billy and Danny were doing the same thing, I felt like a little shadow. Like a pathetic little puppy dog shadow.
I acted like the same old Sammy, but I didn’t feel the same.
And the awful thing is, I wasn’t the only one who felt different—Casey did, too, but in the opposite way. Oh, he talked to me, but there was a distance. An uncomfortable, stomach-squeezing distance. From the outside everything probably looked normal, but inside I could tell he was pulling away from me. He was way more interested in joking around with Billy and Danny than he was in talking to me. Here I’d finally fallen right out of my little security tower of caution, or fear, or whatever, only he wasn’t there to catch me.
I felt like a giant splat of regret.
Why had I held back for so long?
I tried to act like nothing was wrong. I laughed and talked with the group and listened to Holly and Dot whisper about Heather and Marissa, but it was like an out-of-body experience. Like I was floating through the motions of having fun.
And while I was having this out-of-body experience, in my body I was feeling small and alone and dorky. I probably looked like a drowned rat with my hair all matted, a towel wrapped around my shoulders. I started feeling totally self-conscious. About everything. Casey probably thought I looked like a scrawny little kid.
Then to cap off my self-confidence crisis, Heather sauntered over. “Hi, guys,” she said, all sweetness and light, looking revoltingly stylish in her lime green suit. She sat down next to Danny and gave him an adoring smile. “What a bunch of monkey boys you were out there!”
Danny smiled, but it was a kinda uncomfortable smile.
Like he was afraid of being found out.
Afraid of being caught.
I gathered my garbage and stood up. “I’m ready for round two!”
“Me too!” Holly and Dot said.
Then the guys stood up, and pretty soon we all had our caps on and were back in the water. “Marissa!” I shouted. “Get in here!”
She nodded and finally, finally took off the sunglasses and got up. “We’ve got Marissa!” I called, but Andrew protested. “No way! We’re down two players—she’s ours!”
Now, maybe most high school swim stars wouldn’t have cared what side a gonna-be-eighth-grade girl played on, but Andrew’s team was losing 18–26, and a lot of that was because he’d kept underestimating what scrappy dogs we junior high schoolers were in the water. So he demanded Marissa, and for the first time in all the summers I’d been playing water hoops, Marissa and I were on opposing teams.
And two-piece or not, she was on me like white on rice.
Like green on beans!
We wrestled and charged and dived and battled for the ball, laughing and panting and half drowning, then clung to the side next to each other, catching our breath and just smiling at each other.
I didn’t have to say it.
She didn’t have to say it.
It was there like the sunshine, like the happy laughter of summer—no matter what happened, no matter what guys came into the picture or left the picture, we were friends.
Forever.
“To the death!” she panted, and dived back into the game.
Now, because the ball sinks, Marissa and I have learned to do underwater reconnaissance. By the time other players have done their little dive to get under the surface, we’ve snagged the stray ball and are moving away from the center so we can pass to someone near the goal.
And in years past it’s worked really great because we worked together. But now suddenly I was battling against her and it wasn’t working at all. One of us would get the ball, and instead of bringing it out for a pass, we’d be stuck wrestling the other one for it. So I finally decided to let her have the deep end—I was going to work the shallow end.
It didn’t take long for Danny to make a move toward the deep end. And forget about them being on the same team; to me it was obvious he was there to hang with Marissa.
She was all smiles.
He was, too.
And part of me was happy for Marissa, but most of me was ticked off.
Danny Urbanski is like the charmer and the snake packaged as one.
“Oh boy,” Holly said, noticing it, too.
“At least she’ll be happy,” I said with a frown. “Until he breaks her heart.”
The ball came flooping through the air, so I jumped up, snagged it, and called to Billy, who was wide-open. Billy called, “Case!” after he’d caught it, then flung it at Casey, who was near the hoop.
Immediately about six strappin’ blue-capped guys dived on him like sharks on a baby seal. One of them came up with the ball and dunked it.
“Twenty-four, twenty-six!” Andrew crowed. “We are makin’ a comeback!”
Casey looked at Brandon. “Sorry, man.”
Brandon laughed, “Like you had a chance?” He put his hand in the air and called out to another red cap. “Scuffy! Over here!”
But Casey swam out of the thick of it, and I could tell he was feeling kind of defeated, so I worked my way over to him and said, “That’s why I don’t play the net. They’re hard-core!”
