"Suit yourself." He put his head back into the water and started to kick too, pa.s.sing me almost immediately.

By the time I dragged myself onto the sand, my legs were worthless. I had cursed myself the entire way for not taking him up on his fin offer. Pride had forced me to finish, but I didn't even care about that anymore. I flopped down on the wet sand and leaned back on my tank to catch my breath while Tyler stood looking out at the water.

He pointed. "I can see their lights."

"You can go back out there if you want to," I said, panting. "I'm all safe now." He turned and looked to our lighted windows. "You gonna make it across the sand and up those stairs? You sound like you might die or something." He smiled. "You're a runner. I'd think you'd be in better shape than that."

I lay back completely on my tank and looked up at the sky. "When I run, I get to wear shoes on both feet." I closed my eyes and listened to the ripples of water on sand. "I'm comfortable right here."

"Yeah ... I get that, but let's get out of this gear and then come back down or something. This stuff's just a little bit heavy to be standing out here enjoying the night."

"Okay." I took a deep breath and rolled onto my side so that I could push myself off the sand. Tyler grabbed my elbow and helped me up, which made me smile even as I lost my balance and tipped back over.

"Come on. Put a little effort into it." He hoisted me up again with a grunt, but I was a lost cause. After several more attempts I finally got to my feet, and we plodded up to the patio, where we went our separate ways-me to the warmth of the shower to rinse off the salt water and wet suit smell , and him to the outdoor shower my dad had rigged up.

I stepped back out onto the cool stones of the patio as he was rubbing his hair dry with a towel, still shirtless. It was hard not to stare, so I walked out to where I could see the water and felt a tiny zing of possibility when I saw two lights still circling below the surface far, far down the beach.

Tyler came over and stood next to me. "d.a.m.n. Look how light it is out there. We probably didn't even need our lights." The tide was far out, and in the moonlight I could see the slick surface of the wet sand, dotted with dark spots that were probably small rocks. I wondered if there were any pieces of gla.s.s scattered among them. Another wave of uneasiness swelled in my stomach before I willed it down and looked back over at Tyler.

He smiled. "Wanna go for a walk?"

CHAPTER 20.

I dug my toes into the wet sand and soaked up the dreamy barefoot feeling of the beach at night. In the dark the effect of everything was heightened-the moonlight, the warm air, softly lapping water ... all of it. We walked the waterline, tiny ripples occasionally spilling over our feet, our hands brushing accidentally, suspended between nervousness and antic.i.p.ation.

I snuck a glance at Tyler. He smiled, and I knew he'd felt me looking. Instead of saying anything, though, he stopped abruptly and picked something up, rubbing the sand from its surface with his thumb before holding it out to me. "It's sea gla.s.s, right?" I took it and felt the familiar smoothness between my fingers before I held it up in the moonlight, exposing its translucent green edges.

"It's-" My throat caught a little as I said the word. "It's moongla.s.s."

"What?"

I shook my head and smiled. "I made it up when I was little. It's sea gla.s.s. But my mom and I used to go look for it whenever there was a full moon, and the pieces we found at night I called moongla.s.s."

I could distinctly feel the slight weight of my pendant where it rested on my chest. "Like this," I said, holding it out, away from my neck. "I found this one at night." Tyler leaned in and peered at the gla.s.s triangle that dangled from my chain, and I kept talking. "It's hard to tell right now, but it's red. Which is really hard to find. Probably the most rare." Stop talking. He's right there, so close. Our faces were inches away from each other, looking together at the piece of red gla.s.s that spun on its chain.

Tyler seemed intrigued. "I wondered about that necklace. You always wear it."

I looked down at the gla.s.s, then let it fall back to my chest. "I was proud of this one, because it was actually me that found it, not my mom." I paused, surprised by what I was saying, but then went on, unable to stop. "She actually didn't even know I was on the beach when I found it."

"What, you snuck out or something?"

"Sort of." We resumed our walking. "I kind of followed her out one night, without her knowing." I kept talking, even as I wondered what I was doing. "I used to lie in bed and listen to her move around the house before I fell asleep, you know? Wash dishes and all that. My dad worked nights back then too, so it was always just us." It sounded almost nostalgic, put that way. "Anyway. I was listening, and I heard the front door open and close, and then it was quiet. I peeked out my window and saw her walking down the path to the beach, and it was a full moon, so I knew she'd be looking for gla.s.s. That was like our special thing." I looked down at the sand for a moment. "I got really mad that she hadn't taken me, so I ran out after her."

