Diving In (Open Door Love Story) Read online

  Diving In

  By

  Stacey Wallace Benefiel

  Published by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

  Copyright 2014 by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Steven Novak

  www.Novakillustration.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  For K.C.H.

  It was easy

  Chapter One

  Three-ish years ago…

  I take a deep, measured drag off the joint. The sounds of the paper burning and the seeds popping are exaggerated out here in the woods, on this dry, splintered dock, stretching out into the Chandlers’ man-made fishing pond.

  I’m avoiding the Labor Day pool party back at the Chandler mansion. Mom made me come here – leave it to me to have the only parent that wants her kid to go to a kegger. Socializing is not my bag.

  The whole scene is very John Hughes ’80s movie. A giggle bubbles up and out of my mouth. Chet. How much more awesome would life be if Travis Chandler was Chet Chandler? I’d wager that it would be the awesomest. The most rad and boss and cool thing evah. Travis even looks like a Chet – clean cut and blocky.

  Okay, I’m baked enough for a swim.

  I pinch out the end of the joint and stand up, pushing it into the corner of my shorts pocket. I kick my ratty white Old Navy flip flops off, so clean at the beginning of the summer, and now they’re disgusting. Good thing they cost two dollars. Light blue shorts, also Old Navy, removed and carefully folded as to avoid joint lossage, and finally I strip off my plain white Men’s Hanes t-shirt.

  “Why do you have to dress like a lesbo, Brynn? Honestly, honey, you’re such a beautiful girl,” I mutter in my mother’s voice, rolling my eyes now, because I didn’t when she’d said it to me as she dropped me off at the party. I hadn’t done or said anything. It’s best to just block her nonsense out. Something my brother isn’t as good at doing, but he’ll be escaping her soon enough again, going back to Eugene and the U of O and his new life. One that’s his own.

  Mom will focus on me now that she doesn’t have Liam to pick on. Now that we both know things about my brother … she’s going to want to make sure I turn out “right” more than ever.

  I have a game plan, though. Phase one is complete. Freshman year, I made the swim team and did just well enough not to get kicked off, but not so great as to draw any attention to myself. As a sophomore, I’ll acquire a boyfriend. Someone long-term. Someone Mom will approve of. The male version of Liam’s girlfriend, Ari. A person that Mom can brag about to all of her friends and I can tolerate.

  Once he’s returned to Eugene, out of the Boise bubble, will Liam still tolerate Ari? Does Liam realize he only tolerates her now?

  Buzz kill. I run my hands down the smooth front of my swimsuit, a plain red Speedo, which I’ve worn in lieu of underwear most of the summer. I swim on the down low. I swim every chance I get. Because I secretly love it and I’m secretly really freaking good at it.

  I look around for a tree to stash my clothes in, ’cause with my luck some rich asshole will think it’s hi-larious to take my shit. I spot an oak with a V I can reach and nestle my stuff in.

  There’s a metal ladder attached to the side of the dock, but I forego it and cannonball in, noting that the water isn’t nearly as deep as I thought it was. I can easily push off the sandy bottom.

  The water is pretty warm, owing to the heat wave we’ve been having. I swim out from the dock to the middle of the pond and roll over onto my back, floating there, ears under the water, my long brown hair medusaing out from my head, my eyes on the clear blue, mostly cloudless sky above me.

  The world falls away and I’m weightless.

  ~

  I’m swimming back to the dock when Travis Chandler sets foot on the far end of it, holding up a very drunk Izzy Sundall. I’ve known her since kindergarten and I am not surprised either to see her with Travis or that she’s smashed. She’s one of those pretty blond girls that thinks being pretty and sexy is all they’ve got going for them. I remember she was great at drawing flowers – especially irises.

  They stop in the middle of the dock and start kissing. He’s got his sausage-y hands all over her. They’re oblivious to me, but I still feel awkward popping out of the water and being all like, “Hey, don’t mind me,” so I grab hold of the ladder and hope they decide to find another place to do it or at the very least don’t make a bunch of gross noises I have to endure.

  No such luck. Things continue on, weird moaning and Izzy slurring Travis’s name then giggling and trying to say it again.

  “Shhhush,” he whines. “You’re deflating my boner.”

  What a drunk jackhole. Should I help her out? Izzy’s not a horrible person, but she might get embarrassed that I heard Travis shush her and embarrassed people get weird sometimes. She could definitely ruin my plan to stay under the radar sophomore year. She could spread a rumor about me, thinking I would spread a rumor about her.

  “Jesus, Travis,” says a voice I’d recognize anywhere. Gabe Riley. All the girls call him Gabe Fucking Riley, because he’s just … cool. He and Travis are about to be seniors and co-captains of the swim team. Gabe is a rock star talent who’s earned his place in Jefferson High School swim history. Travis is mediocre, but his dad paid for the locker room remodels.

  “What?” Travis says with a laugh. “She’s consenting.”

