Carrie smiled wide, very proud of her super fun birthday plan. "Yeah."

"But I don't have a swim suit." "Neither do I." Carrie peeled off her tee shirt and shorts and loved the fact that Ben seemed to have stopped breathing. With Ben, she didn't care that her bra was ugly, and she had on boring white cotton panties. The way he looked at her made her feel beautiful.

She dove into the pool in her bra and panties, surfaced and faced Ben. "Come on." "We could get arrested!" Ben looked down at the empty bottle of wine still in his hand. He set it on the ground and moved away from the incriminating evidence.

Carrie chuckled. "I've done this a bunch of times before. The neighbors won't know as long as we are quiet. Come on." She could see him considering his options, so she started to walk up the steps on the shallow end then towards him. If she got him wet, he might be more willing to get in. He backed away from her, "Carrie don't." But he was starting to smile. Carrie got closer and started moving faster.

"Carrie," he turned and ran, but he was definitely smiling. She chased him till he was near the deep end of the pool. He looked at her over his shoulder and smiled wide just before he jumped to avoid being pushed in, Carrie followed. When she surfaced she was laughing, ready to keep playing with Ben and cheering him up. She looked around to see where he had come up. She didn't see him, and she felt a sudden jolt of fear. In her gut she knew something was wrong. "Ben!" she whisper-screamed. "Ben!"

He didn't answer. The pool was completely dark and quiet. She quickly dove straight down and felt with her hands, but couldn't feel anything before she had to surface for air. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she tried to listen past it to hear any sign of Ben.

She dove again. This time she felt a rush of water moving to her right. She pushed herself harder and reached out. She felt some fabric, then Ben's flailing hands slapped hers, and she couldn't get a grip. She surfaced quickly, took in a huge gulp of air, and dove to what she prayed was the same spot again. When she felt the fabric she grabbed on tight and tugged with all her might. She reached up as she struggled to reach the surface, trapped air burning in her lungs. She felt a rung of the metal ladder and grabbed on with her free hand. This gave her enough leverage to pull him up. He seemed to be working with her instead of against her now as they both moved painstakingly slowly toward air. When they broke the surface, Carrie gasped in a big gulp of air, but Ben only sucked in a shallow one. Carrie wrapped her legs tight around his waist and squeezed with all her might to keep him from sliding down again.

She flopped the top half of her body over the edge of the pool then jacked her knees, pulling Ben a little more out of the water. She scooted farther up on the pool deck then reached for his shoulders and pulled him half way out of the water. "Ben!" she screamed. "Oh god! Ben!" She slapped him lightly because he was barely moving. He rolled to his side and started spitting up water. Not knowing what else to do, she held on tight to him, coaxing him to live, "That's it, breathe Ben, breathe." He half sat up and pulled his legs out of the water, still coughing up water and gasping in between. Carrie lay on the pool deck next to him, panting hard, her adrenaline spent. "Oh, god, Ben. I thought I lost you." She wailed. "Why didn't you swim?"

Ben glared at her, unable to speak. He got on his hands and knees, coughing still, but with no water coming out.

"Ben, talk to me. Are you OK?"

Slowly he pulled himself to standing, waivered a little, then stopped to glare at Carrie again.

"What? Why didn't you swim? You scared the shit out of me! I thought I had lost you!" He pulled in one deep breath, coughed a little then propelled himself toward the gate. He half jogged the whole way home, through the woods, stopping briefly to breathe and cough; always staying ahead of Carrie.

Carrie had to pull her clothes on over her wet underwear before she could follow him. She left the bottle of wine near the lounger and the gate open, her only thought was making sure Ben didn't die along the path on the way home. She emerged from the woods and was about to jump the creek when she saw him open the back door to his house and go inside. At least he was safe. She stumbled through the creek, not caring about getting any wetter, then slumped next to the half destroyed fort. She was still breathing hard from running through the woods, but as her breath slowed, gasping sobs took over. She lay in the dirt and wood chips and cried 'til all the fear left her, and she was completely exhausted.

FLASHBACKS OVER: BACK TO CARRIE'S REGULARLY SCHEDULED LIFE.

Chapter 9.

The first meeting of the Homecoming decorating committee wasn't so bad. The theme was castles, which Carrie thought was sort of lame, but considering the school mascot was a knight and there was a bunch of castle decorating stuff left over from other events, it made sense.

By the third meeting, Carrie wanted to bail. Joelle and her friends were also on the committee, and Ben must have told her Carrie went with him to Dutzow, because they went out of their way to talk bad about her and her friends anytime she was within earshot. Michelle Wagner noticed the tension and assigned Carrie to work with her and the preppy girls on decorating the stage. She assigned the Jesus freaks to the refreshment area, at the other end of the gym.

Michelle turned out to be really fun to work with. She was nice to everyone and knew a lot about paint and fabric and decorating in general. Carrie felt kind of bad that she still didn't want to hang out with her. She had her friends, and they would be mad if she did anything more than help with decorating. She didn't want to rock the boat.

The dance was on a Saturday night and set-up was the night before. Michelle told Carrie they would be working from after school till 9 or 10 p.m., so she asked MG to pick her up at 10 and bring her some clothes she could wear to Chuck's. What she hadn't planned on was Ben and his friends showing up to help.