I was conscious of omitting details as I spoke. How we hadn't taken any walks together for a long time because she'd insisted on being alone. How I had wished every night that my dad didn't have to go to work and leave us alone together, because I never knew what kind of night it would be.

Some nights we cuddled together on the porch watching the sunset, then she would sit me up on the kitchen counter and tell me stories of mermaids while she hummed and flitted around the kitchen making dinner. I drank in her warmth on those nights, tried to save it up. Others, I would have to muster the courage to approach her as she lay, sullen, in her darkened bedroom, long past dinnertime, and ask her for something to eat, because she had forgotten I was there at all. Some nights she was so angry with me that I didn't bother and I lay awake until exhaustion trumped hunger and I fell asleep. I was used to leaving those kinds of details out. I had practiced since I was little, because every morning, between my dad and the sun, things didn't feel so bad after all.

She seemed herself when he was around, so I never told.

But now I was. Sort of.

"The dumb thing was, it was January, and I just ran out in my jammies, following her down the beach." My voice came out casual, and Tyler laughed softly. But I hugged my arms close to me, because as soon as I said it, the warmth of the evening fell away and I was back in the icy wind, chasing after my mother. Tyler just looked at me, waiting to hear how I found the red piece of gla.s.s, so I kept telling.

"Anyway, I went running down the beach after her, but she was far ahead and I got tired, so I started walking." It was easy to go back to the same details I had changed so many years ago. really, I had purposely hung back from her. Something I had done earlier in the evening had made her so angry, she'd screamed, then cried, then left me alone in my room. But I tried to walk next to her footprints, so it was almost like we were walking along together. Even that had felt hopeless, though, because the water rushed up and washed them away in front of me as I went along.

"She never turned around and caught you?"

I hesitated, trying to decide in my mind what I really thought. I wanted to believe that she hadn't, that she really didn't know I was there behind her. There had been a moment when she'd paused and I'd thought she'd turned back and seen me. But then she'd kept going.

"No. She thought I was sleeping." My smile was hol ow. "She had no idea that her seven-year-old snuck out of the house and was wandering the beach at night."

Tyler nudged me softly with his shoulder. "So you started that habit a long time ago, huh?" I had been looking out at the water, caught up in my own memory, worlds different from the one I was telling. But now I turned and let my eyes meet his, and I didn't say anything else. Instead I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed him, and when I did, everything that was about to break the surface lingered a moment before it receded into inky blackness, under the weight of his lips on mine.

Tyler slowly pulled his head back, and we stayed there, quiet a moment. "Wow." He rubbed his lips together. "I was right about you not holding back." We laughed until I saw his expression change to one of concern. "Here we go again." He stepped back and shook his head. "I hope your legs are ready to run."

I turned and saw two circles of light in the water, making their way closer to the sh.o.r.e in front of my house. So we ran. Water and lights went by in a blur, and I felt light and fast. We took the back steps to the yard two at a time, and I burst through the kitchen door and threw produce from the refrigerator onto the counter while Tyler grabbed the hose and took up his post rinsing our gear. By the time my dad and Andy tromped up the steps and emptied their lobsters onto the patio, I had caught my breath and was calmly slicing an avocado.

For the rest of the night, Tyler and I weaved our way into each other's paths in small ways-a hand brush while pa.s.sing a plate, a b.u.mp when stepping past each other, a brief second of eye contact when no one else was looking. It was like a game, to see how much we could pa.s.s off as chance. The effort of it probably wasn't necessary, though, based on the number of beer bottles lined up on the picnic table. My dad and Andy were on a roll in full glory-days mode, and the stories kept coming as we sat around the low tiled fire ring my dad had bought, surely picturing nights like this one. Still, I liked the idea of trying to keep things with Tyler secret and out of sight. It occupied my mind enough to make me feel like I could just let everything else drift away to be forgotten, the way it had almost been before.

