Dear Cassie (8 page)

“Nice catch,” I said.

“Nice throw,” Leisner said. I didn’t think it was possible, but he was worse than Ben. It could have been because he didn’t look anything like Ben.

I glanced over at Troyer, who was sitting at the back of her canoe with Stravalaci in the front. Her mouth was closed so tight it looked like it was glued.

“You get in the middle, Cassie,” Leisner said. “Let the guns run the stern.” He made a muscle.

“Your guns look like they’re out of ammo.” I laughed. There was no way I was letting one of them be in charge of steering this thing. If I was forced to go out into the middle of the lake with these two idiots, at least I wanted to know I would be able to steer my way back.

Leisner’s face screwed up as he stepped closer to me. “Maybe I should test them, Cassie.”

Was he starting something? I hoped so. I wanted to punch the curls right out of his hair. “Call me Cassie one more time and it will be your last.”

“Wick,” Rawe yelled.

“Leisner,” Nerone yelled.

I got into the back of the boat before Rawe could say anything else. There was no way I was doing push-ups on sand covered with dead fish guts.

“Sorry, Cassie,” Leisner taunted as he got into the middle seat.

I picked up the paddle and ignored him. I knew how to steer a boat. My brother and I used to go fishing on Lake Erie when I was a kid. During the summer we would stay for a week with my dad’s sister who had a beach house that she lived in all year round. It was filled with seashells and too many cats. Every morning, before anyone woke up, my brother and I would sneak out and down the path to the rowboat rocking in the water at the dock. We would row into the middle of the lake to fish while the sun rose, talking about how we could survive on a desert island without anyone in our stupid family.

So yeah, I knew how to steer a fucking boat.

I also knew that once the ’roids were out of Leisner’s system, I could probably lay him out with one punch.

Eagan got his life jacket on and sat in front of the canoe. With everyone in place, we finally pushed off, gliding on the water, our paddles thrusting us forward.

“You know drowning is the fifth highest cause of accidental death,” Eagan said.

“So is talking too fucking much,” I yelled up to the front of the boat. My voice echoed off the metal of the canoe and the water below us.

“Ben said you were feisty.” Leisner said. I could hear the smirk in his voice.

Feisty?
I’d been called a lot of things in my time, but feisty was not one of them.

“Ben’s an asshole,” I said, staring at the back of Leisner’s curly blond head and picturing myself drop-kicking it.

“He said you’d say that,” Leisner added.

“Can we please stop talking about Ben?” I kept paddling. My arms already ached, water splashing underneath us as the canoe moved forward.

“Who’s talking about Ben?” Leisner joked.

I pulled my paddle out of the water and soaked him with it.

“You’re lucky you’re a girl,” he said.

“You’re lucky you’re not,” I said.

“Be careful, you guys,” Eagan said. “I’m fairly sure this boat is at least twenty years old. Do you know what happens to metal as it ages?”

“Maybe Ben will come save you, Cassie.” Leisner laughed.

I felt fear splash up from my stomach to my chest. Leisner bothered me in a way I recognized, which meant I was screwed. As much as I wanted to deny it, annoyance was not at all what I felt for Ben.

I looked out at the lake. Ben and Nez were in the lead, the sun making them seem like shadows of themselves. I needed to stay the hell away from him.

“It’s a long row to the dock,” Leisner said. “What do you want to talk about, Cassie?”

“I don’t,” I said, paddling so hard my hands burned.

“We could sing,” Eagan said. I could hear the saliva flying out of his mouth as he said it.

“Start singing and I drown you,” I said.

“You don’t have it in you,” Leisner said.

“Well, maybe not when it comes to him,” I said, flicking my chin up at Eagan, “but you’re a different story.”

“I’m right here,” he said, stopping mid-row to turn to me.

I allowed the anger to build—fire starting in my chest, flames licking out to my arms and hands. I wanted to take my paddle and whack his knowing smile so hard that it landed in Ben and Nez’s boat.

