Drowning Instinct

Page 31

Now I did look up. But she was married, I said, faintly.
I guess that didn‘t make any difference to them, he said, carefully. I think they were in love and didn‘t care. I think they felt that loving each other was more important than following the rules.
Are we going to follow the rules? I whispered. I honestly didn‘t know what answer I wanted.
We probably should.
I closed my eyes, willing my tears not to fall. I killed Matt. All his e-mails, my account, everything. I opened my eyes. There‘s only you. All I can see is you.
Something in his face changed and then he took a step forward and then another. He was close enough to reach out for me, but he didn‘t. Instead, he stretched past, pulled his office door shut—and locked it. He took the book and then the bag of scones from my weak fingers and carefully squared both next to the coffeepot. Reaching around, he eased my knapsack from my shoulders and let it slide to the floor, and then he peeled off my coat, his fingers lightly brushing my neck, trailing over my wrists. He draped my coat over his desk chair and then, without taking his eyes from mine, felt for the lamp.
Click.
The room went black. I heard him breathing. My heart was pounding. He was so close we could‘ve touched in that trembling darkness, but I couldn‘t move. A moment later, I felt his fingers thread through mine and my pulse jumped.
His voice drifted out of the dark. Come with me. I know the way.
I did. My head was buzzing. He moved easily through the storage room, past the hulking shelves of chemicals so carefully arranged and cataloged, and then down the short hall to the old forgotten darkroom he‘d shown me in what seemed like another century. The door was open, but he didn‘t step inside. Instead, he paused, my hand still in his—and waited.
In the ruddy blush of the emergency exit sign, I spied that cot where he must sometimes take a nap or rest after a run. The air smelled different, though: still Dove and him but, also, the round warm scent of vanilla.
Now was the moment to decide which rules mattered. There were choices. I had the power. I could turn around. I could leave. There was no mystery here. Once I stepped into that room, I would be crossing a line.
I haven‘t been able to stop thinking about you. When I turned, he cupped my face in his hands. I thought I was helping only you, but now I think I‘ve been struggling to help myself, too. But you have to understand how serious this is, Jenna. No one can know. You can‘t tell anyone. I could end up in jail.
We‘ve been out together. We‘ve been places together. I realized, belatedly, that after Adelaide, Mr. Anderson had been careful to go where no one would know either of us.
We run together.
And we can keep doing those things, within reason. I‘m your teacher. Your parents know me. I‘ve been to your house. I‘m no different from any other adult. Or . . . we don‘t have to do anything. We can be friends and that would be fine. I . . . I care about you, Jenna. The last thing I want is to hurt you. I won‘t force you. I want you to want me.
They felt like words I’d wanted—waited for—my whole life. I do want you. My body was liquid, my skin so hot I thought that one more degree and I would burst into flame. And I know how to keep a secret, Mr. Anderson, I promise. He nearly, nearly smiled. I think that when it‘s just the two of us . . . you can call me Mitch.
i
We didn‘t talk after that. Not with words, anyway.
37: a
Where is Danielle? Mr. Anderson planted his fists on his hips. His words rode on breath clouds the wind tore away. We start in five. Don‘t tell me she‘s still suiting up.
The rest of us knotted together, jamming our hands in the pockets of our warm-up jackets, doing the cold-girl two-step. We were in Wausau on a Tuesday and a week before Thanksgiving for the last cross-country meet of the season. Regionals would be the week after Thanksgiving, with state the week after that. The weather was crap, the temperature a degree above freezing—kind of typical for north-central Wisconsin this time of year. A thin salting of snow filmed the frozen ground. The weatherman was talking six, eight inches on the way, and everyone was saying that winter was going to be early, long, and hard.
The wind was steady. The air smelled like crushed aluminum. Every gust whistled through my warm-up jacket and sweatpants, slicing straight to the bone. I‘d tried to keep as warm as I could, but I could feel my muscles stiffening up. I needed to be running already.
I‘ll get her. When Mr. Anderson gave a curt nod, I jogged past the clutches of parents huddling together in the cold (not mine; Dad would never come and Mom was working maniac hours). David and a couple other stalwart boyfriend-types were there, too; when I trotted by on my way to the visitors‘ locker room, David looked the question, but I only shrugged and—
b
Oh, what‘s the matter? Is widdle Bobby mad? Like, wait a minute, she skipped a month? Well, what were you expecting, Bobby-o, a blow-by-blow? Every minute? God, you are a perv.
Oh, all right, short and sweet: yes, this meet was about a month later. I‘d run in three meets since . . . since before. (I‘m not being coy here; I just don‘t see that it‘s any of your business.) I‘d done okay: third in my first meet and second in the two after that. My joining the team seemed to have lit a fire under Danielle. Maybe that‘s what Mr. Anderson had counted on. If so, it had worked. She‘d poured it on the last three races.