By the end of the night, Andy and my dad had regaled themselves with tales of lifeguarding heroics that had grown in danger and gore each time I'd heard them. Tyler seemed genuinely interested, and won them over by being appropriately impressed, and even adding a few incidents of his own to the mix. At least for the night, he was in the circle of their approval. They included him as one of their own, which made for an easy and comfortable evening. It had cooled down considerably, but the fire warmed my legs as I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes, listening to their voices and the occasional pop of the coals that remained. When I finally opened my eyes, the tiny twinkle of a star winked through the leaves above me, and I wished that everything could stay like it was, with my mother safely out at sea and the water in my dreams calm and gla.s.sy.

Almost instantly she's there. I see the familiar long white skirt and the long blond hair swirling around her. It's just as before, just as it is every time. She walks out slowly but resolutely, unaware of anything else. The frigid wind whips around me and I hug my arms to my chest, trying to hold on to any warmth I can. I've been cold for so long. I see the sharp intake of breath when the water reaches her chest, and I sink back down onto the sand, defeated, knowing what comes next. But this time she doesn't disappear into the swirls of black water.

She turns back to me.

Her eyes are green and clear. When they fall on me, the resolve of her face softens and she looks sorrowful for a moment. I want to look away. I want to run, call my dad. I want to go to her.

It's just the two of us, and she's treading water now, bobbing her chin down into it and then spitting the tangy salt water out, and I'm sure that her lips must be blue, because I'm shivering cold and I haven't touched the water yet.

I hesitate, then walk forward to where the water meets the sand, and when the foam rides up around my ankles, it is me who breathes in sharply, involuntarily, because of the cold.

I'm about to turn around when the water begins to suck back. I know this sensation, the water pulling all around my feet until it's gone and I am standing on a tiny island. But this time water rushes up from under my feet, where my tiny island should be. It lifts me up and then drops me cruelly into the cold that bites and stings at first touch, and I'm on a rushing river out to sea. Out to my mother.

CHAPTER 21.

Thick, sullen fog clouded my morning, and the rest of the day wasn't much different. I walked into first period late, had one of Strickland's insults hurled at me, then noticed my usual seat behind Tyler was taken by the blond girl who was also in my English cla.s.s. She smiled sweetly at me, then leaned forward, tapped his shoulder and whispered something in his ear. He dug a pencil out of his backpack, then looked over at me and rolled his eyes when he handed it back to her. I felt slightly better but didn't have the energy to return any type of gesture.

When the bell rang, I looked around, surprised to see everyone packing up. Tyler walked over. "Hey. What's up? You look all b.u.mmed." I didn't feel like explaining anything. "I'm just tired. I didn't sleep well . Weird dreams, I guess." Tyler raised his eyebrows. "Oh, really? ... Hope I wasn't the cause of them. You know, it's been a problem for some girls." He nodded over at Needy Pencil Girl, who had her hand in her backpack, texting as she grabbed her notebook with the other one. She walked past us without so much as a look. I didn't have a witty response, so I busied myself grabbing my books. He noticed.

We stepped out the door and stood awkwardly in the breezeway, still, in the middle of everyone streaming to their cla.s.ses. He put a tentative hand on my shoulder and dipped his head low, so he was eye level with me. "You sure you're okay? You seem ... off." I watched as the last of the students disappeared into cla.s.srooms, leaving us almost alone. "I'm fine. I gotta go, though.... I can't be late to second." I gave a brief smile, then took a step backward.

He grabbed my hand. "Lunch, then?"

I winced. "Actually, I promised Ashley I'd have lunch with her. It's been a little while, and she's got some big thing she wants to tell me." For a brief second his shoulders slumped, but he squeezed my hand and smiled. "All right. Then I'll see you after practice, if you're not too busy."

"Okay." I nodded, and did my best to smile back. He let go and took a few steps backward before turning and heading down the hall way.

I spent the rest of my cla.s.ses until lunch feeling like a jerk and hoping Tyler didn't think I was blowing him off. I'd woken up in a mood that wasn't going away. By the time the bell rang for lunch, I'd decided to find a place to sit by myself instead of meeting Ashley. Like clockwork, though, my phone buzzed in my pocket with a text.

"BIG NEWZ! TABLE ASAP!"