He nodded, then smiled at me, and a crack suddenly appeared in the wall he’d put up. I could see it in his eyes.
“I’
m sorry things are weird,” he said.
I was so relieved that he was saying things were weird and that it wasn’t just my stupid paranoid imagination or something that I reached over and touched his arm. “Me too.”
Now, I’m not a gooey-eyed person. Touching hands makes me nervous. So facing someone and going gooey-eyed is definitely not part of my repertoire.
But there I was, totally gooey-eyed.
How embarrassing is that?
Especially since he didn’t exactly go gooey-eyed back. He just said, “I’ve got to go redeem myself—we’ll talk later, okay?” and swam off.
So okay, fine. I slapped my gooey-eyed self upside the head and joined the game, this time doing what Marissa and I call the Crocodile Creep. It’s where you get right up behind someone on the opposite team and just sort of hover with only your eyeballs above the water, and when someone passes them the ball, you snap forward and intercept it. They don’t know you’re there, their teammate doesn’t know you’re there…you just sort of lurk and wait and then attack!
Marissa and I are big fans of the Crocodile Creep.
So that’s what I was doing around the pool—trying to find a good lurking prospect. I tried Dot, but she was onto me, and besides, it’s more fun to surprise a larger opponent. So I lurked behind Andrew for a while, but he was too much in the middle of the action, where lurking is not really possible.
And then it hit me that it would be really funny to sneak up behind Marissa. I mean, she and I are the Crocodile Creepers. How funny would it be if I did, like, a Creeper double cross?
So I head for the deep end and sneak around the fringes of the action, searching blue-cap faces for Marissa, but I can’t find her.
So I figure she’s probably busy doing some underwater reconnaissance, waiting for the ball to plunge down in the deep end. So I dunk under and look around for her, but all I see are legs treading water.
Only just as I’m bobbing back up for air, the corner of my eye catches something.
Something way down at the bottom of the pool.
Something lime green.
I take a quick breath and bob back down, and sure enough, it’s Marissa at the bottom of the pool, curled up like a ball.
I come up long enough to shout, “Help!” and take a deep breath. Then I swim down as fast as I can, my heart pounding in my ears, my ears screaming from the change in pressure as I go deeper and deeper. All I can think is, Marissa! Oh God, no! Marissa!
When I reach her, I grab her by the arm and push off the bottom of the pool, but she’s heavy. So heavy.
And then I realize that she’s holding on to me.
At first I’m ecstatic.
She’s alive!
But all of a sudden it feels like she’s going to drown me. She’s pulling on me, digging her nails into me, trying to climb me.
And I know she’s panicked and out of air and afraid of drowning, but now I’m panicked and out of air and afraid of drowning!
So I struggle with her and somehow manage to grab her wrist and twist her arm behind her back. I crank it up hard so she can’t get away or try to latch on to me again, then kick like mad to get us both up to the surface.
When we pop through, I screech in air, Marissa coughs and sputters and gasps and hacks, and all of a sudden we’re surrounded. Brandon’s there, Andrew’s there, Casey and Billy and Danny and Holly and Dot and all these high school kids are there, and people are helping us over to the edge of the pool, going, “What happened? Are you all right?”
I hang on the edge, panting for air as Brandon pulls Marissa so she’s half in and half out. Marissa’s head is turned away from me, resting on the cement as she coughs and sputters and gasps and hacks.
Brandon asks me, “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I pant out. “She was at…the bottom…of the pool.”
And then, from behind me, a voice says, “Sammy, are you all right?”
It’s a voice I’d know anywhere.
A voice I’ve been sharing secrets with since the third grade.
My head whips around, and there, looking right into my eyes, is Marissa McKenze.
THIRTY
It was like somebody had dropped a live wire into the water. My head whipped back toward the body half in and half out of the pool as what I’d really done jolted through me.
I’d saved Heather Acosta’s life.
And for once in her life, she was not faking. She was wiped out and barely able to answer questions.
“Heather,” Brandon finally said, squatting beside her after they’d pulled her the whole way out of the pool, “do you want us to get you to the doctor?”
She shook her head.
“You’re breathing okay? Your lungs feel okay?”
She nodded.
“Did you get hit?” he asked. “What happened?”
She choked out, “I had a cramp. I couldn’t move.”
“Ah,” he said, like he could totally relate. “Yeah, they’re wicked.”