  The dock creaks and I peek over the edge of it as Gabe approaches Travis. “Bro, I’m not going to let you do this again. Remember how guilty you felt after that girl at Regionals last year? Get control of yourself. You’re better than this.” He reaches over to take Izzy’s arm, but Travis elbows her out of the way. Izzy falls on the dock and launches into a giggling fit.

  Gabe glares at Travis, who’s got a satisfied smirk on his face, and kneels down next to Izzy. “Enough. I don’t even understand why you want to get with drunk girls anyway.”

  Izzy bats Gabe’s offered hand away. “I’msnot druuunk,” Izzy slurs.

  “And I don’t get why you think you’re God’s gift, factory trash.” Travis is just on the cusp of slurring his words too.

  Gabe’s dad works for Travis’s at Chandler Chips – lots of my classmates’ parents do. Travis is pretty much the only person dumb enough to call someone factory trash. I mean, my family runs a chain of dry cleaners. No shame in working for a living.

  Gabe ignores the burn and pulls a reluctant Izzy to her feet. He looks at her, concern flush on his face. “Travis will have sex with you and then freeze you out. You’re not getting keys to the castle here. He doesn’t like you or think you’re special. Don’t you have friends back at the party who are wondering where you are?”

  Izzy seems to sober up a bit and sucks a gasp of a breath in. “Yesh.” She takes a step with Gabe and I’m so relieved that she’s going to get away and that I didn’t have to intervene, I miss Travis drawing back
his fist and launching a punch at Gabe’s jaw.

  It connects and makes a super gross crunching sound. Izzy yelps and drops Gabe’s hand as he falls sideways, cracking his neck on the edge of the dock.

  He doesn’t move.

  He doesn’t get up and fight back.

  Izzy starts trying to run, stumbling forward, catching herself and then she’s off the dock and on the path back to Travis’s house.

  Travis freaks and yells, “come back” after Izzy, but lets her go. When he gets down next to Gabe and feels for a pulse in his neck, I move as silently as I can from the ladder to the front of the dock, thankful I’m in the water, because I am pissing myself that Gabe is dead.

  “Shiiiiiiiiiit,” Travis drawls, his voice panicked, and then I hear him grunting, moving what have to be Gabe’s legs across the dry splintered wood, the material from his cargo shorts scratching and catching on the splinters.

  Travis is dragging Gabe somewhere? All the way back to the party? It’s killing me not to be able to see what’s going—

  Gabe’s body rolls over my head and past my face into the pond. I back up under the dock, praying that Travis doesn’t wait forever to make sure Gabe is well and truly drowned.

  He doesn’t. The instant I hear him retreating, I’m horking in a huge breath and ducking under the water, swimming toward Gabe.

  It’s late afternoon and the sun isn’t directly overhead illuminating the cloudy pond water, but I can make Gabe out, already resting on the sandy bottom.

  I’m an average sized fifteen-year-old girl and Gabe is already eighteen, a full-grown man. There’s no question, though, that I will be able to get him to the surface, because I have to. We’re both gonna survive this and we’re not going to resent the water – the only thing we both live for.

  I feel for Gabe’s head, find it and loop my arm around his neck, grabbing hold of his armpit. His head rests against my chest at a weird angle, and I know what that means, but I’m not accepting that either. I take us up. I kick off the bottom and pull us through the water with my left arm.

  We break the surface and I roll to my back, laying Gabe on my chest as I kick and fight my way to the shore. My feet find purchase and I dig my heels in, dragging our bodies backward through the mud. It takes years, decades, my whole life to get there, but then I feel the scratch of sandy crab grass against my ripped up palm and I know we’re going to be okay.

  I collapse onto the ground and look up into Travis Chandler’s horrified face. “What’re you doing? Where were you … hiding under the dock, I guess?”

  “You were gone,” I say, my voice trembling and sounding strange in my ears.

  “No, I, I had to get closer to the house to get a cell signal. I had to call 9-1-1 and tell them that Gabe got drunk and dove into the pond and drowned.” Travis is pacing like mad and spitting when he talks.

  I inch my fingertips up Gabe’s chest to his neck and feel for his pulse. It’s faint, but I can detect it. “He’s still alive.”

  Travis’s face falls. “What? Oh, Jesus. No.” He reaches down and roughly shoves his hands under Gabe’s arms, yanking him off me and out of the water. He lays Gabe’s body down and I flip over and crawl to him, hovering instinctually.

  Travis pushes me out of the way. “Get the hell out of here. You say anything to anyone about this…”

  I can hear Travis threatening me, saying that he knows my brother’s secret, but I’m burying that deep inside. My gaze slips back to Gabe. I shouldn’t leave him here.

  “The paramedics are coming!” Travis stands up, walking toward the house and the approaching sirens. “If you’re still here…”

  I scramble to my feet, my legs wobbling like crazy, my breath choking down a sob, and then I think, “This is traumatic. This is going to change my life.”

  And I can’t tell anyone.

  Running for the oak tree, I grab my stuff from the V and take off through the woods, away from the house, unsure of where I’m going.

