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She blinks in surprise and then smiles. “Hello,” she says, curious.
I narrow my eyes at her. “Where you from? And why’d you jump off that cliff?”
I’ve been coming here almost every day for two years, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone. The footpath that used to lead here is overgrown and nearly impossible to walk through unless you know where you’re going.
My curiosity starts to lean toward suspicion.
I stand back up and frown down at her.
“Who are you?” I cross my arms over my chest.
Instead of answering me, she tilts her head to the side and whacks at one of her ears.
“I can’t hear. There’s water in my ear,” she says. Her face is scrunched up in that pitiful expression again. And her bottom lip starts to wobble as if she’s going to start crying again.
“You’re lucky you can breathe,” I say, and then I drop down again. I grab her by one of her bony little shoulders and try hard not to frown.
“Please don’t start crying again,” I beg her. I can’t stand it when girls cry. I never know what to do to make ‘em stop.
“It’s just that …” Her smile widens as she looks at me “You saved my life. Thank you,” she says and bites her lip to still it.
I feel a blush creep up my neck. My blushing is one of the things my stepfather considers a sin. Unfortunately for me, I can’t control mine. Feeling the blood rush into my cheeks only serves to remind me of the first time he decided to punish me for it. And instead of feeling good about her words, I feel irritated.
?
I shrug my shoulders and turn my eyes away. I see a broken twig and pick it up. I start to draw lines in the sand and don’t look at her when I say, “Yeah, well you were drowning. I was here. I couldn’t very well watch you die.”
“I’m Apollo,” she says in a voice so cheerful and full of pride that I can’t help but look back at her.
“Apollo?” I lean back to look at her and see that she’s smiling at me. Not just smiling—grinning like she didn’t just have to be pulled out of a river and isn’t out here where she shouldn’t be all by herself. “Yes, Apollo Havaa Locklear,” she says proudly.“Is that your real name?” I ask. She nods her head, her grin not faltering.
“I want to be your friend, so please don’t make fun of my name. It’s the only thing you could say that would make me not like you.” She wraps the towel around her shoulders and rubs her hands up and down her arms to warm them.
“I’m a twin. My parents thought I was going to be a boy. They picked the names Artemis and Apollo. My sister was born first, so I got the name Apollo even though it turned out I wasn’t a boy. My mother wanted to name me Ariel. But Papa said when I cried for the first time, the sun broke through the clouds, and he thought it was a sign.” She beams at me.
“A sign of what?” Other than the rain had stopped.
“Apollo is the god of the sun. So, it fit. I think it’s pretty,” she declares. “Havaa is Persian for ‘life’ and Locklear is my father’s family’s name. Maman is from Iran, and my father is one of the First People.” I can tell she’s told this story plenty of times. None of what she said makes any sense.
“What in the world is a First People?” I ask her because of all of the things she said, that’s got to be the strangest.
“He’s Native American. Iroquois, to be precise,” she says as if I should know what that is.
I don’t. But, I nod like I do and make a mental note to ask my mother when she comes in to tuck me in.
“What’s your name?” she asks me.
“Graham Stevens,” I tell her.
“What does that mean?” she asks, and I wish she didn’t look so excited.
“It don’t mean nothing,” I mumble, and she tilts her head to the side like she didn’t understand what I said.
“It’s just the name my folks gave me when I was born.” I’ve never thought much about my name. Now, after she’s told me hers and what it means, I add it to the list of things the world gave everyone else but me.
A name that means something.
“Graham.” She says it slowly like she’s testing it out.
