Deeper (3 page)

The guards get in line, and Knight and I designate crash dummies to start them off. After an hour, everyone is pruny, tired, and frustrated, and it’s time for a break. I check the clock, give them a time to be back, and release them for lunch.

They split off in groups, most of them eager to head out. A couple of girls head over to Knight. I roll my eyes and go to grab my sack lunch. I don’t see Amy around, so I’ll go by myself. Maybe I can find a nice patch of grass outside. Somewhere Knight won’t see me eating alone.

It feels great to change into dry clothes, if only for a short break. I come out of the break room toweling my hair. I’m wearing my gray supervisor polo and old jeans.

I’m nearly to the back door when Knight strides up beside me. I try to pass him, but he blocks the door, and the sunshine, with his impossibly big, toned body.

“Rain, I’m sorry about the other night,” he says.

“Why should you be?” I squeeze an arm past him and attempt to work my way around and out the door. “It’s your pool, right?”

“I was a douche. I’d literally just found out that night. Do you know what that was like? Working for months on water park certification just to have them bring in an outsider to babysit?”

I shrug. “You don’t want me here. I get it. I’m okay with it.”

“You are?” He follows me outside, folding his arms again. His shirt doesn’t really make his chest any less noticeable. “Because we need to be partners. And hey, we actually work well together. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice how well we backboarded. I know you did.”

He says it like he’s suggesting we do more well than backboarding. I turn to face him. I don’t want him at lunch with me, and I don’t want to encourage him in any way. We’ll work together, he’ll be fun to look at, but it can’t go further than that. This is a guy who could make me break all my promises if I let him.

“I didn’t mean what I said at the bonfire,” he says. “I was just surprised, and a little guilty, because I shouldn’t have come on to you like that. I’m sorry.”

I nod. “I am too.”

“I’m not usually like that,” he says, folding his arms. “I just couldn’t take my eyes off of you across the fire. You captivated me. And then you went out in the waves. I was just going to make sure you were okay, but there’s just something about the water…”

“Now that I understand,” I say.

“Come get lunch with me.”

“I’ll go on my own.”

“Oh come on, you don’t know any of the good places around here. You can’t yet, right?” He puts an arm through mine and pulls me with him easily despite my efforts to stay put.

“I have a packed lunch,” I protest.

“Of course you do. You would. Bet you got straight A’s in school and didn’t party in college either.” He shakes his head.

I go silent and let him pull me. He’s right, I didn’t party in college. I did penance for murder and stayed in my room every night.

He only stops when we get to his Jeep. He opens my door and waits for me to get in. “I’m right, right? Anyway, it’s my treat, sort of an apology for how I treated you the other night.”

I look at my watch. It’s waterproof and looks like something a five year old would wear and I know by the way he’s grinning as I look up that he’s just noticed the same thing.

“Nice watch.”

“Thanks.” I grit my teeth. I can keep fighting him, but lunch will be over by the time we’re done. “Fine. Your treat.”

I hate spending money. If he’s going to drag me away from my practical sack lunch he’s going to darn well pay for my meal.

Five minutes later we’re seated with burgers. I don’t touch mine. Too greasy.

“That wasn’t very nice, what you did with the slide spinals,” he says, pointing his drink at me straw first.

I shrug. “Yeah, well you had already declared war on me. I just wanted to show them I know stuff you don’t. I need the guards to respect me.”

“We need the guards to respect
us
. We may not like it, but we’re going to need to work together.”

“I’m fine with working together. I’m not the one with a problem sharing authority,” I mumble.

“Fine. We’ll work together.” He grins and shoves an inhuman amount of fries in his mouth, and seems to swallow them whole. Swimmers.

“And here’s the other thing,” he says. “You may be the expert on slides, but I know stuff you don’t. This is an inner city park, the clientele aren’t rich people who can pay twenty bucks a ticket. We get some rough people in here. You should let me handle them.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I’m not going to let you do my job, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“No, not exactly. Just that maybe we should do different parts of the job.” He hesitates and nibbles a fry, a welcome change of pace. “It’s not really the safest place for a female sup. See, the sups here deal with the stuff the guards can’t handle, like when fights break out, or there’s trouble. There’s more to guarding here than just the save skills. And no offense, but I can’t see you breaking up a fight between two men.”