I had managed to keep myself in check the whole time I’d been here, but Leisner was different. I deserved my fist in my stomach as a painful and constant tattoo needle, but he deserved my fist in his face because he was an ass-clown.

“I knew it.” Leisner laughed and turned back around.

I paddled harder, picturing the water as his stupid jock face. I was annihilating it in my mind, splitting his skull, breaking his nose, cracking his teeth.

“Let’s sing the name song, Eagan,” Leisner cooed. “I’ll start.
Cassie, Cassie bo-bassie, banana-fana-fo-fassie, all talk no action-assie, Cassie.
One more time . . .”

“Shut your blow-hole, or I’ll shut it for you.” The fire moved into my eyes. That’s how it feels. I think it’s why people call anger
blind
. You can’t see anything but red covering your target. You can’t feel anything but searing force pushing you.

“I think we all know, including Ben,” Leisner said, indicating him out in his boat with Nez, “that you won’t do anything.”

I stood up. Leisner didn’t notice; he started singing again—still mocking me—his blond-curled head bobbing up and down like someone juggling a soccer ball on his knees.

The canoe teetered as I edged toward him. He was so high on himself, he didn’t even notice me standing behind him, breathing, waiting, trying to decide what to do. I tapped him on the shoulder, still unsure. I waited. It would all depend on what he said when he turned around.

“Look, Eagan, I caught a Cassie with my song,” Leisner said, his smile greasy. “I figured she was easy, but—”

“I asked you to shut up,” I said quietly. That’s another thing about anger; it makes you calm when you let yourself do something about it.

“Sit down! You’re going to capsize the boat!” Eagan screamed.

“She’ll sit,” Leisner said. “She wouldn’t want to do anything she’d regret.”

I already had too much I regretted to let this one go.

I don’t feel anything when I grab for someone, just a rush of relief, like when you are desert-thirsty and take that initial drink. So at first I didn’t even notice that I’d pushed Leisner—that I’d launched him airborne—until he reached out to steady himself and we both fell into the water.

It was so cold when I hit, it felt like twenty thousand self-induced punches to my stomach with an icicle.

“Boy and girl overboard,” Eagan yelled.

I was in the water, bobbing, trying to keep it out of my mouth.

“You are so dead,” Leisner said, water bubbling up around his head.

I treaded as best I could. I was so angry, I’d forgotten I couldn’t swim very well—that I should not have been pushing people around on a canoe. That without my brother, there was no one to be sure I made it back to shore safely. My life jacket was holding me up okay, but it was clear that it had a shelf life and mine was expiring. I reached for Leisner. I didn’t know what else to do.

“You look like a wet dog,” he said, his smile bobbing on the water. “A wet bitch.”

“You look like a naked, upside-down female synchronized swimmer in need of a wax,” I spit through the water. “Desperately.”

“You’re on your own now, tough girl,” Leisner said, swimming past me and pulling himself back into the canoe.

Eagan was reaching his paddle out to me, but I was too far away to grab it. I looked at the shore—the water fishy, muddy in my mouth, starting to fill my ears. Rawe and Nerone stood there. They hadn’t moved, hadn’t even yelled. I was surprised one of them hadn’t jumped in.

Of course, I hadn’t yelled
help
yet, either. I didn’t know if I could. Was I really stubborn enough to let myself drown rather than admit I needed it?

I felt arms surround me, pulling me up, my mouth free of the water.

Ben.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, but I didn’t fight him even though he was touching me again, all of me, and was still technically male.

“Saving you,” he said, droplets of water sticking to his eyelashes. “You looked like you were drowning.”

“I’m wearing a life jacket, moron,” I said, but I still didn’t struggle away from him. It was just like Leisner said: Ben
had
come to save me. Could everyone see something between us? Something I was trying so hard to contain?

Never again.

I heard another splash—Nez jumping in. She flailed, but it was clear she was faking, at least to me.

