Fire with Fire

MONDAY AFTERNOON I’VE GONE UP AND DOWN THE length of the pool twice before Reeve even arrives. He doesn’t get in the pool; instead he stands there watching me, eating an apple. I don’t look up or acknowledge his presence. I keep doing what I’m doing. “You should point your toes,” he says, chewing loudly. “Make your body longer.”

“Excuse me, but I don’t think you’re allowed to eat in here,” I huff. “And aren’t you supposed to be wearing that walking cast?” He’s dragging it behind him.

“I’m building up my pain tolerance.” He tosses the apple into the trash can. A perfect arc. I don’t have to look to know it lands inside. Carelessly, he throws his towel on the bench where my stuff is. Then he dives into the lane next to mine, instead of the one on the far left the way he’s been doing. My whole body stiffens. “Well, then you’ll have no one to blame but yourself if you reinjure your leg.” I don’t need him critiquing me or giving me swimming advice. But I do try pointing my toes a little as I swim to the ladder, and I guess I can feel a very slight difference.

I scramble over to my towel because I’m freezing cold. I’m wrapping the towel around me like a blanket when he suddenly swims under the dividers and over toward me like a shark. He hoists himself out of the water, not bothering with the ladder. He hasn’t done a single lap.

Silently, I hand him his towel. He looks at me right in the eyes and says, “You know what? I wasn’t going to say anything . . . but yeah, Lil. Let’s talk about my injury. Let’s talk about how this all went down.”

Oh my God. Please. Please no. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I turn to leave, but he grabs my arm.

“I know it was you who put something in my punch at home-coming.”

It feels like the floor is coming out from under me; my knees are weak, and I’m two seconds from passing out.

“Tell me why,” he says, his voice harsh now. His green eyes are boring into mine, and I’m looking back at him, trying not to flinch, trying not to give anything away, forcing myself to maintain eye contact. Don’t they say liars can’t look you in the eye?

I try to shake him off, but his grip is too strong. “What punch? What are you talking about? Let go of me!”

He doesn’t let go. “You don’t remember giving me a cup of punch? We were sitting at the table. You were bitching at me for leading Rennie on. Then we made nice and cheersed cups. You don’t remember any of that?”

I say, “Reeve, you were wasted at the dance!”

His eyes narrow. “No, I wasn’t. They did a drug test on me on the hospital. It came up positive for MDMA.”

“I don’t even know what MDMA is!” I cry.

“It’s ecstasy. And you know that because you’re the one who put it in my drink.”

I force a swallow. “You were drunk by the time you got to Ash’s house. I saw you guys drinking out of a flask, you were drinking in the limo, you were drinking at the dance! How can you be so sure that the punch I supposedly gave you had that MD whatever in it? Because I know so many drug dealers!”

“I know where you got the drugs.” Reeve’s mouth gets hard; his eyes narrow. He spits out, “Those guys you met on the beach were drug dealers! Rennie took me to their house so I could score weed for our fishing trip.”

Wait. Reeve doesn’t know. Not really. But my whole body goes cold anyway.

“Oh, you didn’t know the guy you gave it up to was a drug dealer?”

It’s the way he says it, the way he looks at me. With such disdain. Disgust.

Rennie told him. He knows everything. A hotness rises up inside of me then, and I slap him across the face as hard as I can. He stumbles backward, and there is a red imprint on his cheek from my hand. We stare at each other. His face is shocked; mine must be blank, because that’s how I feel. Numb. I say, “I didn’t get any drugs from those guys. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then explain it to me,” he says.

“Didn’t Rennie already tell you?” I say. In this moment I hate her like I’ve never hated anyone in my entire life.

“No. She didn’t tell me anything. I saw it with my own eyes. I was there that night. At that party.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It was that house over on Shore Road. A piece-of-shit rental my dad manages. I rolled up over there after Alex’s party died out. I saw you and Ren doing Irish car bombs on the kitchen table, and then I saw you guys go upstairs with them.”

I’m reeling. He was there. He saw.

I start to turn away from him, wrapping my towel tighter around me. “Then you already know.”

“Yeah, I know you’re not the goody-goody everyone thinks you are.”

I stare him down, my chin quivering with the effort of looking at him and not crying, not running away. “Then I guess you also know that I was so drunk I could barely keep my head up and that Rennie was right across the room, with the other guy. That I think I said to stop, I think I did, but I can’t be sure I did.” Then I do start to cry, because I can’t anymore, I can’t keep it inside me.

Reeve recoils. “I—I didn’t know any of that.” He lifts his arm like he’s going to try to touch me, but I must flinch, because he drops it.

That was my secret, mine and Rennie’s. It wasn’t for anybody else to know. Especially not him. I cry harder, my tears mixing with the pool water dripping from my hair.

“I’m sorry,” Reeve says. “Please don’t cry.”

I sink down onto the bench. He doesn’t make a move; he just stands there awkwardly. “Then don’t talk about things you don’t know for sure,” I say, wiping my cheeks with the corner of my towel.

“You’re right,” he agrees quickly. “I’m a dick. I never should have brought it up.”

I’m still crying; now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. Tears roll down my cheeks, and I keep wiping them away with my towel.

“Lillia . . . if I had known you were that drunk, you have to know that I would never have let you go upstairs with that guy. I’d have stopped you.” He squats down in front of me so we’re at eye level, and he balances his hands on my knees. When I flinch, he quickly backs away and balances his elbows on his thighs. He pleads, “Please stop crying.”

I nod. I let out a big breath of air. There’s an odd sense of relief in telling someone. In saying it out loud. I feel . . . a little bit lighter. A little tiny bit. But it’s something.

We stay like that for what feels like a long time, and then he shifts, and I can tell his leg is bothering him. “Does your leg hurt?” I ask. My voice pings off the walls; it’s like the room isn’t used to sound anymore, we’ve been quiet that long.

“Not at all,” he says.

I stand up and offer him my hand, which he takes. He stretches his leg out, massaging it. “You shouldn’t push yourself so hard,” I tell him. “You should listen to your doctors.”

Reeve shrugs his shoulders, and his back muscles ripple. “I have to push myself if I want to get a scholarship.”

Sniffing, I say, “Well, hasn’t your physical therapist told you you’ll make it worse if you overdo it? I’m sure he has. Or she has. If he or she’s any good.”

“Oh, so you’re a doctor now too?” Reeve says, smiling slightly. “Looks like we’ve got another Dr. Cho on the island.”

I start to dry my hair with my towel. Then I sit down and open up my bag, pulling out my leggings and my zip-up hoodie. “I hate going outside in the cold after swimming. It feels like I’ll never be warm again.”

“See, that’s why you should be wearing a swim cap.”

I shudder. “Never. I would look like a peanut head.”

Shaking his head at me, Reeve says, “Princess Lillia. Always so vain.” He sounds gentle, though. Affectionate. He sits down, near but not too near. “Then let’s not go yet. Wait for your hair to dry more.”

So that’s what we do. When I’m in my car, I text Kat. I don’t explain exactly how it happened, but I say that I’m finally getting somewhere.