I stood looking at it, about to walk in the other direction, but curiosity got the best of me. Besides, it was hard to be in a bad mood around Ashley.

She had two plastic boxes containing some sort of wraps and cut-up fruit out on the table when I got there, and she waved her bubbly Ashley wave. I sat across from her and smiled, surprised a little at the fact that I'd missed talking to her for a few days. "You didn't need to bring me lunch, you know." She put one hand to her full mouth, then used the other to wave me off. I popped open the box and did my best to sound enthusiastic. "Thank you. So, what's the big news?"

She waved both her hands now, as if that would help her chew faster so she could talk quicker. After a painful looking swallow, words spilled out, in typical Ashley fashion. "OhmyG.o.dI'msoexcited!" Deep breath in. "This weekend is the opening of the spa at Pelican Crest and my dad is sending me and my mom on Sunday for the full day, and he said I should invite you and your mom too!" Pause for another breath. "It's the most luxe spa around, and we can go and have anything-ma.s.sage, facial, mani-pedi, whatever. And they only use fair-trade organic products, so we'll be doing something good by treating ourselves." She smiled and waited for my enthusiastic answer.

I chewed slowly, trying to buy time, wishing I had just ignored her text and spent lunch alone. We were past the point where I probably should have told her, but there wasn't exactly a simple way to bring up a dead mother. I hadn't totally lied, but looking at Ashley's ridiculously excited smile, I felt guilty knowing that I would now have to. finally I swallowed and took a sip of water.

"Well ?" she asked, waiting.

"Well ...," I started, "I don't think we'll be able to make it, Ash." I tried to sound as disappointed as possible.

She dropped her wrap, confounded. "Why?"

I hadn't thought that far ahead yet. I tried to avoid lying to her and went for vague instead. "Um, we already have something planned, some catching-up time, and-"

"Perfect!" She clapped her hands together. "You guys can have a ma.s.sage together! That's when me and my mom always catch up-"

"No. I don't think it'll work out. We're not like that, my mom and me. We-"

Her face suddenly went serious, and she put a manicured hand on my arm. "Anna, do not worry about the money. It's my-well, my dad's-treat! He totally loves being able to give to people who need it." She caught herself, or at least had an inkling that she had said something that could be misunderstood.

"You know, like the beautiful women in his life and their friends!" She punctuated this with a nod, clearly happy with herself for her recovery.

I shook my head. "Thanks anyway, but not this time."

Now she looked hurt. And a little ticked off. And kind of pouty. "I thought you'd be excited. I told my mom all about you, and she wants to meet you, and I was excited to meet your mom, and-"

I set down my wrap and looked right at her, sorry for what I was about to say, because I knew it would shock her. "Ash, I don't have anything planned with my mom.... She's dead."

She flinched, then leaned in, trying to understand. "What?"

I rubbed my forehead. "She died when I was seven. She drowned. It's just me and my dad." Her face had already fall en into the deeply sad and sympathetic expression I dreaded. "I didn't tell you before because I just wanted a fresh start here, because before I moved, everybody knew about it and ..." I looked down at my lap, then back up at her, feeling tears well up. "I'm sorry." I bit the inside of my cheek and looked down again.

She was silent, which I had expected. What is anyone supposed to say to something like that? Then her eyes lit up a bit. "You're like a Disney princess!" It was my turn to flinch. "What?" I asked, wondering if she had heard me right.

"You know," she continued, matter-of-factly. "Ariel, bell e, Cinderella, Jasmine ... none of them had mothers." I still wasn't following, but she continued, obviously excited. "When I was little, I used to think that meant that life had to make it up to them, for taking their mothers away, and so that's why they ended up having the whole fairy-tale happily-ever-after magic happen to them. They deserved it more than other girls." She looked at me intently. "Life will make it up to you, Anna."

It was so ridiculous, yet she said it with such confidence and sincerity, I was almost convinced. No one had ever reacted quite like that, but in a way it didn't surprise me with her. I laughed and wiped at my eyes, then breathed in deeply, thankful she had somehow said the exact right thing.

The bell rang, and I went to pick up my half-eaten wrap, but she handed me a mirror instead. "Here. Fix your eyes. In case you see your handsome prince." I took the mirror and the tissue she handed me and dabbed at my running mascara. "Thank you, Ash." She smiled at me simply. "That's what friends are for. And you're still coming. But now I'm ordering you every treatment on the spa menu. Plus products."

