Surviving High School (13 page)

“Speaking of which,” said Amanda, turning to Emily. “Are you two dating now?”

“Maybe?” said Emily, genuinely unsure.

“If you don’t know, you’re not dating,” said Dominique as she turned to leave. Once she was safely out of the room, Hannah came over and sat next to Emily.

“Don’t listen to her,” said Hannah. “I’ve had two-year relationships where the guy never admitted we were a couple.”

Emily felt a strange mix of emotions: first, happiness that the other girls had jumped to her aid and taken an interest in her relationship with Ben, but second, fear. What if her dad heard the girls talking like this? If he found out about Ben, who knew what would happen? Homecoming would be a no-go—not to mention any hope of a social life ever again.

“Hey, guys? Can we, uh, keep all this stuff with Ben a secret for now?” Emily asked. “We’re still figuring things out.”

“Say no more,” said Hannah. “You can’t be too careful. People want to know if you’re officially together, and then
you
feel like you have to know. And sometimes having that define-the-relationship talk turns into an end-the-relationship one.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Emily. She hoped Hannah and the other girls really would keep quiet about this. That was possible, right? Right?

Maybe it was best not to think about it.

A few minutes later, Emily waited on top of lane four’s starting block. Dominique stood a few feet away in lane two. The first race was the 100-meter freestyle, an event that Dominique typically dominated.

Emily glanced over at her rival, trying to get a read on her, but Dominique just stared down the lane, focused solely on the water.

Emily looked across the pool toward the bleachers, where a larger-than-usual crowd had gathered. She recognized a few faces from the party: Zach, Marcus, Kevin, and Amir, not to mention Phil, who sat next to Kimi, holding her hand. Today, Kimi’s hair was done up in a bunch of impossibly tight pin curls, secured with floral clips. Emily guessed it was an homage to retro swim caps. And next to Kimi was Ben. He was sitting right in the center of the top row, holding a poster-board sign reading
GO EMILY!

Seeing the sign made her smile and simultaneously hope it wouldn’t raise her dad’s suspicions. Luckily for Emily, Coach Kessler was staring at her instead. Dressed in the same dark gray suit he’d worn to races for the past ten years, now too tight around his increasingly chubby frame, he stood motionless, his eyes fixed on Emily. As the race time neared and she bent down to grip the underside of the starting block,
his eyes never left her while he silently evaluated her stance. If she had even one finger or toe out of place, she’d hear about it later.

“Em-i-ly!” Ben shouted. “Em-i-ly!”

It was just like back at the party, when he’d chanted her name to make her jump into the pool. And just like back at the party, the other students joined in. Zach and Marcus, Phil and Kimi, and other kids she didn’t even know; they were all rooting for her. A month ago, the entire team had cheered against her as Emily lost a race to Dominique. Now the tables were turned.

Emily looked over to see Dominique listening to the crowd’s chant and shaking with anger. Good. Now it was her turn to be distracted.

Emily focused back on the race just in time. The starting bell chimed, and she leaped forward into the water. Short freestyle races like this were all about power—going full-out for a single minute and knowing just how far you could push your body before it broke down.

Emily thrashed through the water, touched the far wall, and kick-flipped to head back in the opposite direction. The crowd continued to cheer, and the sound of her own name filled Emily’s ears, urging her forward. She flew down the lane and kicked off the wall again. The crowd’s chanting infused her with a new kind of energy, one she hadn’t felt before, as if each voice were a hand pushing her forward.

As she reached the final lap of the race, the one where her muscles usually burned with exhaustion, she felt a surge of
adrenaline. She wouldn’t lose this time. Not in front of people who were cheering her name. Not in front of Ben.

She kicked her legs and pulled at the water with her arms. And then suddenly, she reached forward and felt the grain of the pool wall against her fingertips. A cheer rose through the gym, and the announcer called out, “With a time of one minute, four-point-three seconds, Kessler is the winner!”

The freestyle win was the first of many. Not only did Emily beat Dominique in breaststroke and butterfly like usual, she even beat her in backstroke. Emily won every heat of every race. She dominated, and with each win, the crowd chanted her name even louder.