“Looks like you have a real damsel in distress,” I said.

“She told me she was on her school swim team,” Ben said, squinting in the sunlight.

“She’s probably just trying to get your attention,” I said, watching her swim closer to us even as she pretended to struggle, her black hair whipping and splashing like a fish flipping on a line.

“You weren’t?” he asked, his arms still tight around me, the kind of tight that makes it hard to breathe but has nothing to do with being held and everything to do with who you are being held by.

“I fell in,” I said. His body still stuck to mine in the way only bodies can stick.

“Do you want me to let you go?” he asked.

I wanted to say,
Yes
,say,
Never touch me again
,say,
Why do you have to be the kind of guy who jumps into Port-O-Potty–colored lake water to save me
? but I couldn’t. I leaned into him, letting his strength keep us afloat, letting myself stop fighting him for just that second, knowing that once I was out of the water, I could pretend I hadn’t wanted any of it.

“First you, then Nez,” he said, pulling me over to the boat. He secured me with one arm, swam with the other, my mouth on his shoulder, on his wet hair.

“I think you lost something,” Ben said to Leisner, treading on the side of our canoe, one of his arms still around me.

“Nope, we’re all set on skanks,” Leisner said.

“Fuck you,” I spit, the red filling my vision again.

“Are you okay?” Eagan asked.

“I will be when I get back in this fucking boat,” I said, pulling myself up, the water splashing behind me.

“Next time you try to drown someone you should probably make sure you can swim first.” Leisner laughed.

“I’d be scared for next time,” I said, picturing it: my fist, his face, the brittle crunch of cartilage.

I sat in my seat, wet and cold, Ben’s eyes on me.

Nez started to scream for him, to flail more forcefully, but Ben didn’t move.

“She’s going to forget she’s supposed to be drowning if you don’t get her soon,” I said, anything so he would stop staring,
anything
so he would go away and I wouldn’t be tempted to jump back in.

“I guess I’ll get my thank-you later,” Ben said, swimming toward Nez, to someone who could definitely admit she wanted his arms around her.

I shivered and looked out at the water. The sun sparkled on it like millions of paparazzi snapping flashbulbs. Taking pictures of me, the outside of me. The part I couldn’t hide.

The only part I know I can ever let Ben see, no matter how he makes me feel.

23 Fucking Days to Go

W
aking up in the morning is different here. I don’t have coffee to revive me. I don’t have my brother hocking up loogies in the bathroom next door and forcing me to go bang on the wall to tell him to
stop being so fucking disgusting
. I don’t have my open pack of smokes waiting on my nightstand, luring me with their exposed brown butts.

I only had Rawe kicking the side of my metal cot so hard it rattled and grunting,
Ten minutes till morning calisthenics. Try not to fall into the lake between now and then
, then leaving the cabin to do whatever it was she did for the ten minutes we got ready for morning calisthenics.

Nez and I had already done our punishment push-ups, three hundred apiece on the shore when we got back, the fishy sand sticking to our wet uniforms, to our mouths and noses; I still had sand in my teeth.

I stared at the ceiling and thought about Rawe. Maybe she left every morning so she didn’t have to watch us. Watch our eyes open, blink once, twice, and realize it wasn’t a nightmare. Deny our zombie movements as we put one leg in our brown jumpsuits then the other, while we tried to forget that we had another long day ahead of us doing things we were bound to hate, things that were supposed to make us better, even though no one ever told us how.

Or maybe Rawe left the cabin to get a break, because Nez was so fucking annoying.

Nez got out of bed and stretched. She reminded me of a cat, would probably lick herself clean if she could reach. I put my hands into the water bucket and tried to ignore her, splashing my face wet but not clean. I wiped my skin with the washcloth, scrubbing the smell of dead fish and lake water from my eyelashes, from under my fingernails. Unfortunately the water in the bucket didn’t smell much better.