JOHNNY.
He"d never seen her like this. She was weak and miserable. She"d always been so strong and sure of herself. It had been nearly impossible to stay away from her these past few months, but he"d thought it was for the best. He"d never have imagined that she"d be anything but okay.
She was laboring to breathe. Johnny had his arm wrapped around her tightly but then slowly unwound it. "I"ll be right back." He stood and ran into the boathouse.
"Ricky, come here."
Ricky followed Johnny. "What"s up, dude?"
"Do you have Xanax or something? Something to calm a person down?"
"Sure." He went to his box and grabbed a pill. "Wait, who is this for?"
He didn"t want to say who it was really for. That"d make her feel even worse when she found out. "Uh, me. I"m just feeling all panicky for some reason tonight."
"All right, all right."
"Thanks." Johnny patted him on the shoulder and was set to go back outside.
"Whoa, dude, only girls don"t pay. Thirty bucks."
"Dammit," Johnny said under his breath. He pulled out his wallet and threw it at him. He ran outside, to find Becca lying in the wet sand, being rained on. She was still crying. Her blond hair was clinging to her face, and she looked like she had no idea where she was.
"Becca, take this, it"ll make you feel better."
She shook her head. "Nothing, it"s not... No, I can"t."
Her breathing was still labored, and she looked like she might pa.s.s out at any second.
He put the pill on the tip of his tongue and leaned over her body. He kissed her. She kissed him back.
d.a.m.n, he"d really missed that.
He pushed the pill into her mouth with his tongue. She seemed too out of it to notice. He picked her up, and carried her up the stairs and all the way to her room.
DANA.
It was hours later, and Dana was drunk. She"d heard that Max and Johnny had fought over Becca.
f.u.c.king great.
Dana had done everything in her power to stop herself from freaking out. And she hadn"t. She hadn"t been anything but good about it all so far. She lay in her bed, silently seething at the girl in the bed only a few feet from her.
Becca had everything. Dana didn"t need everything. All she"d wanted was Johnny. And Becca had of course gone and taken that, too.
Suddenly there was a movement in the dark. Becca was standing up and walking...to the door? She opened it. And then shut it behind her. She was in her white slip-the one Dana had always admired.
I can"t let this go, Dana thought. I have to talk to her, even if it"s in the bathroom while she gets sick.
She put on a jacket and ran out into the hall. But Becca was gone. She looked in the bathrooms and in the dining hall before stepping out of the door and looking out in the rain. She saw Becca"s white slip catch the light of one of the lights along the field. She was walking down to the boathouse.
Dana wondered with a pang if this person who she"d never been anything but nice to was going to meet Johnny. She wouldn"t say anything, then. She"d just wait until they were both together and then she could confront them both. That was better anyway.
Dana followed her silently. She stepped down the stairs, as quietly as she could. Once on the sand, she looked around for Becca, but only caught a silver glint, in the sand, by her feet. Bending down to pick it up, she saw it was the locket from Max. Why...?
She hadn"t heard the door to the boathouse open. She squinted, and saw that Becca was at the end of the dock. She opened her mouth to yell her name, but something stopped her.
What was Becca doing?
BECCA.
The necklace had felt heavy on her skin. The locket was heavy with holding all the lies she"d told just to be happy. Ignoring the pain that ensued when she ripped it from her neck, she let it fall to the sand.
She now stood on the waterlogged wood. This was her end. It had to be. She couldn"t even think about anything else. The baby in her stomach (how was that even real?), whatever drug Ricky had given her was now making her thoughts turn to mush. She felt rippling with electrical currents, but she also felt she might fall asleep at any moment. She couldn"t stop clenching and unclenching her hands. Her eyes were foggy and her mouth felt dry.
But most of all, she felt hollow.
The dark, ferocious waves were fighting each other to swallow up the sand. Everything was wet. Everything was black. Everything was threatening to engulf her. The water hit her like small bullets.
She looked up at the dark sky, and breathed. From this angle all the air above looked like it was coming at her fast.
Nothingness was all she wanted now.
The dock swayed. She glanced back at the boathouse. People might look for her in the morning. But now she was alone. She untied the boat and climbed onto it.
Something was guiding her. Something besides herself. She wasn"t thinking or deciding. It was like she"d made a choice, and now her body was holding her to it.
