I GUESS I SHOULD MENTION what I said to Mark the last time I saw him, because that’s what Stewart wanted to talk to me about. Let me clarify: I don’t feel bad about what I said. But I think it’s important, what he said back to me.
It was the day we all went to the beach. I don’t even know why I was invited, or why I went along. I was supposed to do ten miles, then head to the playground near the woods for chin-ups on the bars there and triceps dips. I was convinced it was my arms holding me back. If I could make them stronger, I would dominate cross-country season. Everyone thinks running is in your legs, but it’s even more in your arms, because they dictate what the rest of your body does. They make the decisions.
But there was Tabby, smelling like sunscreen, floppy hat on, dark circles under her eyes. I heard her sneak in again last night. It seemed like she didn’t need any sleep at all that summer, like she was running on something else entirely. Driving to the beach, things felt normal. We sang along to Taylor Swift and ate Swedish Fish and I stuck my feet up on the dashboard, which Mom never let us do. If you get in an accident, your leg will end up going through your body, she used to say, except she didn’t know that Tabby and I were untouchable.
We were the first ones there, spreading out our towels, burying our feet in the sand.
“There are the boys,” Tabby said, waving them over. Mark and Keegan, shiny chests, matching navy swim trunks, almost like they had planned it. Mark looked better in his, more chiseled, as if he had spent his whole summer at the pool.
They sat down next to us, Tabby and Mark exchanging a kiss that lasted too long to be in public. I suddenly felt out of place, juvenile and babyish, a kid sitting with a bunch of adults. Tabby’s body filled out her bikini, and there was the tail of her ivy tattoo, the one she got freshman year that our parents still somehow didn’t know about, creeping up her back. I was flat-chested and skinny, hard like leather, hair limp and face plain.
“There’s Kyla,” Keegan said, and he jumped up, shielding his face against the sun as a blond girl headed our way. She broke into a run as she got closer, leaped into his arms, her legs hooked around him as he held her. Why am I here? I wanted to ask Tabby. Why am I on your double date?
“We should go in the water,” Mark said. “Come on, Tabby.”
“I’m not hot yet,” she said. “I need to get hot first.” She stretched out, fanning her hands over her stomach.
I looked around us. You hear beach and think of this glamorous place, tight bodies and Frisbees flying around and waves coming in, but Crest Beach is a joke. A tiny strip of sand, a rocky shoreline, crushed beer cans left behind. I hated that I gave up my workout to be here, that I let myself get derailed for a day. Maybe that was how Mark felt about my sister, and for just a second, I felt sorry for him for meeting her.
“Come on,” Mark said, hovering over my sister’s face. “You could use the exercise, babe.”
Then I didn’t feel sorry for him anymore.
“Give her a break,” Keegan said. “Look at the waves, dude. They’re too big for swimming today.”
It had stormed last night, hard rain beating against the roof. The water was the color of mud and the waves were churning against the shoreline, pulling rocks back out with them.
“They’re not big,” Mark said, cocky, so sure of himself. “They’re baby waves. I’m gonna go on my own.” He stood up, kicked off his flip-flops.
“If you start drowning, don’t expect anyone to save you,” I said.
They all heard it. My eyes were locked on Mark, but I felt their heads turn. Tabby laughed, a weak sound, and then so did everyone else, because that’s what it was, a joke. Except it wasn’t a joke, and I didn’t mean it to be funny at all.
Mark knew it wasn’t a joke. He didn’t laugh, but he smiled, and standing there in the sun, his perfect white teeth suddenly looked like fangs. He could rip her apart, I realized. In a thousand ways, and hide all the pieces, so that we’d never find her again. I was already having trouble finding her, even though she was sitting right next to me, one of her sandy feet touching my elbow.
“You know I had four scholarship offers for swimming, right? You know I’ve spent more of my summer in the pool than out of it? That’s the last way I would go.” He looked at all of us, then honed in on me. “Be careful of the undertow. It can really pull you out.” Then he was gone, jogging toward the water line, all pumping muscles.
“Bridge,” Tabby said when he was gone. “What the hell was that?”
“He threatened me. Did you not hear that? Be careful of the undertow. It can really pull you out. Is that not menacing?”
Keegan and Kyla weren’t listening anymore. She was rubbing sunscreen into his back like a mother does to a little kid. Tabby turned toward me, so close that our faces were almost touching under her floppy hat. “He was just telling you to be careful. He used to work as a lifeguard in high school, so he just doesn’t want to see you get hurt.”
“You’re always defending him. Don’t you get sick of it?”
It was like a hush fell over the whole beach. Everyone could hear us. But I needed to know the answer, even if I should have asked a long time ago.
Tabby’s fingers were twitching. She needed a cigarette. I didn’t know where that bad habit came from, because I at least knew it didn’t come from Mark, Mr. Wholesome, Mr. Lean Protein and Vegetables. She was hunting around in her head for a lie, not just any lie, but one that could shut me up. I searched around my own brain for a rebuttal, but it turned out, I didn’t need one.
“Yeah,” she said softly, for my ears alone. “I guess sometimes I do.”
Whatever I was about to say next died on my tongue. I watched Mark power through the water, his arms moving like he was part of a machine, legs a blur of churned brown water. I wished an undertow would find him, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The swimming champion, drowned in a muddy lake. It had a kind of poetic justice to it. People would call it a waste, like they always did when a boy died. But when a girl does it, there’s always blame spliced in with the mourning, reasons why it was her fault. She drank too much. She was trying to show off. I willed the lake to swallow Mark, the same lake where we learned to water ski when we were kids.
The lake didn’t listen. It brought Mark back safely to shore. But that was one of the last times I would ever see him alive.