When the event was finally over, the crowd surrounded Emily, congratulating her and requesting her presence at post-meet meals. In the distance, she saw Dominique, her shoulders pulled back tight, refusing to look defeated as she escaped the crowd and retreated into the locker room. Emily almost felt bad for her. Almost.

The crowd parted as Ben approached.

“Em!” he said. “You were unbelievable!”

He reached in and tried to give her a hug, but she pulled away and glanced meaningfully over at her dad, who was watching everything.

“Not right now,” she said, and Ben frowned. “Sorry,” she added, remembering she’d never told him about her dad’s no-dating policy. “I’ll explain later.”

“Yeah, Em, sure,” he said. “I’m just gonna, you know, take
off, then. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” He backed away. She wished she could explain it all—that the reason she wasn’t throwing her arms around him was
because
she liked him so much and wanted to keep seeing him, but there was just no way, not with all of these people around.

He took another step back, and the crowd closed around Emily, sealing her away from him.

On the drive home, Emily’s dad was quieter than usual. Normally, he’d spend this time picking apart her performances—her millisecond-late start on the breaststroke or her overly conservative pace on the 200-meter butterfly. Today, though, he said nothing. Could it really be that he had nothing to criticize? Finally, he broke the silence.

“Seems like you had quite a few
fans
out there,” he said.

Panic gripped Emily. Did he know she’d sneaked out to go to the party? Did he know about Ben?

“The, uh, article really won some people over,” she said.

He nodded, seemingly accepting her explanation.

“You must be feeling pretty proud of yourself for winning like that,” he said. “But I wonder if you happened to notice your race times?”

Though Emily had beaten Dominique in each race and felt good while she was swimming, her times had indeed been unexceptional. If anything, she was a few tenths of a second off her usual pace in most of the races.

“You won because Dominique had an off day,” her dad continued. “Not because of anything you did.”

“I won. She lost,” said Emily. “If you need to yell at someone, yell at her.”

“I’m not yelling,” he said. “I’m trying to warn you. This was just an exhibition swim. It didn’t count for anything. For all you know, she didn’t swim her hardest. Two weeks from now, though, are Quals for Junior Nationals. Those are the races that
do
count. Those are the races you want to win.”

“Why can’t you just let me have this?” she asked. “Why can’t you just let me feel good about winning this one?”

In truth, she
didn’t
feel good, and the worst thing was, she didn’t quite know why. She had everything she wanted, didn’t she? The crowd had cheered for her—Ben had even made her a sign—and she’d beaten Dominique in every race. So why did she feel so hollow?

Because it was built on deception, all of it. The moment her dad found out about her new friends or her dates with Ben, he’d put a stop to everything. She’d be grounded, monitored at all times, probably even in her sleep. If there was a way for her dad to get inside her dreams and watch her there, he’d find it.

And if she got caught, she’d be right back where she had started: nearly friendless and utterly single.

“Being a champion means winning when it matters,” her dad said after a few seconds. “Sara set her record at Junior Nationals. And she needed every millisecond of that time to edge out Amy—Willings? Williams? The second-place girl. No one remembers
her
name.”

Emily had heard this speech a thousand times before, and
she tuned out as her dad spoke. She felt empty, her guts scraped out like a jack-o’-lantern’s. There was no certainty, no stability. Her new life seemed destined to crumble at the slightest touch. Worst of all, Emily couldn’t imagine a future where things were any different. What if she couldn’t be happy, no matter what? Even when she won, she couldn’t win.

“Disaster!” said Kimi the next day as she walked on a treadmill next to Emily in the high school weight room, dressed head to toe in black and white, right down to her pristine Chuck Taylors. “I’m starting to think I shouldn’t go to the dance with Phil!” Around them, other girls pretended to lift weights while they talked about potential homecoming dates.

In the meantime, Emily was going at a full sprint on her treadmill, barely able to breathe. She managed to take a gulp of air and ask, “What happened?”

“Since we’ve been hanging out, I’ve been learning all kinds of things about Phil that I’ve been adding to his spreadsheet,” said Kimi. “Like did you know he used to date Mallika? Or that he spends an hour gelling his hair every morning?”

