Proof of Forever (9 page)

He pulls off the Lost Tigers shirt so he can change, too. He's broader than Blake, she realizes. Even with his back to her she can feel his arrogance oozing off him in waves.

“Are we almost back to shore?” she asks, feeling sick and miserable.

He turns back around. “I would think you'd be a little more grateful.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, I mean, I
did
just save your life.” He cocks his head, like he's trying to figure her out.

She sighs and looks away. He has a point, but can't he see how horrible she's feeling? Since when does rubbing it in ever help? “It
is
your job, ya know,” she mutters. Because it's true. That's what lifeguards do—they jump in and rescue girls like her, girls who are foolish enough to get in over their heads.

“Oh, I know. And you wouldn't miss an opportunity to remind me,” he states, icy now, before turning and leaving her alone in the staff room.

Whoa.
Sensitive much?

She kind of feels like apologizing, but at the same time, it's probably
he
who should be apologizing to
her
for being so presumptuous
.

She lies back on the couch and throws an arm across her eyes to block the overhead light. Okay, so maybe she did come off as slightly ungrateful. But what was she supposed to do, kiss his ass? No way.

Everything is going from bad to worse. She and Blake have both been banned from the lake.

And this means he and his friends won't be swimming there tomorrow afternoon, like they did two summers ago. They won't be swimming there at
all
.

For a moment, Tali wishes she'd been honest with her friends, that she'd told them what really happened that last summer at camp. But admitting the truth—that she'd never hooked up with Blake at all, that she'd simply stolen his boxers from a pile of his clothes lying in a heap by the lake—would have somehow sealed the deal on her past as a loser. It has always been so much easier
to let them believe what they already assumed.

Now she has no backup plan.

Which leaves only plan A: seduce Blake.

Blake—who apparently thinks Tali's real name is Tanya.

And after tonight, she has just three days left to do it.

“Spotty,” Andrew says, his face serious. The lights strung around the boat bob and sway gently as they pull back into the dock. For a moment, Luce could swear that this is all a dream, that the memory of Andrew—her Andrew from before, fifteen-year-old Andrew—has returned to her in some hazy, glowy vision.

“What? No way,” Luce says now, holding a plastic giraffe at an angle and staring at it pensively. “Spotty's way too obvious. How about Puppy,” she suggests, recalling it's exactly what she said two summers ago. She still has Puppy in her bedroom—packed away already as a Princeton-worthy item.

Just thinking of Princeton gives her a spike of adrenaline. She didn't say it over breakfast, but one of her biggest fears is that they are going to somehow change the past enough to screw up the future—and possibly risk her acceptance to Princeton. Luce worked hard for everything to go exactly according to plan, and she doesn't want to risk ruining all that now.

“You're gonna name a giraffe ‘Puppy'?” Andrew teases, flicking Luce's ponytail. He wraps his arm around her and she tucks her head into the crook of his shoulder.

The night has darkened and the air carries a new chill to it. She's getting tired. It has been a long day, from the meeting this morning with her mom right after breakfast, during which she begged her to reconsider handing Jade Marino the merit badge (fail), to the long afternoon swimming session, to the unappetizing dinner of “fish dogs,” to Tali's dramatic premature exit from the cruise—the girl is the very definition of
overboard
. Still, she is anxious to make sure Tali is
really
okay—Luce distinctly does
not
recall her falling overboard two summers ago. She was whisked away so quickly, Luce didn't have a chance to confer about what it all meant. The counselors had assured everyone else on deck that she was fine, just a bit “rattled and wet.”

Zoe and Joy go off to fetch Tali as Luce and Andrew disembark from the boat. When they return, Tali looks okay, if embarrassed. She's wearing a big Okahatchee T-shirt that's practically twice her size and still has on the black shorts she borrowed from Luce. Luce assumes she won't get an apology for the sodden shorts, then chides herself for thinking that way. Tali could have died out there. Who cares about her shorts?

