Skipping the ladder, I jumped off the top bunk and rummaged through my duffle bag for a bikini top and bottom. I didn’t even wait to find a matching set and found myself with a neon green bottom and navy-and-white-striped top. Harvey grabbed his trunks and went to the bathroom.
I met him on the deck. He held two towels and was wearing his trunks and a sweatshirt.
“It’s a little cold,” he said. “You okay?” He wrapped a big, fluffy towel around my shoulders in such a familiar way.
I didn’t answer and just ran right off the deck and down to the ocean. The beach house itself was a piece of shit, with this faint mildew smell, but the view was what counted. And when it wasn’t raining, the view was worth it. Dropping my towel, I ran into the ocean.
But then I stopped when the water hit my knees. The shock of the cold ocean water sent a shot of terror up my spine. Harvey ran ahead of me, the water splashing up around him. The moon soaked him with dim light. He had filled into his long, lean frame—even more so over the last few months. Slim muscles coated his bones, clearly visible beneath his skin. Not until he was in up to his waist did he turn around to see where I was.
“You want to go back?” he asked.
The way Harvey looked back at me, with the moonlight dancing shadows across his features, made me wonder if he had known all along that I was uncomfortable with the ocean. It made me feel weak, so I forced myself to ignore the crippling scream in my chest and ran to meet him.
His hand drifted through the water to find mine and I took it, my body easing with relief. Suddenly, my mom and Luke and Celeste mattered a little less.
As we went out farther, the ocean floor began to disappear out from underneath us, and I gripped Harvey’s hand a little tighter. I knew how to swim, but he pulled me along anyway. The ocean was quiet except for the sound of lazy waves lapping against jagged rocks. Finally, Harvey let go of my hand so he could float on his back. I wanted to cling to him, but I settled for treading water and staring at the moon. If I stared at the moon long enough, I could forget about the abyss beneath me.
“Question game,” I said. “If the government was populating another planet and they asked you to go, would you?”
“Would you be there?” He moved upright and dipped his head beneath the water, his wavy curls springing when he resurfaced.
“Maybe.”
“Then yes. If you had to eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
“Peanut butter.” My guilty pleasure. Give me a ticking bomb slathered in peanut butter and I would gladly dig my own grave.
“What would you do if your mom got married?”
“That would be weird. I guess if he was an okay guy it wouldn’t be bad. I’ve never really thought about it. I wouldn’t, like, call him Dad or anything.” His voice was a little lost, reminding me of the boy version of Harvey. I think he was genuinely considering this possibility for the first time ever. “It would be good, I think,” he said, a little unsure of himself. “What about Eric Guy? How’s that going?”
I smiled. “He’s good.” I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to tell Harvey that Eric was moving. It felt like I would be losing some game.
“How’s it going with Debora?”
Harvey blew bubbles in the water, which I found to be a little gross. “I like her. Dennis thinks it’s weird. She’s nice, though. And pretty brilliant.”
“And pretty in general,” I added. It was true. Even if I didn’t want it to be. She was pretty in a first-day-of-school kind of way.
“Yeah,” he concurred. “Yeah, she is.”
Harvey swam out a little farther, but I couldn’t make myself follow. I couldn’t feel the ocean floor beneath me, but I knew the farther out I went the less the floor beneath me would exist. Something slid against my leg.
“What do you want to do tomorrow, Harvey?” I asked, trying to distract myself.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.” His voice echoed from somewhere ahead of me, but I couldn’t spot the silhouette of his bobbing head because the moon had slid behind a cloud, blocking the light from our little world.
“Okay.”
Silence.
“Harvey?”
Silence.
“Harvey?” I called again, the anxiety in my voice rising.
Silence.
“Harvey!”
The ocean was still.
I began to panic. “Harvey!” I screamed, my voice choking on sobs. My muscles tightened, but I couldn’t make myself be still and float. There was a jackhammer in my chest, completely obliterating my attempts at breathing. The salty water was wet in my mouth. Then I realized my lungs were full, not with air but with salty ocean water, and my eyes stung. All four of my limbs thrashed, creating splashes at the surface. I looked up to see the moon creeping out from behind the cloud; it looked wavy and distorted from beneath the water. My limbs wouldn’t push me forward. A pane of glass sat above my head, keeping me from the surface.