“Huh,” said Emily as she turned her treadmill’s pace from “sprint” to “jog” so she could cool down.

“And in the meantime,
Marcus’s
spreadsheet is looking better and better! Like did you know he’s going to be in a bathing-suit ad for this clothing catalog? Well, not his face, but you’ll be able to see his abs and one of his legs.”

“That’s cool,” said Emily. “But what about Phil? Aren’t those two friends?”

“It’ll be hard,” said Kimi. “But Phil will get over it. I’m going to have to tell him it’s over. We’ve had a lot of fun together, and I’ll always look back on our relationship fondly, but—”

“You’ve been together for, like, a week!”

“Has it been that long already?” asked Kimi. “I’d better get this over with so I can let Marcus know I’m available for the dance. Oh! Speaking of homecoming, have you talked with Ben yet?”

“Yeah,” said Emily.

“And?”

“And he wants to take me.”

“Em!” Kimi shouted. “That’s amazing! I’d give you a hug if you weren’t totally covered in sweat.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t know how you can stay so calm at a time like this,” said Kimi. “All of your hard work is
finally
paying off! People are really starting to recognize how great you are. The coolest guy in school is taking you to homecoming, and your best friend is going to the dance with her choice of hotties.”

Kimi was right. It
sounded
like the perfect life. But didn’t Kimi realize how doomed it all was? Emily felt like a passenger on a train who had seen the bridge out ahead, except that if she tried to tell everyone around her, they’d just assume she was being silly.

But it was true. Her dad
would
find out, and he’d happily knock her new life to pieces as if it were a piñata. Emily took
a breath. Maybe it was time to discuss all this. Rationally, if possible.

“I guess—” she started. “I guess I’m just worried my dad is going to find out about everything.”

“He won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because people around here value their lives way too much to mess with my best friend,” said Kimi. “If anyone says a peep about Ben or the dance to your dad, I’ll kill ’em.”

“You’re sweet,” said Emily, less reassured than ever.

Kimi smiled. “Don’t forget ‘and deadly.’ Now stop worrying so much, remember to smile, and mark your calendar. In a couple Saturdays, dress shopping at the mall. We can tell your dad we’re working on a science project.”

“You think he’ll buy that?”

“Of course he will,” said Kimi. “You’re his perfect little daughter. You never lie.”

Kimi was right, of course. Emily’s dad would believe her, and he’d keep believing her over and over again. Until she got caught once.

For now, the only thing Emily could do was make sure that never happened.

Kimi sometimes asked Emily if she felt scared swimming alone in the pool after her dad left or jogging home by herself. In truth, Emily never felt unsafe. This was the kind of town where no one ever got mugged, and kids stealing a
lawn gnome topped the Crime Blotter section of the newspaper.

That changed after school one night the next week, when Emily saw a lanky figure dressed in black on the other side of the indoor pool’s glass wall. The figure moved to the doorway, found it open, and slowly turned the handle as Emily swam to the far end of the pool.

As the door opened, she got out and wrapped herself in a towel, figuring that if this guy was some kind of killer, she could run out the back. Then, as the door opened, she saw that it was Nick Brown.

For a moment, they stared at each other from opposite sides of the pool. Though she was used to being in a bathing suit, Emily had never felt so naked.

“What are you doing here?” she shouted after a few seconds.

“I just—” he started. “I just—”

“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

“Please,” he said. “Don’t—”

But she didn’t want to hear it. She backed away and fled into the girls’ locker room, where she knew he wouldn’t follow. Once she was inside, she ran into a bathroom stall and tucked her feet up with her on the toilet seat so that even if he did come in, he wouldn’t find her.

It was only after a few minutes had passed that Emily began to regret running away. Sure, he was a guy, but he hadn’t seemed hostile and he was far less muscular than she was—not much of a physical threat at all. And as much as she hated him, she had questions she wanted to ask.

Like why had he given Sara a ride home that day?

What had they talked about?

And had she mentioned any boyfriends? Cameron Clark, for example? Something wasn’t adding up. Was Cameron somehow also involved in the crash? Maybe he and Sara had fought, which made her want to leave school with Nick, or maybe—