It was mind-boggling how unaware Ben could be of the tension between Joelle and Carrie. When he got to the gym and saw Carrie, he came over to say hi immediately. Out of the corner of her eye, Carrie could see Jesus freak #2, Laura, go running to make sure Joelle knew. Shit. Carrie hated drama.

"It's crooked, you know."

"Doesn't matter," Carried shot back, "it's not a real castle wall, Ben, no one is going to storm it."

"It should still be straight."

Carrie backed up a few steps to see how crooked it looked. "You do realize you are the only one who will notice."

"I'd notice." Pat, Ben's best friend added. Carrie rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the help." She turned Ben away from her wall and pushed him in the direction of Joelle.

"Happy to be of service," he yelled back over his shoulder as he walked away. Joelle's reaction to seeing Ben was as sappy as a Hallmark commercial. She ran to him and jumped into his arms, squealing with delight. He gave her a big hug, then let go and turned his attention to the refreshment table decorations. Carrie turned back to her crooked wall. It was already 8:40 and she needed to hurry up if she was going to finish by 10 and be waiting for MG in front of the school.

She had finished everything but hanging the big puffy purple and white things from the top of the archways. It was slow going because she had Pat and Wayne, Ben's other friend, following her around, possibly flirting with her, but they were so bad at it, she couldn't be sure.

"Wayne, move." Carrie needed to put the step stool exactly where Wayne was standing. He moved only slightly to the right, still too close in her space. For the sake of speed, she ignored him. With a big fluffy ball of tulle in her hand she climbed up on the stool then on her tip toes to try and reach the top of the wall. Wayne reached over to hold her in place, and her irritation at running late only compounded how much it bugged her that he was touching her waist. She still couldn't reach the top of the wall.

"I got it, Wayne. You can let go."

He still held on, so she climbed off the stool and stepped away from him.

"I didn't want you to fall." OK, he meant well, but he needed to go find Ben and leave her alone. That gave her an idea, one that would stir an already boiling-over pot, but she needed to both get rid of Wayne and finish. "Do me a favor," she turned her attention to Wayne, "Go get Ben for me."

He was obviously disappointed, but he did it.

"Still crooked," Ben yelled as he walked toward her. She beat her head against the wall, almost knocking it over. Ben laughed. It really wasn't that bad, but he knew his precision drove her nuts. "What's up?"

"You," she answered as she pulled him into place next to the step stool facing the wall. As she climbed back on the stool, she pulled him close to her. "Put your hand out for my foot. I'm going to get on your shoulders." He looked at her like she was crazy, but did as he was told. She was always bossy when she was decorating, and he was used to it.

She effortlessly perched on his shoulders and wrapped her feet around his back for stability. "Pat, hand me one of those purple thingies."

"This one?" Pat held up one of the puff balls. "No, the other one," Ben teased. Pat looked down at the pile of them, then realized they were all the same and laughed along with Ben.

"Gorman, you are holding up the show. Pat, purple thing." Pat tossed one up to Carrie.

"You are so bossy when you decorate," Ben teased. "Well, if I wasn't we'd spend all day getting the imaginary crooked out of the fake wall." Carrie tied the ribbon that held the tulle in place. "Pat, another one. Ben, move down."

They continued down the line till there were only two tulle balls left. She couldn't see her, but Carrie could feel Joelle's stare burning a hole in her back. Jealous waves rolled in from the refreshment end of the gym.

"Don't fall Carrie!"

She almost did when she flinched. That could only be MG's loud voice screaming at her from the entrance.

"Nice balls, girl, are those blue?" It was obvious MG had already started drinking, she was on a roll. Carrie couldn't help but laugh. Not only was the comment damn funny, but she would love to turn around and see the looks on the faces of the gym full of prepsters and Jesus freaks.

Because he loved to point out the obvious, Pat said, "Um, your friends are here."

Friends? Plural? MG didn't come alone? "Dude, it works better if your face is turned the other way," was Steve's helpful tip for Ben, "and make slow circles with your tongue," he shouted.

Carrie almost did fall off Ben she was laughing so hard. But Ben held tighter to her thighs, which was a good thing because he was beet red but shaking with laughter too.

"Enough!" She twisted around as far as she could and shouted at Steve and MG and some other really big, scary looking guy who was with them. She had never seen him before.

"How about you let me take over, and I'll show you how it's done." Steve was still talking to Ben's back. Carrie squeezed her legs tighter around his chest and back, letting him know she wanted him to stay. "I'm almost done," she shouted to her friends as she finished tying that tulle ball then Ben moved to the last one without prompting. As she was tying the last knot she noticed the gym had gotten very quiet. She leaned down so only Ben could hear her. "Can you squat down so I can get off?"

He looked up at her as he squatted, "You want me to get you off?" He was smiling, really proud of his sexual joke. Carrie smiled back then swung her leg over his head and jumped onto the stage.

MG let out a whoop and held her arms above her head like she had just performed an Olympic dismount. "That's a 10. I'll give her a 10 for that dismount."