  Chapter Two

  The alarm on my phone goes off and I roll over in my twin bed to grab it off the nightstand. I forego checking out the two drunken texts from Andy and peruse Facebook instead. My newsfeed is full of acquaintances (Andy’s friends) consta-posting pictures from “totes crazy” parties or bitching about how lame Writing 121 is.

  My phone vibrates in my hand and another text from Andy pops up. All right already. I don’t read the other two and go straight to the new one.

  Sry abt drunk txting U agn. Luv U. Miss U. C U n 3 wks! Cnt wait to help U brk n ur new apt. ;)

  Because there’s nothing hotter than unfulfilling sex in a twin bed.

  Love you too. Hope you aren’t having too much fun without me!

  Not that I really care what Andy, or anyone from our graduating class is doing. Because I’m not doing it. I’m not living in the dorms with a weird-smelling roommate. I’m not hooking up with FRA (Future Rapists of America) at keggers. I’m not smoking weed and cutting class three months into the fall term.

  Nope. I’m sleeping alone in a twin bed in a stifling apartment situated above one of my family’s dry cleaning stores near downtown Boise. I’m “taking a year off.” I’m “finding myself.” I’m learning the ropes of the dry cleaning biz, even though I’ve been working here since I was tall enough to take in clothes over the counter. I’m … not knowing what the hell I’m doing on every level.

  I toss the phone back onto the nightstand and throw my light covers off. The floor of my apartment is toasty warm as per usual, even though it’s another dank November morning. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, my mom’s family owns the building and I live here rent-free. I could’ve had to live at home during my epic journey of self-discovery. At least I have my own space. My own refrigerator. My own shower. My own window overlooking a crumbling asphalt parking lot.

  I turn the shower on. Ironically, it takes a while to heat up. I go over to the kitchenette to get the coffee pot going. Taking a pack of Oreos down from the top of the fridge, I cram one into my mouth and call it breakfast.

  Over at my closet, I pull out a white button-down blouse and black pants, the same thing I wear every day I work, and lay them on my never-made bed.

  I yank Andy’s swim team captain t-shirt off over my head, throw it near the top of the bed, and quickly walk naked to the bathroom. I’ve lived here since August and have yet to put up curtains in my one window. In truth, I maybe get a little thrill that someone sees my daily two- second streak.

  I realize this is idiotic and inviting some perv to get the wrong idea. But it’s my only excitement at the moment. Pathetic.

  ~

  Junnuen greets me at the back door of the cleaners and I hand her our tall travel mugs of black coffee while I unlock the deadbolts. She gives me my drink back and I hold the door open for her. Junnuen has worked at this location for over a decade as a presser and is the best in the business. She taught both me and my older brother, Liam, how to press and iron like a boss. She’s also never bothered to learn English, which makes her an awesome co-worker for someone like me who doesn’t really like talking. I prefer to be alone and live in my head – it’s so much more pleasant there.

  Junnuen goes to her area and switches the presser on. I go around the building turning on the lights and getting the POS running.

  I get all the tickets that are due for the day and compare them with the bags we have listed underneath the Thursday tag on the rack. Everything corresponds, because I could do this with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back. I unlock the front door, turn on the open sign, and pull up the blinds that cover the windowed storefront.

  After a few hours of taking clothes in, sorting them, applying button covers, bagging, tagging, and sending clean clothes back out in to the world, it’s break time. Junnuen comes to get my coffee mug from the front. Since we don’t have a break room downstairs, we alternate turns taking our lunch in my apartment. Yeah, I live in a glorified break room.

  I park it on a
stool up front and enjoy a little break of my own. I check my phone – no new texts, and Facebook is just as boring as it was earlier in the day.

  The front door squeaks a bit as it opens and I look up. Gabe Riley is trying to get his wheelchair around the door while holding it open, and there’s not enough room between where the door swings out and the concrete parking space thing for his chair to fit through. He pushes the door closed just as I get up to go help him, and wheels past it, opens it behind himself and backs into the store, knocking into the little plastic trashcan we keep by the door.

  “Hey,” I say, going over to right the trashcan.

  He flips his golden blond hair out of his green eyes and grimaces at me. “Sorry. If your door opened in, it’d be easi—”

  The tablecloth that he’s holding in his lap starts slipping and before I know what I’m doing, I’m leaning over his chair, grabbing at the fabric and inadvertently getting a handful of his junk.

  All time stops in the way it does when I do something embarrassing, and I can feel him looking at me.

  Gabe clears his throat. “You know, even though I can’t really feel it, I can see what you’re doing.” A little puff of air escapes from between his lips as he laughs, and it warms my cheek.

  I back away from him, scurrying behind the counter and dragging the tablecloth with me. Oh my God. I inhale deeply and look him in the eye.

  “So, yeah, we’re just going to pretend like that didn’t happen, right?” I say.

  His eyes hold mine, still amused. “Well, you can forget about it if you want, but I’d rather not. That’s the most action I’ve seen in years.”

  Since his “accident.” I’ve long ago pretended that didn’t happen too, at least my part in it.

  I sift through the scrunched up tablecloth and start marking the stained areas with blue masking tape so I’ll know where to pretreat it later.