"I can't do it that day. We have a race. A big one."

She frowned. "What about if you run, I watch, and then we go?"

I considered. It might be nice after the race. "Okay, yeah. That'd be good."

We cleared our table and headed up the path to where it split. She patted my shoulder. "One more period. Then you can try to beat Jillian for once." I rolled my eyes. "Yeah. That'll be the day."

She gave me a quick hug before we went our separate ways, and I walked slowly, not in the mood for sitting through another cla.s.s. The hall ways were nearly empty now, and quiet, everyone having filed into their last period of the day. A steady breeze of cool air blew up the hill from the ocean, and I looked out over the horizon, which had darkened considerably since I'd come outside.

I wasn't going to seventh period. I walked past my cla.s.sroom, then turned the corner to the back of campus, where I had seen a ma.s.sive elm tree with branches like an umbrella.

It was good to be alone. Even better that I was missing cla.s.s. I leaned my back against the elm tree's k.n.o.bby bark and looked up through the leaves that rustled above me in the breeze. The sky was a pale slab of marble now, white and gray with darker veins running through it. It had yet to spill a drop, but it felt like rain today, and smelled like it too. I closed my eyes and breathed it in, finally relaxing a little.

"Mind if I share the tree?"

I opened my eyes to Jillian standing above me with one hip c.o.c.ked out, her hand resting on it. I shrugged. "Sure."

She sat down without saying anything, settled her back into the bark of the tree, and took out her iPod. I cleared my throat and looked around, fairly sure that she didn't want a conversation. Maybe she'd woken up in a mood too.

Jillian put in both of her earbuds and was scrolling through her music. She wore jeans, a tank top, and the same calm expression she always did, whether she was kicking my b.u.t.t or just barely holding me off. I sighed loudly. "So ... what cla.s.s are you ditching?" She took out one earbud and turned around to look at me. "Huh? Oh, Leadership." She smiled. "Ironic, right? What about you? Why are you out here?" I twirled the stem of a leaf between my fingers. "English. I couldn't make myself do it today. Too much other stuff on my mind." She nodded. "Yeah. Same here." When she looked down at the iPod in her hand again, I figured our conversation had run its course, and I let my eyes wander out over the field. Out of the corner of my eye, though, I saw her foot tap a few times, then she turned back to me. "My sister died two years ago today."

She said it like it was a normal thing to say, then picked at the gra.s.s next to her before looking back up at me and shrugging. "Guess that's why I'm out here."

I kept my face steady and looked her in the eye. Two things I wished people could do with me when they found out. Neither one of us said anything for a moment. I figured that if she had brought it up, she might want to talk about it. "Were you close with her?" At first she looked at me like I was crazy, then eased off and nodded. "Yeah. We were close. We did everything together. She was a runner too. Faster than me, actually."

She plucked a blade of gra.s.s and rolled it between her fingers, watching the end spin. I watched it too, and then, because it seemed like the right thing to do, I asked her what n.o.body ever really asked me.

"What happened?"

Her fingers stopped, and she looked at me for a long moment before picking another piece and beginning again. "We went to this party together. She always brought me along so she could make me drive home if she got drunk, which she always did." She laughed softly. "She was the only person I knew who could get wasted at night and set records the next day."

She paused and swept her eyes over the field, and I waited for the rest. Her smile faded slowly before she started again.

"I never drank. I held her hair when she got sick, snuck her in the back door, and lied to our parents when she couldn't. Except that night. We got into a fight over something stupid, because she was drunk, and I left. I was so p.i.s.sed, I just left her there to deal with it herself for once." She looked at me like she'd just confessed something horrible, and I wanted to tell her I understood her more than she knew.

"She left the party, I guess to walk home, and some other drunk girl who was driving home swerved off the road and hit her with her car. And then the driver took off and left her there. And I was at home, lying to my parents for my sister, while she was out in the road, dying." I could see the guilt wrapped around her tight, and I knew there was nothing I could say to loosen it. But I tried anyway, because if I really thought about it, it was the thing I most wanted to hear myself.

"It wasn't your fault. There was no way you could have-"