Chapter 6 - The Water Took Him Loud
I didn't feel my hand connect so much as I felt the weight leave my shoulder. The swing carried me forward a half step and then there was nothing under my fist. Rourke was already gone from where he'd been standing.
He went back with his mouth open. His arms came up too late, grabbing at air. The whistle on the lanyard lifted off his chest and then slapped back down. For a half second his shoes were still on the deck while his upper body was out over the lane. Then the edge was empty.
I heard Tamsin breathe in sharp beside me. I heard Ivy make a small sound in her throat and stop it.
The water didn't break clean. He hit on his back and side across the lane line, and the lane rope snapped down and then rolled. White water jumped straight up and then fell outward in every direction. It hit my jeans and my shoes. It hit the deck and ran back toward the gutter in sheets. The echo in that building picked it up and threw it back at us from the bleachers and the far wall, louder the second time.
The splash kept spreading. The waves went out to the dividers and came back and crossed each other. The blue turned white and then gray under the lights. Chlorine rose up strong enough to burn my nose. My ears rang from the size of the sound in a closed room.
Tamsin moved before I did. She dropped hard to her knees at the edge. Her cream sweater dragged through the standing water on the deck and darkened at the sleeves. She leaned out over the gutter with both hands in the water up to her wrists, grabbing for cloth, for skin, for anything.
"Rucker!"
Her voice cracked off the tile and came back. It didn't sound like the way she'd said his name at practice, light and easy for Ivy to hear. It sounded raw. Desperate. She said it again without the shape of a word the second time, just breath and panic while she slapped at the surface.
I stood behind her breathing hard. My chest wouldn't settle. Each breath came short through my nose and went out through my mouth. My right hand throbbed down into the wrist. I could feel my pulse in my knuckles. I didn't step back. I didn't step forward to the edge. My shoes were wet and stuck a little to the deck when I shifted my weight.
The water where he'd gone in was still churning. Bubbles came up in clusters. The lane line bobbed and twisted where his weight had dragged it under. His dark polo showed under the surface, billowing for a moment, then his head broke through a few feet out, mouth wide, hair plastered down. He coughed and went under again as a wave hit his face. One hand came up and slapped down flat, throwing spray.
Tamsin stretched farther. Her knees slid forward on the wet deck until her shins were soaked. Water ran up her forearms. She kept reaching toward where he kept surfacing and sinking, her fingers opening and closing on nothing but water.
"Come here," she gasped. "Grab my hand."
He didn't answer. He was coughing too hard to get air enough to speak. His other arm came up and tangled in the lanyard. The whistle bobbed near his chin and then sank and floated again.
Behind me I heard the deck squeak. I turned my head just enough to see Ivy. She hadn't moved from where I'd left her near the door side of the deck. Her towel was still clutched in one fist, dripping. Her wet hair was stuck to her neck and her cheeks were pale under the pool lights. The blue goggles sat tight around her neck where they'd ridden up, the strap pressing a red line into her skin. She stared at the spreading waves with her mouth half open, eyes moving with each new ripple as it reached the edge and lapped over.
The waves kept coming. They lifted Rourke a little and dropped him. They pushed his body toward the lane rope and then pulled him back. The scoreboard hummed above the bleachers. The empty stands stared down at the four of us and the one lane that wouldn't go still.
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Tamsin looked back over her shoulder at me, water dripping off her hands. Her face was wet, whether from the splash or tears I couldn't tell. She held one hand out toward me, palm up, fingers shaking.
I didn't take it. I stood there with my breathing loud in my own ears, watching the water move and watching him struggle to find the edge he couldn't see.