“Really? Well I don’t think I should be treated any differently just because I’m a girl. And there is more than muscles to stopping a fight.”

“Alright. No need to get defensive. I’m just saying sometimes I might have advice for you.” He leans back and stretches, probably to accommodate the weirdly large amount of food he just inhaled.

“I’m not defensive, I’m just not going to let you push me around,” I say.

He eyes my plate. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Not hungry.”

“May I?”

“If you can.” I push it towards him.

He laughs and eats a fry. “Are you kidding? Swimmer.”

“Of course.”

“Well, former.”

“Oh.” Well, most lifeguards are. “What should we work on when we get back? I had some stuff planned out, but since we should be working together, I’m open to feedback.”

“First, promise you’ll at least listen to what I say, even if it doesn’t make sense to you. I promise to take your advice on the water park stuff, but you need to trust me on the
this park
stuff. Including the guards.”

“Fine,” I say, but I don’t really mean it. I just want him to stop harping on it. “Wait, what do you mean the guards?”

“Well, you know.” He pauses, brushing a fry with his lips, his eyes searching mine.

“No, I don’t.”

“Well. Damn. I don’t know how to put this.” He throws the fry down and sits back with his hands behind his head, more thoughtful than relaxed. “I guess…look. I know you think you have this hard-ass attitude down. I get that. I respect it. But here’s the thing. A lot of those guards are still going to see you as a girl.”

“As a girl?”

“Yeah. As in, your body.”

“What?”

“You’re hot.”

I frown. It shouldn’t matter what I look like. It’s just not what I think of when I think of important things about myself. I’m smart. I’m independent. I do the right thing when I can. Those are the important things about me. I wish that mattered more than my boobs.

“So. What do you suggest?” I ask. “Plastic surgery?”

“Strong boundaries. And let me deal with them if they get out of line.”

“And how can I expect them to respect me as their boss if I have to come to you to control them? They’re my employees. I’ll get respect my own way.” I stand and head outside, hoping he’ll follow.

He takes my arm but when I glare at him, he lets me go and opens the door for me. The sunlight is glaring and I shield my eyes and follow him to his car.

When we’re almost back to the facility, he starts harping on it again. “Seriously Camille.” His face goes blank. “Sorry. Habit.” His eyes turn serious. “Seriously, Rain. Call me if you need me. Please.”

“Camille?” Is that his girlfriend? Sister?

His face turns hard and he hits the brakes a little harder than I expected. “Mistake. Your name’s weird. So I couldn’t remember it. So what. Anyway, we’ll be late. You go ahead in without me. I need to get something out of the car.”

The fun, laid back Knight from lunch and backboarding is gone. The hard Knight is back. The one who stormed away from me in the water while spitting vitriol about not wanting to work with me. It’s like having someone throw ice water in your face just when you’re getting used to the sunshine.

One minute he is making out with me like he can’t let me go, the next he’s storming away.

Now he’s slumped over his steering wheel, arms at his sides.

He’s as changeable as the ocean, and probably just as dangerous and powerful. But like the ocean, he draws me in, and I can’t pull away.

“Camille.”

I yell it again, gathering her into my arms. She’s not moving and her lips are blue.

I hold her to me and wait for the ambulances, but I know. I know deep down in a cold, cold way that she’s gone. No point in CPR now, and I just want a few last moments with her.

I stroke the hair from her face. Her skin is cold but she’s just as beautiful. Love washes over me in a warm, unwelcome wave that seems to light up the dark room. I should hate her. Maybe I will later, but right now…

I just want to hold her while I can.

I only hate myself. I hate myself for falling in love when it was hopeless, I hate myself for never being enough for her, and I hate myself for not being able to save her.

I hate myself for not understanding her. She’s told me how it feels, how she can’t control it, how much she doesn’t want to hurt me, but she just can’t stand it anymore.