She climbed into the boat and immediately drifted too far away from the dock she"d released it from. She turned on the light, partly to battle the sky, and it cast a dim and dirty glow on her surroundings.
Very quickly, the ocean ripped control away from her, and fear ran through Becca. The waves were ripping the boat from its st.u.r.dy position and rocking it back and forth like a bath toy. She held on to the side. Water smacked her in the face. It was all she was breathing, hearing, seeing, tasting or coughing up. She"d had enough trouble standing on the beach. She was slipping on the slick floor of the boat, and barely holding on to the side.
More thunder and lightning, simultaneous. She was right in the eye of the storm. She was more nauseous than ever, and puked, not even seeing or feeling where it landed. She let go of the side to try and get to the pole of the sail. In that moment, her side of the boat was whipped into the air, and her light body was thrown into the waves. The powerful waves curled her within them, and she was helpless against them. She couldn"t find the bottom, and she couldn"t find the top. She opened her eyes, and everything was black. Her foot smacked painfully into the hull of the boat once, but she was unable to do anything but flounder helplessly.
Her head came above water once and she started to take a breath, but was then swallowed back into the water. She would be gasping for breath but instead she was just filling her body with the salty, black water. There was no up, there was no down. There was a steady, nauseated life five minutes ago, but nothing five minutes from now.
And then, very suddenly, there was no "now."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.
THE NEWs. .h.i.t MANDERLEY LIKE A THRASHING storm. Becca Normandy was dead. Her body had been found.
And Manderley became colder than ever.
Even though it was May, the sky was flat and gray with clouds that raced across the sky, threatening icy rain. The air was foggy and thick, and my mind was much the same.
I was guilty and sick for my jealousy. I had been selfish. The world was bigger than just me. I should have realized that and stayed to myself.
But nothing was worse than the a.s.sembly where we all found out. All we"d known were the rumors: that it had something to do with Becca"s whereabouts.
"We should have known she"d wait until the end of the school year. It makes so much sense!" I overheard one girl saying to her friend as they pa.s.sed by. We all thought she was alive.
We all a.s.sumed it was good news.
The noisy talking and laughing ebbed as Professor Crawley took the stage. He cleared his throat and adjusted the microphone. Max squeezed my hand.
"h.e.l.lo, everyone. I"m sorry to have to call you all here on one of your last nights at Manderley. But..."
Professor Crawley spoke calmly and gently to us. He told us in the only way he must have known how. He gave us the facts.
An initial din quieted to only a few hushed sobs. Everyone listened as Professor Crawley explained, quickly and without gruesome detail, that her body had been found in the water.
I thought back to the recurring dream I"d been having all year long about being whipped around beneath the waves, unable to find air. I knew the feeling well, having grown up next to the beach. You go in the ocean enough and you"ll eventually get caught in a riptide that sends your brain the thought that this time, the water is going to...
Swallow me whole.
I remembered the ghostly Becca I had seen in my dream on the night of the Halloween Ball and how she had asked if I could hear the ocean, and how she told me that no one knew if it had swallowed her whole.
Why had she gone near the water? Had she taken out the boat, like Blake had wondered? If so...did she know she was going to die?
I barely listened as Dr. Morgan took the stage, to urge us all once again to come talk to her. Her small face contorted with worry as she looked out at the auditorium filled with sobbing teenagers. I spotted Johnny along our same row. He looked etched out of marble he was so still. His eyes were fixed on the seat in front of him, but I could tell that he was not really seeing it.
I didn"t find Blake and Cam until the end, and when we did they were as somber as we were. Neither shed a tear, but the shock had clearly affected them.
"Are you okay?" Blake asked, looking to Max after nodding a h.e.l.lo to me.
He hesitated. "Yes, I"m okay."
Blake nodded and then looked concernedly at him. "If you need anything..."
"I know." He glanced up at them. "Thanks. I"m going to bed for right now. I"ll see you guys tomorrow."
"Dana"s mom is here."
"What?" I asked.
"Her mom. They told her before us. I guess she wanted to tell Dana herself, but got here too late..."
Max and I both muttered something about that being too bad, and then our conversation wound down to good-nights.
Max walked me up to the girls" dorms, where we, too, said a quick, polite good-night and then parted ways.