Joy has her arm around Tali, and Zoe walks a few feet behind them. Her long blond hair is tousled from the wind, and Luce can't help but notice how pretty she looks—pretty in a totally disheveled, natural way. And Joy, too, with her honey-brown hair in a braid. It's touching, seeing them the way she used to. There's just
something so innocent about all three of them, so . . . intemerate.

Intemerate, intrepid, inveterate
.
Pure, brave, habitual
.

“Back to Blue Heron, team,” Joy says.

“One day down,” Zoe adds under her breath.

“Maybe I can just bury my head in the sand for the next decade,” Tali mutters.

“I'm so ready for bed,” Luce puts in, starting to catch up with them, but Andrew pulls her back.

“Already?” he asks.

She turns to him. “It's almost curfew.”

“I know, I know, but hold on, I have something for you,” he says, his grin slightly mysterious in the darkness.

“But you already got me Puppy,” she says, fiddling with the plastic animal in her hand.

“Something else,” he says. “Please?”

She swallows back a sigh. “You girls go ahead,” Luce says to Joy, Tali, and Zoe, who trudge off through the sand, looking almost as weary as she feels. “What is it?” she asks, turning back to Andrew.

“Come over here,” he says, pulling her toward the tree line.

“Andrew, I'm
really
tired,” she says, trying to keep her voice light. It's unlike Andrew to be spontaneous, and she's not sure if she likes it or not.

“Hold on,” he says, then kneels down in the dirt, as though tying his shoe. Only he's not tying his shoe.

Oh crap.
He's proposing!

Wait—Luce reminds herself that makes no sense. They're
fifteen. But he is definitely on one knee, and holding his closed fist out to Luce. “Go ahead,” he says.

And now, she remembers. It happened differently that first summer—he'd cornered her in the dining hall. But still, she has a pretty solid instinct that she already knows what's coming next. She tentatively peels back his fingers, to reveal a bright purple plastic ring with a creepy-looking smiley face on it. All her tension is released in a quick laugh.

She was right.

The question now is: How is she supposed to react? Should she act happy or embarrassed or just surprised?

“Aw, thanks!” she says, hoping for some combo of all of the above.

“I promise to be good to you forever,” he says, his smile wavering slightly, as he pushes the plastic ring, which is a tad too tight, onto her finger.

Luce feels a mixture of warmth and annoyance. Why does he have to be
so
thoughtful, and yet so . . . oblivious? How is it that he can't tell how
different
she is?

And she feels something else, too . . . almost like an eerie sense of déjà vu, kind of like what Zoe described yesterday on the field. When he says he'll be good to her forever, she
knows
he means it. She's
seen it happen
.

She knows she should consider herself lucky—how many other girls her age can say they've found the One? That their boyfriend will always treat them right, that he'll love them forever?

Still, something about it just feels . . . wrong. Or if not wrong
then, well, she hates to admit it, but . . .
boring
.

Luce feels a piece of tension inside her snap, like a twig breaking underfoot, or a trapdoor falling open. She pulls Andrew up off the ground. “Don't you feel like doing something insane
tonight?” she asks, the words coming out of her before she can really think too much about it. “Something totally unlike us?”

Andrew puts both of her hands together and uses them to pull her close to him. Then he kisses her. “I like us how we are. Besides,” he says, “I thought you were tired.”

“I am. I mean, I was. It's just . . . We have so little time left, before—”

“Before camp ends forever?” he fills in.

“Right, yes, precisely.” She feels a rush of relief. He
does
understand. She briefly thinks again of what Zoe said—that changing history might somehow change the future. But how could
anything
involving her relationship with Andrew change? Besides, she feels so itchy, so stuck in her own skin, she
has
to react. She has to make this feeling go away. Just for a little bit. She needs to be able to breathe again, to think clearly.

“So what do you wanna do then?” he asks, cocking his head and looking at her with a mixture of surprise and amusement, like she's a plastic carnival animal who has learned to talk.

“I hadn't gotten that far,” Luce admits.

“How about we approach it like Clue. You suggest a place, I'll suggest an object, then together we'll figure out the crime.”