She’s told me how she can’t get him out of her head, how she can’t stop seeing him, feeling him.

I told her to just see me, to just feel me. She couldn’t. He was always there, always there and no way for me to fight him.

I pull her closer, between waves of numbness and grief. I brush her hair back. At least she’s not in pain anymore. She’s not suffering now. That’s all that matters.

I hold her tighter. The pain hits in totality when I realize how badly I don’t want to let her go. Not to the ambulances, not to the hospital, and not to the coffin.

Sirens sound outside. They’re coming. They’re going to pull her out of my arms. I wrap around her, wishing to have rigor mortis stiffness so I can clamp around her. They can’t take her. They can’t. She’s here, and as long as she’s here in my arms, as long as I’m holding her, it isn’t really true. Everything is okay.

We’re going to make it. This is all a dream. We’re going to make it, Camille. We have everything to hope for. Everything to live for. Sure, things have been hard, but we haven’t come this far to lose now. We’ve just got to take it day by day. Please don’t leave now.

But they’re here, like an unwelcome swarm. They’re a plague, and when they take her from me, she’ll really be dead. Two people bend around me, one a man, one a woman. I wrap tighter around her. It’s hopeless but I’ll never give her up, because as long as she’s still in my arms this isn’t real. I can feel her against me, I can feel every curve of this body I know so well, and I know she’s meant to always be with me. Against me. Beside me. On my chest on my bed while we listen to the rain falling outside. As long as I can touch her like this, I don’t have to live without her.

I don’t have to wake up tomorrow knowing she’s gone. I don’t have to look in the mirror and see a man who failed to save the only thing he cared about.

I don’t have to think about all of the lost dreams, about the things we talked about as I held her hand and we watched the stars out in the park. I don’t have to think of the children I wanted to have, with her eyes and my hair.

I don’t have to think about the nights spent in the ER with her where I held her hand and knew that we’d always get through stuff like this, we always had. She’d smile weakly at me and squeeze my hand and tell me she was sorry. I never knew if she was sorry she’d tried or sorry she’d failed.

Open your eyes, Camille. Please, tell me you’re sorry.

It’s all coming back. Rain is bringing it all back. I lift my head from the steering wheel where I rested it during the memory. I told Rain to go on ahead. I didn’t want her to see me like this.

But she makes me think of Camille. I should have known from the moment my eyes found her at the bonfire, and it felt like a part of me was waking up after a long nightmare. And then when I followed her into the water, like she was a siren.

I should have known the minute I started liking her during training, despite wanting to hate her for coming in and screwing up my system. She interests me more than any chick has in a long time. Now I know it’s because she reminds me of my ex. I just don’t know why.

I pull open the creaky, metal back door and walk back into work. The humidity of the air and the potent smell of chlorine draw my focus back to where it should be. Camille is fading away. I have guards to train, I have stuff to do. I don’t have to think about anything but this. Otherwise people could die. No other job could be this intense with so little training.

It’s my escape. That feeling of life and death hanging in the balance is the only thing that gives me relief.

So I wanted to hate Rain. It’s not as intense if I’m sharing the responsibilities of the deck with her. If she takes any of my work, she’ll give me space to think, and I just don’t need that right now. Especially since lately my thoughts involve her, even when I don’t want them too. Damn.

Sure, she’s handy with a backboard, and when she smiled at me while we completed the perfect spinal, I swear my heart rear-ended my ribcage.

I look behind me to see her trudging along, rummaging in her nasty looking sack lunch. She’s one of the oddest people I’ve ever met. Beautiful, blondish, tall. Completely unaware of just how many people are staring at her, wanting her. Like me. Sure, I want her.

She struggles under the heavy, swing-happy back door, nearly dropping her lunch. When I go back to hold the door for her, she scowls and walks under my arm.

“I want everyone ready for deep drills in five,” she yells to the staff, before going into the break room to change. They’re huddled in little groups, discussing their bossy new sup and what they had for lunch and what they are doing after. A couple of the girls make eye contact but I walk past, disinterested.