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He coughed and gagged. Gagged some more. He retched until he was sure that it was just strings of spittle hanging from his lips and that any traces of pool water had been banished completely.
Why did his head feel like a murder scene had taken place inside of it?
A shrill, frantic, hysterical voice that sounded pretty damn close to his mother’s finally reached him, cutting through the black tide of pain clogging up the thing in his skull that was supposed to pass for a brain. Some people would say it was never there in the first place. He now had scientific proof that they were wrong.
“He’s bleeding!” The voice got closer, shrill, cutting up his splitting head like someone threw him under one of those industrial saws and was cutting him apart. “Oh my god, look at all that blood! What’s happening! Why is there so much blood?”
Blood came out sounding like BLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDD. The cry rang through the air until he finally realized that he’d done something to his head. Which was why he couldn’t swim. Why it currently hurt like there was another living being, who hated the hell out of him, had taken up residence inside his skull.
Then, parting the darkness like the sun parts the rainclouds, piercing through the darkness, a full moon in the thick of the night, was a voice so beautiful that it would have brought tears to his eyes if he’d had any moisture left in his body to leak out. As it was, his eyes felt as grainy and acidic as the rest of him, like he’d been dumped into a pickle jar full of brine and turned into a human olive.
He could see his future in a martini glass. He really fucking could.
Which probably meant that he’d hit his head harder than he thought.
Which also meant that he likely imagined that clear, birdlike voice and that puff of breath right below his earlobe.
“Thanks for ruining my party, jerk face.”
CHAPTER 3
Alix
Life was always about Ross. Alix’s parents were in love with Ross. He was like a second son. He could do no wrong. He was a good influence on Chance, who didn’t seem to give a shit about anything half the time. They loved having him around. He could pretty much get away with just about anything. They still talked about him like he was literally the best thing since sliced bread, if you wanted to get really corny and clichéd.
Shit was literally always about Ross.
Even when it wasn’t.
He’d actually managed to derail her party completely. Suddenly the spotlight wasn’t on the fact that she’d worked her ass for four years to graduate from a college she could barely stand, from a program she hated even more. Like she wasn’t the proud owner of a BA in Business. Like she was just the girl who pulled everyone’s favorite son/rock star out of the pool.
She hadn’t really even done that. She’d seen what happened from her room and she hadn’t thought twice. She’d bolted down the hall, burst through the patio doors, since her room was right by the living room, and jumped in. She knew Ross wasn’t a good swimmer. She hadn’t even seen the blood when she went in after him. Something just registered with the part of brain used for self-preservation that something wasn’t right. He should have surfaced before she even burst through the patio doors.
She’d tugged at his shirt until she got him to the surface. Made sure his face was above the water and guided his nearly limp form over to the edge where her dad and Ross’s dad dragged him out and set him on the concrete.
She’d always been a good swimmer. So was Chance. It was Ross who was always shit. Chance once saved him from nearly drowning when they were daring each other to swim in the deep end. They were twelve. She was eight. No one told anyone’s parents about the floundering that went on and the way Chance had to drag Ross out and stop just short of giving him mouth to freaking mouth.
Alix pulled herself out of the pool. She wasn’t even pissed that no one was paying any attention to her. Ross was still breathing. He was spluttering and gagging, which made her insides twist up into a writhing, coiled mess, and not just because she thought puking was gross.
She didn’t want to see the blood everyone was screaming about.
Her mom streaked past her at a hundred miles an hour into the house, probably looking for bandages, while Alix trudged by in the same jeans and t-shirt she’d arrived home in. Welcome back to San Fucking Jose.
Home to the only guy she’d ever loved. And hated.
Was there really a difference?
While people rushed about all around her, Alix stalked up to the makeshift buffet where her mom no doubt, had laid out copious amounts of food. There were even a few casseroles. Potato salad. Marshmallow salad. Some of the guests had been generous.
