Ripple (27 page)

I jolt awake.

I gasp and spring upright so fast and clumsy that I twist and fall out of bed, yanking the blanket with me in one big puddle of limbs and sheets.

My breath and heart race so fast they compete, and I can’t hear anything but the freight train in my ears. I blink over and over, trying to see in the darkness.

Cole is at my side in an instant, hauling me to my feet. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

My voice comes out so quiet, so low, it’s barely enough to call it a whisper. “I slept.”

“What?”

“I slept,” I say, louder this time, though still shaky. Cole guides me back to the bed, and I sit, perched, on the edge of it. I glance at the clock on his nightstand.

It’s three forty. I slept over three hours. I wiggle my shoulders, flap my arms around, swing my feet off the edge of the bed. I feel . . . better. Some of the achiness has gone away. The sandy feeling behind my eyelids seems to have dissipated. The weight on my shoulders feels like someone removed a few bricks.

“I slept!” I say, louder now, throwing my arms around him. Heat warms my face. We’re both still naked.

I twist around, start scooping clothes off the floor before my cheeks burst into flames. I’ve never been naked in front of a boy before, not like this.

Cole tosses me my shirt and then pulls on his own. “And this is newsworthy?” He’s confused but relieved, too, as he realizes nothing is wrong.

I yank my borrowed boxers up over my hips. “Yes! You don’t understand, Cole. Normal people sleep. People who don’t have curses. I
do not
sleep, at least not for the last two years. I swim. I go up to the lake.”

He blinks rapidly. Understanding dawns. “So . . . he wasn’t lying? You don’t have to swim now?”

“I don’t know! I think so?” I sit down on the edge of his bed, deflated a little. “I did swim last night, a little. Maybe that’s all this is. But then . . . that really doesn’t explain why I slept. Just why I didn’t need to swim.”

What if this is meaningless? What if I’m just worn out from fighting off Erik all night, and this is just . . . temporary? A heavy silence falls around us. We stare at the ground, sitting side by side on his bed, neither of us speaking.

Hope builds. It might actually be possible. What if this whole time all I needed was to fall in love? With someone who knew the truth and somehow... loved me anyway?

Maybe that’s why Erik went after Cole first. He wanted me to kill him. Make sure I never got what I wanted.

“It can’t be this simple,” I say, more to myself than to Cole. “It can’t possibly be this simple.”

Cole grips my hand. “Occam’s Razor.”

“What?”

He turns to look at me. “It’s usually the simplest answer that’s the right one.”

Nervous, I stand up abruptly and walk to the window, pushing the curtain open. The moon gleams over the ocean, the waves rolling gently to shore. I stare at it for a long moment in silence, waiting to feel that familiar hunger, the strong pull of the ocean. But I feel nothing.

I twist around. “You really think it was you, all along? That trusting you . . . falling for you . . . was the one thing that could undo this whole mess?”

I want to laugh and cry all at once. If it’s true... everything with Erik was for nothing.

Cole stands, shrugging as he walks up to me, pushes a stray, tangled strand of hair over my shoulder. “I don’t know . . . but . . . it could be, right?”

I swallow and nod.

Yes, it’s possible.

Yes, it seems too good to be true.

“We need to go outside. I need to stand on the beach. But if I make one move, if I so much as dip my toes in the surf, you plug your ears and run the other way. No matter what I do. Got it?”

“Yeah. Let me get dressed.” He pulls his pajama pants back on and goes to the closet, taking a hoodie off the top shelf. Then he tosses one at me, and I’m so deep in thought I barely manage to catch it.

He holds the door open for me as I slip into the sweatshirt, my arms lost inside the sleeves. It’s warm and soft and smells like the woodsy scent I’ve missed these last few weeks. He told me he liked going to Tillamook Forest. It must be why he always smelled like the woods.

Cole steps up beside me and reaches for my hand. I surprise myself by pulling away. “Can you just ... stay, like, thirty feet away? I’m afraid if we’re touching and I want the ocean, I’ll drag you in.”

He furrows his brow. “Lexi, you’d never—”

“I don’t trust myself. And right now, you shouldn’t either. Just do it.”

Cole sighs and steps away from me, trailing a dozen yards behind as we reach the beach. My shoes sink as I make my way across, until I’m standing at the edge of the moist, compact sand, just a few feet shy of the line of foam left behind by the waves.

Cole stops where he is, watching me.

I turn to the ocean and stare outward, waiting. Nothing happens. I peer down and push the button on the side of my watch, illuminating the display. 3:57. I should want to swim right now. I should
need
to swim right now, in the darkness of night, standing on the beach in the middle of the night.

