Page 118 of Pierce Me

“Stop it, Emily,” I hiss under my breath.

“The name’s Skye.” Skye appears after a long dive right next to me, laughing his ass off. I wonder how long he’s been swimming next to me, while I was daydreaming like an absolute moron.

“I wasn’t talking to you, turd wad,” I tell him.

“You’re in a good mood. I can see that the Italian coastline is relaxing you,” he observes coolly.

“Sorry for snapping at you,” I say at once. “That was a poem, Emily Dickinson.”

“Poetry, huh?” he says. “Are things that bad?”

I’m still looking up at Eden. I’m sure she doesn’t want to be anywhere near me, not after what happened yesterday. But if she is still here, I can’t help but hope. I hate hope. I love hope. I’m addicted to hope.

She is hope personified.

She is eyeing the steps that lead down to the water. The steps are there so that we can climb down safely into the water. But of course, none of us are climbing down the steps like normal people. Miki and Jude keep cannonballing into the emerald waters like four-year-olds, splashing Eden from head to toe. I see her shiver and gather her legs to her chest, and I bite my lip.

Jude and Miki don’t see her flinch at the cold water, and they start making jokes and threatening to force her to jump in too.

“Play with us, Eden,” Miki says from the water. “Isaiah is too famous to do that.”

“You are such a little liar!” I screech and swim over to dunk him.

As soon as he’s safely three feet below the water, I climb the ladder. I spring to my feet and stride three long, waterlogged paces towards Eden.

“Won’t you jump in?” I ask her and for a moment I’m scared that she will turn around and leave or pretend she didn’t hear me. She does neither.Saint Hope, I think at her.Just throw me a crumb; I’m starving to death. “The water is amazing, you’ll love it.”

“I…” her cheeks go red.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to pressure you.”

She is so rigid, I think if I try to touch her she will shatter into a million pieces. She pushes her hair behind her ear.

That’s my job.

“I only learned to swim last year,” she says. I just stand there and drip. And gawk.

“What?”

“Yeah, and it looks really deep…” she looks down at the water uncertainly.

“So, you’re telling me that you didn’t even know how to swim and you jumped six meters off a cliff into a deep lake at Corfu?” I am so furious I could snap in two.

She shrugs. “That was different. I had to. No one else was jumping in after Pooh.”

“I was about to.” My jaw clenches. I was about to, but I was hesitating. Like usual. Something was holding me back: fear or sheer stupidity. Worry for what other people would say. While she jumped in with both feet, without even knowing how to swim well enough. “You didn’t learn to swim until last year?” I ask instead.

Goosebumps break out all over my skin, but I’m not leaving her to go grab a towel. The sun will warm me up soon enough, and if it doesn’t, I’ll stand here and freeze. I don’t care.

“Yeah.”

“How did I not know that you—?” I stop myself. “What kid doesn’t know how to swim?” I ask instead, super intelligently, as per usual.

“It’s not something you’re born with, is it?” she sounds defensive. Have I mentioned that I’m an idiot?

“I mean, what kind of parents…?” Nope, making it worse. She bites down her lip, hard. “Sorry,” I mumble helplessly, “sorry.”

I blink and, for a second, she’s the girl from four years ago. Shoulders hunched, a haunted look in her eyes, her lips pale and trembling. Trying to make herself small enough to disappear. Fierce hatred for whoever did this to her floods my soul. Until now, I had seen that she’s changed, but I don’t think I had realized just how much she has changed, how much she’s blossomed, opened up like a flower.

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