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This woman could see right fucking through me. “You’re a little firecracker, aren’t you?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Firecracker?”
“A bomb. That better?”
“No.”
I almost smiled.
For a moment neither of us spoke. Her music still sounded from her headphones, tinny. Far away. When I didn’t say anything, she looked away stiffly. “I should get back to work.”
I grabbed the bottle from the counter. I’d lost her. Of course I had. So I had nothing left to lose when I confessed, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, okay? I’m just used to being alone. I like being alone.” Then, because I didn’t know what else to do and I was a little drunk—I hadn’t eaten anything in I couldn’t remember how long—I strode back outside. I heard the clink of tools as I stepped out onto the pool deck. She was packing up.
Way to fucking go, Mitchell. That was productive.
I tried to tell myself it was fine, that maybe pissing Winona off had given me enough inspiration to write some more pages.
But it didn’t feel fine.
I walked over to the diving board. Then I climbed the steps and walked out over the water, the board bouncing beneath me. It was glassy and perfectly still.
I leaned over, looking at my own reflection. For a man who used to spend $400 on a haircut every three weeks it was laughable how little I noticed or even cared about what my hair looked like now. No woman in their right mind would want me right now. Maybe I deserved to lose everything. The book. My business.
I drained the last of the glass and then dropped it with a splash onto my reflection. I watched the crystal tumbler sink straight down to the bottom. Then I lay back on the diving board. Overhead, the sky was tumultuous. It would be dusk soon, but the clouds hung dark and bulbous overhead. Somewhere in the distance a low rumble sounded.
I thought of Winona’s face. Ya got me drove.
“Winona,” I whispered, just for the feel of her name, like the last good thing I could taste.
Then I rolled over.
I was heavier now than when I first moved here, thanks to a punishing regime of weights and sprinting on that treadmill on uphill mode, so my body made a satisfying splash when I hit the water.
The water was cold, shocking me into alertness. It felt good, that press of liquid against my skin. That space-like silence in my ears. I let myself float for a minute, enjoying the stretch of air in my lungs moving from tension to pain. When I was a kid I used to like to float in the water like this, face down, my limbs limp, letting the ocean knock me around.
But this wasn’t the ocean. This was my pool, and it was only when I felt the splash of someone else dropping in the water that I remembered doing this once with Blake. He’d freaked out, hauling me out of the water thinking I’d drowned.
But the hands on my chest weren’t my brother’s. They were small; ineffective against my weight. I opened my eyes to see blue ones open in front of me, a mouth with air bubbling out and a muffled scream.
She didn’t leave.
Winona’s hair had come out of its knot. It flowed around her like a mermaid’s.
Beautiful, I thought. Or said into the water—I wasn’t sure.
Then she shoved at me, her face screwing up. I was too heavy. She faltered, sinking herself. That was what finally knocked me out of my stupor—the thought that she might be in danger. I came back to life, grasping the front of her coveralls and pulling her toward me.
We emerged from the water together, both of us gasping in air.
She only got half a breath in before she used it to shout at me, smacking my shoulders with her tiny fists. “What the fuck is the matter with you, b’y!?”
My hand still held her bunched suit and I lifted her up and out of the water easily with one arm. She couldn’t touch here, but I could, right where the floor of the pool sloped up to the wall. I plopped her up on the edge before dropping back in the water.
Mitchell!
She was screaming my name up there again. But I was only gathering my thoughts this time. She’d stayed, and she’d tried to save me.
When I popped my head out of the water, I found her on her hands and knees, gasping as I came up within inches of her face. She backed up and I rested my elbows up on the pool deck, flicking my wet hair out of my face.