But it’s like waiting on the tracks for a train that never comes. Nothing happens.

I glance back at him again, and then out at the sea.

And then before I know what’s happening, I’m crying, and Cole is standing beside me, pulling me close.

Moments later, when he tips my chin up, I don’t resist.

I just kiss him.

A
week later, I step through the gates of Seaside Cemetery, my sneakers crunching on the leaves that line the paths. I pull Cole’s sweater tighter around me as a sharp October breeze bites through. It’s a brisk, chilly walk to Steven’s grave, a walk I’ve made so many times before. But this time is different.

This time I’m not alone.

We navigate between the headstones, the world silent around us except for the sound of our shoes on the frosty grass. We make our way to the stone with the football engraved in the middle, a meticulous piece of solid-white perfectly polished granite. It will last forever, so much longer than Steven.

We stop in front of it, and Cole puts an arm around my waist. I lean into him, and we stand in silence as I purse my lips and stare at the stone for a long time, my eyes staring at the dates, at the year I killed him.

He’s been resting in the earth for two years. Two years the world has gone without that goofy, crooked smile, without his jokes. It still aches to think about him, to picture the light in his eyes and know that I’m the one who extinguished it.

Sienna will never be my friend again. I had to beg and plead, but I was able to transfer out of her English class. Cole and I eat lunch in the library now, reading books and whispering. I feel bad for taking him away from his friends, but he understands. He knows I don’t want it like this, but there’s nothing I can do to change it. So he chooses me over them.

Steven will never come back. What I did to him . . . I can’t undo. Their whole family is broken because of me.

But somehow, I have to find a way to move on. With Cole, it’s actually possible. I don’t have to swim anymore. I haven’t since that night at the lake with Erik. As psychotic as he was, it seems that not everything he said was a lie.

Cole really did break my curse.

With each sunset, it gets easier to believe that the curse is really broken, easier to look forward instead of back. I’ll do things just as I always said—go to college, find a way to give back to the world the things I took.

I step forward, brush my fingers against the top of the grave marker. I’m not sure I can meet Cole’s eyes. “Talking to Steven is the only thing that kept me sane these couple of years.” I chew on my lip. “Which is kind of ridiculous, since killing him is what broke me in the first place.”

“It’s not ridiculous.” Silence. And then, “You know it’s not your fault, right? You’re not a murderer. You didn’t know what you were doing.”

I blink. I know that, even though sometimes I question it. I always will. Yet hearing Cole say it aloud is comforting.

“You okay?” he asks.

I turn to face him, smiling a little. I wonder if he’ll ever stop asking me that. “Yeah. Can you give me a second?”

Cole nods, steps away, and goes to stand under the weeping willow. It’s bare now, what’s left of its thin leaves littering the lawn between the graves.

I crouch in front of the grave. There’s nothing left to say to him, because I’ve already told him everything I can. I’ve apologized, I’ve cried, I’ve made promises. I’ve told him every secret, every ache. He’s been there for me in a way no one else could be.

But the words don’t matter anymore.

It’s time to move on.

I exhale a ragged breath of air as I stand, pressing my fingers to my lips, and then brush them against the cold marble of his grave.

“
Good-bye, Steven.
”

This time, I mean it.

Every time I write an acknowledgments page, it’s different. But there is one constant: My agent Zoe, who is my fiercest advocate, and the one who keeps me from going crazy during the process of making a book. Thank you for all that you do—and for not slapping me with a dead fish by now.

I must also sincerely thank my editor, Jocelyn. This book was acquired before you joined Razorbill, and I was terrified you wouldn’t have the same passion for Lexi and her story, but my worries were unwarranted. I cannot even imagine what this book would look like if it weren’t for your input. You kicked my butt, and for that, I thank you. My sincerest, gratitude, also, to Gillian for your input during edits.

Thank you, as well, to Ben, who wanted nothing to do with “a mermaid book,” but gave
Ripple
a chance anyway.

For Billy, Sammy, and Bridget, thank you for coming through at a moment’s notice and pointing out where the story jumped the shark.

And Cyn, as always, I appreciate your honesty—and your ability to be blunt as hell. My career is better because I know you.

My love to my husband, who left the house time and again with our daughter just to give me time to write; this book would have come out sometime in 2035 if it weren’t for you. Your love and support mean the world to me.

Finally, thank you to my readers, who cared enough to email me about
Prada And Prejudice
or
You Wish
. Your emails never fail to make my day.