Luce smiles, so big she can feel her cheeks stretching.
This
is why she loves Andrew so much. “Location: tennis courts,” she
says in a shout-whisper, then begins to run.

They race along the tree line. When the coast is clear, they dart across the sandy beach, and Luce can feel childlike giggles escaping her throat. They make it to the walking bridge, then past the volleyball area, with its nets drooping like the flags of some fallen moon-country, and then onto firmer ground, around the Stevens, where Luce knows there will one day be a thriving Agro community, but for now there is just a three-foot-by-three-foot patch of uncultivated land . . . and there they are: the tennis courts.

As she slows down, Luce notices the moon hanging overhead like the half smile of some creepy voyeur.
Voluminous, voracious, voyeur.
Spacious, ravenous, secret observer.

The pale green of the courts looks ashy gray, its white lines strangely phosphorescent. The smell of fresh tennis balls and body odor lingers, and it's so quiet out here that Luce almost wishes she had a ball to bat around—its
pong pong pong
breaking up the silence.

She turns to Andrew, catching her breath. “Okay, so what's the weapon of choice? I don't think we'll find any wrenches or candlesticks around here.”

Andrew runs a hand along one of the nets. “What do we have to work with? There's Spotty—er, Puppy—”

“I will not turn him criminal,” Luce says.

Andrew shrugs. “What else do we have to work with? Our shoes, clothes, and some spare betting tickets . . .” Then he turns to her, and even in the darkness she can see the look in his eyes. “Our
clothes
.”

She puts a hand on her hip. “So what's the crime, then?
Strangulation by sock?”

“I was thinking something a little less violent. Strip Tennis?”

She laughs. “You're changing the game! Besides, we don't have balls and rackets.”

“Okay, so just
strip
.” Andrew has his arms out and turns around in a circle. “In the great wide nighttime that is ours for the plucking, or whatever.”

“You should be a poet. How about Strip Twenty Questions,” she suggests. A thrill of excitement and nervousness runs up Luciana's spine. This is it—this is being spontaneous. This is living in the moment, doing something new, something they never did that last summer at camp. The fear comes racing back up to her head—is she about to screw up her future? But so far, the universe has not come to any sort of dramatic screeching halt. Maybe this really is some magic bubble, a dream, even. Maybe none of it will matter when she wakes up tomorrow.

“Fine, sure.” Andrew grins. “My turn. What is Strip Twenty Questions, and what are the rules?”

“That's two questions,” Luce says. Andrew cocks his eyebrow at her. “Fine,” she relents. She takes off her knit sweater and her sneakers.

Even in the darkness she can see Andrew roll his eyes. “Oh, come
on
,” he teases.

“Whatever, it's
my
turn now. Question . . . what's the craziest thing you've ever done?”

“That's not a yes-or-no question.” He picks up her sweater and swings it around like a lasso.

“So?” Luce demands.

“I guess we're really winging it now. Well, the answer is: this.” He pulls his shirt over his head.

She laughs. “That's all you've got?”

“I will if you will,” he says, putting his hands near his fly, slowly starting to remove his shorts.

Luce hesitates—but only for a second.
This is it—your last chance.
The words keep running through her mind, drumming through her blood, making her feel breathless and reckless. Before she can stop herself, she wriggles out of her shorts. Now she's just in her tiny underwear and T-shirt. “I have another question,” she says, feeling bolder by the second.

“What?” he asks softly, taking a step toward her.

“My question is . . . can you catch me?” And then she's off and running, darting around the nets to the other side of the court.

It takes him all of a minute to catch up to her, just as she's about to try and dodge past him again. He wraps her in his arms, laughing, and then goes quiet as he sets her down.

“So what do I get for catching you?” he asks, his voice low.

Before Luce can say she has lost track of the rules, or even the game, there's a rattling at the far end of the fence, the crunch of footsteps, and her heart catches in her chest.

Even before they turn, she knows: they've been caught.

So much for the merit badge
is the last thing she thinks before the piercing beam of a flashlight lands directly on their faces.