But I would catch her soon, and I knew it. Her splits were way off, and when we did flat courses on the treadmill, I could punch up a six-minute mile for five and she couldn‘t.
She‘d gotten surlier and more withdrawn, too. In the locker room—yes, I still changed in the handicapped shower—I overheard how she and David might be splitting up; how her older brother, who was in the local university extension and had suddenly taken to showing up to take her home from practice, had gotten in David‘s face the other week. I could believe it. The way her brother acted—wedging himself between her and any other guy, even Mr. Anderson when he was just coaching—you‘d have thought he was her boyfriend.
Stuff like that.
But with me coming on board, we‘d done well enough. My teammates were pumped because we might make regionals after all, even state. Mr. Anderson—Mitch—was psyched. Me, too. I knew it was only a matter of time until I really came in first—not just first on our team, but for the race.
For him.
Which didn‘t exactly endear me to Danielle, who had even more reason to hate my guts and . . .
c
Oh, wait. I know. You don‘t care about Danielle, do you, Bob? Why is she wasting time with Danielle, you‘re saying; why isn‘t she getting down to the nitty-gritty, what‘s really important. Where‘s the good stuff?
Well, know what I say to that, Bobby-o? Screw you. This is my story, so get over it.
Oh, okay, I‘ll cut you a break. I mean, since you asked.
Yes, Mitch and I saw one another almost every day and I don‘t mean just in that way, although . . . yes, in that way, too. And you know what, Bobby-o?
It was wonderful. It was magic. It was a fairy tale come true and the best thing that ever happened to me, and you can‘t take that away. I know that‘s killing you. You want this to be a different kind of story, but it‘s not and . . .
d
Okay, deep breath.
Mitch and I were together nearly every day, most mornings and after school but very, very late, after everyone else had gone home. I studied in the library, or we set up labs for the next day. Yes, we really did work, shocker there. There was also practice, conditioning work, stuff like that. We were extremely careful and always made sure that doors were open and there was music and, usually, other kids. Like we had nothing to hide.
Although sometimes his hand would brush my arm and a little shock would zing through my chest. Our eyes might meet, and then heat would crawl up my neck and warm my thighs, and I would have to look away. More often than not, we both drove away when our work at school was done or practice was over, so everyone would see us go in separate cars. We‘d meet up again: for dinner, coffee—
And other things.
In his car. In mine. Huddled under blankets in darkened fields, where we explored ways of keeping one another warm: when he showed me what he liked, and how.
We ran on the weekends, too. And, yeah, a couple times, we couldn‘t wait until we made it to the cabin. That‘s not to say that we didn‘t spend a lot of time in our hideaway.
That was ours: a private, magical space where we could talk and fill volumes.
e
I remember one afternoon—a Saturday after we‘d . . . well, you know. We were wrapped in a comforter on that window seat in his study: my back snugged against his chest, his arms hugging me close. No rain this time, but the day was gray and the woods so filled with mist, we might as well have been on our own little island. There was music, something as gauzy and soft as that fog.
I love it when it‘s so still, he said. I remember that his fingers brushed and stroked my breasts, back and forth. Nothing grabby. Just a gentle touch you‘d almost swear wasn‘t there but which sent tiny electric shocks dancing over my skin and stabbing through my thighs. It always reminds me of diving, the way you hover between the water below and the world above.
I wish we didn‘t have to leave. My hands were hooked on his arms the way they‘d been that first afternoon when I told him everything. It feels like we‘re floating.
Everything‘s so calm.
Mmm-hmm. He pressed his lips to the top of my head. I‘d forgotten what this was like, feeling really at peace and not just putting on a show for family, my father, my . .
. He paused. You remember when I said you can look at a guy in the water and not know he‘s in trouble? That he‘s drowning? I saw it happen once.
You saw someone die?
Mmm-hmm. There was this one guy, pretty experienced, and his dive buddy was this newbie-kid who‘d sucked down his air pretty fast. So the kid surfaced and this guy kept on by himself, which might not have been a problem if he‘d stayed close or partnered up again, but he didn‘t. So we‘re all back aboard and thirty minutes become forty and then forty-five and the dive master is starting to freak. Then, all of a sudden, the captain spotted the guy maybe a half mile away. Without binoculars, you could barely see him, but he was upright and floating. We all started waving, but he didn‘t wave back, and then the dive master was screaming that we had to get there fast. I thought he‘d gone crazy. I mean, the guy seemed fine: not shouting or splashing or anything. Only by the time they got the boat turned around and over there? He was gone. That‘s why the dive master was so frantic. He understood the guy had about twenty seconds left.