I floated up the stairs in a haze, and then into my room. The door was cracked, so I pushed it open quietly. I was walking to my side of the room when I heard Dana in the bathroom. It was m.u.f.fled through the door, but I could tell she was weeping. Her sobs were unbridled and deep. It stung my eyes and throat to hear.
"It"s okay, it"s all right. You"re okay."
The person who must be her mother was speaking in a slow, calm voice.
"I watched her...I watched her on the dock and I didn"t stop her. It"s my fault..."
"No, honey, it"s not. It"s not because of you. It"s not because of anyone. You"re okay." Her voice was still measured and soothing. I imagined that she was soothing Dana in the way my mother always had me, by running her hands through her hair and wiping tears from her cheeks.
"She was my f-friend! I could have done something. Should have gone after her or...or..." Her voice trembled, and I could hear her trying to catch her breath. "No one was there for her and I should have been! She had enough time out there alone to...to..."
"You didn"t do anything wrong. You did all you could. You are okay."
Dana broke into tears again. A few seconds later she had caught her breath. "What was the last thought she had? When she...when she woke up that day, she didn"t know it was the last time she ever would. Did she know she was going to die? When did she stop being aware of what was happening? She must have been cold... I can"t...I can"t stop imagining it...."
This time her mother said nothing. I didn"t blame her for being stumped. After all, I had thought the same thoughts, too.
"I want to die!"
There was a twinge in my chest. No, Dana, you don"t want to kill yourself, I thought.
"I know that you feel that way now, but you will change your mind. It"s going to be okay."
I snuck back out of the room, not wanting them to know that I had been there. It was the last time I"d see Dana until the funeral.
For the next few days, the students that filled the halls of Manderley were in constant funeral march. No one spoke, it seemed, and when they did it was almost always in hushed voices.
The last few lacrosse games we had, we were crushed in. No one could fight hard, playing or cheering. Everyone was lethargic with the loss.
Becca was dead. We were all about to graduate. A feeling of finality was pushing in everywhere.
For a lot of us, I think it was the first time we"d thought about life or death that way. My grandfather had died when I was too young to understand, but that was it. I might not have known Becca, but it didn"t matter. She was our age and she was no different than us. I might not have stumbled into the ocean if I had been her that night, but maybe I would have. The possibility that it could be any of us at any moment for whatever reason was shaking us all to the core. The mystery around her disappearance had kept these thoughts at bay, that we were seventeen, maybe a little older or a little younger, and we could, all of us, just die like that. We could be as dead as anyone who"d lived to be a hundred or as someone who was given a lethal injection. Our lives could be over at any moment.
We were not invincible.
I think that thought was a new one. We all knew it of course, but we had never really felt it. And as we were all getting ready to end our high school lives and begin our new ones, I realized that these were thoughts worth remembering.
For me, it made me decide that I needed to live. Really live. I could not be afraid or timid; I had to make my life worth living. I couldn"t push anything off. As I realized that, I thought of my friends back home and the college life we"d planned out. We"d be friends forever, we had decided, and college would be no different than high school except we"d be older and freer. Whenever I had thought of a life beyond those friends and the streets I already knew, I had always thought: Later. I"ll tackle the real world later.
Maybe it didn"t have to be later. I remembered my acceptance letters to Florida State and Boston. They had both come on the same day. When I opened the letter from FSU, I had expected to get in. I hoped for an acceptance because it would be embarra.s.sing not to get into the school my friends did. I wanted to be accepted because that was the plan. And when I was, I was happy...but there was something else I had squelched and ignored. I thought of it now, and wondered if that was the part of me who wanted to be pushed from the nest. Maybe what I wanted was a reason to leave the comfort of my plan.
I"d opened the envelope with the big blue letters BU in the left-hand corner, and there was a quiver in my chest as I"d read the words telling me I was accepted. I ignored that feeling, too, it turned out. Here a door had opened right next to the one I planned to walk through, and another, more daring and spontaneous version of myself had strode through it.
Maybe that"s who I wanted to be now. I"d already taken the first step and left home. Would I regret it if I sank back into an old routine with the same people when I"d already gotten the worst of it over with?
I"d been homesick a lot, but I"d also been okay. It had been a difficult year, but I had lived. I didn"t even have to take a leap into the cold water of newness; all I had to do was keep swimming.
I thought about it all night until I fell asleep. Then suddenly I was swimming.