Page 24 of Into the Deep Blue

I wake up in an empty bed.

I sit up and call Fi’s name, but she doesn’t answer.

That’s when I spot the note on the covers. It’s neatly folded across the middle on motel stationery; it’s so Fiona to fold it as if this is some forties movie, and the words need protecting.

At the beach.

There’s a heart drawn beside it.

I drop it next to me and flop back into the pillows.

It’s as good a sign as any to go back to bed, but my mind’s racing.

Last night was kind of intense. It all comes back to me in fragments. Fiona’s hazel eyes welling with tears, sliding my hand around her waist, that song. I close my eyes, reliving it all, then open them just as quick.

Yeah.

I need to get out of this room.

Shake it off. Snap back to reality. What was I thinking? This weekend is about her. Not about me. Not about us. I hope I didn’t make things worse.

I get dressed and grab my sunglasses.

Fiona’s stuff is all over the place and clearly won’t fit into the five-inch safe they provide, so I just leave everything and get the hell out.

I’m not sure where to go or what to do with myself. It’s instinct to text Fi, so I do.

You okay?

I watch the screen for a second.

If she’s at the beach, she won’t hear her phone buzzing over the waves.

She probably wants to be alone, so I head for the lobby.

The revolving doors are already in motion when I get there.

There’s a small complimentary coffee station inside, so I pour myself a cup.

All that’s left is sweetener and powdered creamer—hard pass. I put a lid over the black, tarry sludge and use my imagination as I take a sip.

The lobby is ten degrees cooler than comfortable.

The kid behind the reception desk doesn’t look much older than me.

He’s wearing two sweaters and surfing on his phone.

The rest of the room is empty.

It’s freshly renovated, painted in beachy blue hues with light wood accents, but none of it can mask how old the place is.

It smells old. Old and painted over.

Sunlight spills through a set of glass doors at the far end.

A sign on the wall says Pool in black letters with an arrow beneath pointing to the doors.

I head for them.

The pool reno didn’t go as far as the rest of the place.

It’s a concrete rectangle with a worn blue diving board and globe lights strung around a grungy white fence.

It could almost be chill except for the noise from the highway across the street.

If you stand on the diving board, you might be able to see the ocean.

There’s a kid by himself in the water.

He looks around ten, a little older than Max, and he’s floating on his back, staring up at the sky with swimming goggles covering his eyes.

I roll up my jeans and sit at the edge, dipping my legs into the subzero water.

The disturbance makes the kid flip upright.

He watches me for a second and swims to the opposite end, picking up a handful of batons.

He throws them into the water, waits for them to sink, and dives after them, resurfacing with a few.

“You gonna swim?” he asks.

There’s nobody else here. He’s talking to me. “No.”

“How come?”

“Cause it’s cold.”

“Not once you get used to it,”

he says, jumping up and down in the shallow end.

I smile.

“Don’t you have parents?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are they?”

“Why? Are you a kidnapper?”

I shake my sunglasses free from my T-shirt pocket and slide them on.

“Do I look like a kidnapper?”

“Hard to say,”

he says.

“Anyway, they’re getting ready.”

I don’t ask for what.

He pushes himself back from the edge and resumes floating on his back. He’s staring up at the sky so intently that I look up to see what’s so interesting.

A brilliant sun blazes above us.

And this feels so familiar.

I was ten when Alex had Max.

She was seventeen.

When Max was six months old, Mom took us to Florida for a week to stay at Nana’s timeshare in Boca.

I think Nana offered it up for my benefit.

She knew how much Mom and Dad were arguing about Alex, so she gave us her extra week and told Mom not to bring Dad.

Not that he would have gone anyway. Spending a week in a one-bedroom condo with all of us? Yeah, I don’t think so.

So, it was just the three of us, well, the four of us, I guess.

The place was crawling with more old people than I’d ever seen in my life.

It was like a grandparents’ convention had convened at the hotel.

Mom was all about Alex and the baby, but when they stayed in the room, we had some time to ourselves.

We had races in the pool because she wasn’t a big ocean person, and every afternoon, we walked to the marina, where she would excitedly point at the fish swimming in the water between the boats.

The rest of the time, I occupied myself.

Max cried a lot, and Alex and Mom were usually fighting, but I didn’t care.

I built sandcastles with moats that stretched down to the ocean.

I saw a snake and even got stung by a jellyfish.

I’m glad I have that scar.

It’s like the universe didn’t want me to forget what I have, not what I’m missing.

It wasn’t perfect, but to me, it was the greatest vacation of my life.

The kid’s parents step out of the lobby. They’re dressed up in country club attire even though it’s midmorning.

“Adrian!”

his mom yells.

“I said, ten minutes!”

Adrian straightens from his floating position and treads water, facing her.

“How long has it been?”

She shakes her head, exasperated.

“I don’t know. Way longer than that.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Let’s go! Come on!”

Adrian’s dad is typing on his phone and hasn’t looked up once. His mom’s phone rings, and she answers, walking back into the lobby, with his dad trailing behind. It’s all so disingenuous, it’s worse than if they were arguing.

Adrian dives under the water again for the hell of it and surfaces with the rest of his rainbow-colored batons. He swims over to me and drops them on the pool deck in a puddle.

“Here, you can use these,”

he says, breathless, as if he’s trusting me with something of great importance.

“Cool,”

I say, nodding.

He hoists himself out of the water, leaving giant wet footsteps in his wake as he heads for the door. He pulls the swimming goggles over his head and sweeps his sopping hair away from his face.

“Hey,”

I call out. He turns back to me.

“You having a good trip?”

He smiles wide.

“Yeah! It’s the best!”

And he disappears through the lobby doors like a mirage.

Like me.

I pick up a bright blue baton from the wet pile beside me, and let it roll across my palm, throwing the others back into the water.

They slowly sink to the bottom.

Adrian will find them later.

I’m sure no one else is crazy enough to go in this pool. I get up, slide my shoes onto my wet feet, and head for the gate at the side to make my way to the beach.

Because that’s where Fiona is, and I don’t care if she wants to be alone. I can’t be anymore. The bright blue baton feels like magic in my hand. I slide it in my pocket.

One is enough.

It’s something I can run with.