CHAPTER 22 HIM
THE SILENCE IS LIKE A THICK CURTAIN BETWEEN them. Colin washes dishes as best he can and hands them, through the invisible film of discomfort, to Dot, who dries and puts them away.
“You’re awfully quiet,” he says, digging his hands into the warm, sudsy water. They’re better today: fingers less stiff, his grip steadier.
“So are you,” she shoots back.
He drops the baking sheet he was scrubbing and turns to look at her. “Christ, Dot. Just say whatever it is that you’re thinking.”
“Are you going to tell me about this Lucy?”
Colin groans, turning away and looking out the window.
He’s been expecting this ever since Dot heard the name.
“Lucy” at the hospital. Dot remembers Lucy’s murder as clearly as if it happened yesterday, but as far as he knows, Dot’s never seen him with her. For all she knows, it’s just another girl.
“She’s a girl in my class,” he says, returning to the dishes. “I’ve seen her, you know. She looks a lot like a girl named Lucy who went here years ago. In fact,” Dot says, stepping closer, “she looks a lot like the dead girl you asked about a few weeks back.”
Colin stares at his hands in the water. They’re shaking now, but it has nothing to do with having gone into the lake. “I told you, I always heard the stories,” Dot whispers, her voice trembling. “Different people insisting they’d seen a girl at the lake, the man in uniform sitting on a bench, or a man walking around campus, sweeping the walkway. Maggie swore up and down for years that this place was haunted.
But, Lucy . . . being such a part of your world . . .” Colin turns to her, eyes pleading. “Dot, do you remember when you told me and Jay that there are things we don’t understand in this world?”
Dot nods, eyes wide.
“And do you remember when you promised me I wasn’t crazy? Do you believe what you told me?”
She laughs, reaching up to put a soft hand on his cheek.
“I do.”
“So can you trust me?”
Shaking her head the tiniest bit, she whispers, “I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.”
“It doesn’t feel right because you don’t understand it, not because it’s wrong,” he says. “For the first time in my life, I feel like I know what I want.” Looking back and forth between her eyes, Colin can see that Dot is going to give him more leash than she’s ever given him before.
Her eyes fill with tears, and she offers him a half smile.
“Just feels like I never see you anymore.”
Colin shifts where he stands, his eyes boring into the soapy water. “Been busier than normal. School . . . friends,” he says, swallowing down the guilt that blooms in his chest. The silence stretches on before Dot sets her towel aside, reaching over to place her hand on his forearm. “Promise me you won’t do anything dangerous.”
When he nods, Colin realizes he’s made a promise he has no intention of keeping.
Colin is accustomed to being the center of attention. He’s competed in bike races and trials competitions practically since he could walk. He’s crazy tall; he’s never been shy. And when his parents died, no one gave him a minute alone for years.
But the attention he’s getting today is all wrong. Two news vans are parked on campus, and the reporters camped inside try to ask him questions before Joe calls security. His classmates are hysterical; some are insisting it was the ghost of the lake that made him fall in. Others eye him like he’s some kind of mythical creature. Everyone wants to touch him. Teachers seem shaken, and there’s a mandatory assembly on winter safety in the gym. He feels the pressure of every pair of eyes, watching to make sure he’s okay, that his arms work, his gait is steady, that he’s making sense. The words “tragedy,” “close call,” and “fences” are being thrown around.
Here’s the thing: It wasn’t a tragedy. It wasn’t a close call. If they build a fence around that lake, he’ll tear the motherfucker down. He wants to go back. He wants to know that what he saw was real, that the way Lucy felt wasn’t his imagination. The minutes with Lucy in that world felt better than any crazy trick, more visceral than anything else happening around him. His body might have been dying, but he felt alive. Really alive.
He knows that should scare him, but it doesn’t. “Oh. My. God. Colin!” a voice screeches behind him, and reflexively, he ducks his head, anticipating the set of claws that will run up his neck and into his hair.
Amanda grips his head and digs in her nails as she pulls him into a hug. “I heard you died for like an hour!”
“I didn’t die.”
“I have been freaking out, Colin. Freaking. Out.”
“Sorry,” he says, extracting himself from her clutches. Of course, Lucy chooses this exact moment to drift down the hall and settle beside him. She glances at Colin, then at Amanda, but where he expects raised eyebrows, he gets only an amused smirk.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.” He smiles at her, eyes lingering on her lips until she smiles outright. “That’s better.”
Amanda ignores Lucy. “Shelby called me last night and told me what happened. And, oh my God, I totally flipped out. Like, what if you had died? What if you had died, Colin? We would have been completely fli—”
“Amanda, have you met Lucy?” He interrupts, hoping she comes up for air. He’s embarrassed both for Amanda’s lack of manners and the Past-Colin who actually had sex with this girl.
Amanda regards Lucy as if she’s never seen her before. “Hey,” she says, uninterested, before turning back to Colin. “Did it hurt? Did you get all hot? And undress?”
He lifts an eyebrow in the way that Lucy likes and feels her slide closer.