She propped up a little and turned to face him. “Did you…save me?” she asked, like she was still in a watery daze.
“No, Sammy did,” he answered, all matter-of-factly.
Heather propped up a little farther. “Wh-who?”
“Sammy.” He pointed at me. “Right next to you.”
Heather turned to face me, and when she saw it was really me, her head thumped onto her arm and she started sobbing. “No! No-oo-oo-oo-ooooo!”
Brandon looked at me like, What’s up with that? but I just gave him a shrug and climbed out of the water. All of a sudden I wanted to get away from the whole scene. I was wiped out and feeling really weird.
How many times had I wanted to kill this girl?
And here I’d gone and saved her?
I felt like I was in emotional warp speed. In less than a minute, I’d gone from panicking that my best friend might die to realizing that I’d saved my archenemy.
Shoot, my archenemy who’d become my best friend’s archenemy, too.
And what somehow completely exhausted me was knowing that even after everything Heather had done to me and my friends, I was glad I’d saved her.
Like I’m gonna just let her drown?
Okay, so maybe I’d have sent Brandon to rescue her if there’d been time, but still.
Marissa wrapped a towel around me as I staggered away from the pool. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, then whispered, “I thought she was you. Where were you?”
“In the bathroom. I came back and all of a sudden you’re popping up with Heather. She must’ve gotten in when I got out so she could make a move on Danny.” She leaned in really close. “I can’t believe you saved Heather’s life!”
Holly and Dot were there now, too. Holly whispered, “Heather is freaking out! You’ve got to look, Sammy. She is totally losing it!”
But I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to see. All I wanted was to collapse on Marissa’s lounger.
“You are shaking,” Dot said. “Sit down!”
I did, and a minute later Casey came hurrying over. “I called my mom. She’s on her way.”
“Is Heather all right?” I asked, and it sounded weird coming out of my mouth.
It sounded like I actually cared.
He nodded. “I’m pretty sure, yeah. We’re gonna take her to the doctor anyway, and once she recovers a little, I’m sure she’ll milk it for all it’s worth.” He sorta grinned at me. “I don’t think she’ll ever recover from you being the one who saved her, though.”
I snorted. “Oh, she’ll find a way.”
He shook his head. “Too many witnesses to rewrite history on this one.” He glanced over his shoulder, then said, “Look, I’ve got to go get her stuff and help get her to the doctor.”
I nodded.
He started walking away, but turned back. “I know she’s a monster, but thanks.”
I nodded again, and as he hurried back to his sister, I closed my eyes and took a de
ep, aching breath.
Why did life have to be so complicated?
With Heather gone, the party should have been a lot more fun. And for Marissa, it definitely was. She hadn’t been playing all that long, so she was full of energy, making great plays in the pool, and Danny paid a lot of attention to her.
But I was wiped out, and as I lay there on the lounger, I couldn’t help obsessing over Heather and Casey and my mother and his father and…well, the whole Acosta/Keyes mess. I mean, Casey thinks Heather’s an annoying, embarrassing, manipulative liar—I know he does—but how much he cares about her was written all over his face when he realized she’d almost drowned.
So I couldn’t help wondering…Why? Why are blood ties so strong?
And that, of course, made me think about my mother and her sneaky ways and how she’s so self-centered and doesn’t seem to consider how what she does totally messes with my life and how much I say I hate her…but if something happened to her, I’d be really, really upset.
Scratch that.
I’d be devastated.
There’s that tie to her that isn’t rational or even explainable.
It just is.
So thinking about all that brought me right back around to thinking about how messed up things were with Casey and me. My standing up to Heather is what brought us together, but it didn’t really matter that we thought the same thing about her—in some weird way, she would always have a power over him, just like my mother had over me.
And the longer I lay there stewing about the whole mess, the more one question kept popping back inside my head.
It wasn’t about whether Casey and I would ever get together.
It wasn’t about whether my mom and his dad were already together or going to stay together.
It was about Heather.
I couldn’t help wondering…If it had been me at the bottom of the pool, would Heather have saved me?
When the party was winding down, Dot called her dad and he gave us all a ride home. “It was fun, ja?” he asked when we piled inside the truck.
“It was the best,” Dot said. “Unbelievable fun.” Then she went on to tell him every little detail of everything. By the time he was pulling up to the Pup Parlor, he must’ve felt like he’d actually been to the party.