Mandy Hubbard - Ripple

He climbs over the small sandy hills and crosses the short expanse of reed grass. Before I can react, he’s standing right there in front of me, rain dripping from his hair. His T-shirt clings to the muscles on his shoulders and chest.

“What the hell are you doing?” He has to shout to be heard.

But he’s talking to me. Hope soars in my chest, only to fall at the look in his eyes.

I shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t want this. I nearly killed him, and yet here I am anyway, as if once I tell him what I am—once he realizes it was me at the lake—he’s going to give me another chance. It’s impossible, but still I have to know.

I just can’t stop myself from wanting to be with him. Maybe it’s fate, that he found my lake, went back again. I don’t know why he was there, but all that’s important is that he was.

He’s the only thing that’s ever mattered. He’s the only person I’ve wanted to be close to ever since I knew the truth about myself.

It’s him or no one.

Lightning streaks again, but neither of us flinch. The lightning and thunder seem to be right on top of each other now, and yet we don’t move, don’t break our piercing stares.

“Just answer me one thing!” he yells. The storm nearly swallows his words, ripping them away on the gust of wind. He steps closer and a bead of rainwater slides down the bridge of his nose, drips off. He’s standing so close it lands on the toe of my shoe.

“Did you ever really care about me? At all?”

My lip betrays me by trembling. I resist the urge to step back, retreat. Instead I nod as tears mix with the rain sliding down my cheeks. It’s hard to breathe. I just sniffle.

The anger in his eyes melts, and he reaches out, as if to wipe away the tears. But at the last second, he seems to realize it’s futile. He cups my cheek instead.

“Then why, Lexi? Why are you with him?”

I open my mouth to say something, anything to keep him here with me, but a booming thunderclap rumbles, followed almost instantly by lightning.

I make a decision right then and there. One that will finally tell me if this will ever truly work. I grab him by the T-shirt and pull him closer, shouting into his ear, “I can’t explain. But I can show you. Grab your iPod.”

We sit in my car near the lake, shivering. He from the cold, and me . . . from fear.

My mother played this game once. And it didn’t go well. She showed my dad who she was, and he only ran. It hurts now when I think of it. I never connected with her, never understood her, couldn’t see why she made the choices she did.

But I get it now. Because the same blind hope surges through me. My head and my heart don’t agree. And I’m following my heart. I’m playing with fire, and I know if this all blows up, it’s going to be as bad for me as it was for her. But I can’t have Cole unless I tell him my secrets.

Lying nearly got him killed. It got my mother’s boyfriend killed. Lying is a dangerous game.

Maybe I won’t be able to have him even when he knows the truth about me either. But I have to try. I can’t live like this anymore, not without giving it a shot.

He’s the only thing that makes me feel alive.

“Are you ready?” I say, nearly in a whisper. The rain has quieted, leaves only tiny streaks on the windows. Cole is wearing a jacket now, but I haven’t bothered to change out of my damp sweater and jeans. My toes are wet inside my sneakers, chafing around the edges.

He peers at me in the darkness. “I don’t understand why we’re here.”

“You will. Come on.” I push my door open, and it lets out its usual squeak, only now it sounds like a death knell. It’s not too late to change my mind, pretend I brought him here just to see a lake that looks like a dozen others around here. But that won’t solve anything. That won’t give me Cole.

The rain is little more than a light mist now, and the patchy clouds allow us to see where we’re going by the light of the moon. Funny, how quickly storms pass this close to the ocean.

Cole trips on a root and knocks into me. He’s not used to these paths, can’t navigate his way in the darkness as well as I can. He must have brought a flashlight last night. When he trips again, I take his hand, savor the feeling of it in mine as I lead him by memory. The canopy of the forest blots out the remaining light.

“Wait,” he says, pulling me to a stop. “I’ve been here before—”

“I know,” I say, yanking him back to a walk. I have to get this over with before I change my mind.

His hand is warm in mine, and it’s almost too much. I want to turn around and pin him to a tree and kiss him with everything I have. But instead, I force myself to keep walking, to ignore the humming of my veins.

We emerge into the clearing, and the lake shines under the light of the moon.

“I was just here. Two nights ago . . .” Cole says, a little in awe. “It was so strange, I—”

“I know,” I say. “That’s what this is about. I saw you at this lake over a month ago. Why did you come?”

“I come up here a lot. Not this lake, specifically, but the forest. Just to get away from things. I got turned around that night, ended up here when I should have been on my way home, but it was peaceful and I didn’t want to leave. If you were here, then why didn’t you—”

“Because I didn’t want you to come back. But you did. You don’t understand—this is my lake.”

He furrows his brow. “But it’s part of the park system. At least, I thought it was. One of my favorite trails is just a little further down the gravel road. But this lake is not on the maps.”

“I know. That’s why it’s mine.”

Cole looks like he’s going to say something, then stops himself, looking out at the lake again. I pull him over to the tree where I stood that night I watched him. I can feel it all as if it just happened: the bark digging into my nails, the fury boiling in my veins.

Maybe if I’d known who he’d become to me, how much I’d come to love him, I could have avoided all of this. Instead, I am about to do the one thing I thought I would never do.

Risk everything for a boy.

I guess it’s just the way we are, us sirens. Craving love above all else. Unable to function once we find it. But I refuse to think that everything I have with Cole is as simple as that. He’s one of a kind. I need him. Want him.

Love him.

“Do you want to know what really happened with Steven?”

He searches my eyes, and I just stare right back at him, no longer trying to hide all my secrets. Then he nods.

I look down at the mud between our feet for a long second, taking in a deep breath. I have to do this. I have to. I nearly killed him by hiding the truth.

The words I’d been trying so long to keep inside rush out in one quick burst. “At around eleven that night, at the party, Steven invited me upstairs. I followed him out to the deck, but when I stepped out there, I could hardly hear his voice, because it was like the ocean was raging in my ears. I had this . . . inexplicable need to go swimming. So I asked him to go with me, down to the beach.”

The expression on his face seems frozen, like it’s taking everything he has just to listen to me. The darkness all around us has created odd shadows, and I’m not sure I can see his expression quite right.

I swallow. The story is only going to get worse. “We went down to the beach, and I felt this weird, excited giddiness. It was like an adrenalin rush, but a thousand times stronger. We stripped down and got in the water. Except as soon as I was in, I swam away from him. I . . . I started singing. And then the next thing I knew, everything was silent, and I couldn’t find Steven. I started swimming back to shore and then I . . . then . . . I found him. Floating face down.”