Page 46 of The Space Between Heartbeats
“Sounds like you need a drink.” She grabbed my hand, led me to a table where champagne bottles were sitting in ice buckets, and poured me a generous glass. “Drink up.”
I drank. Then drank some more. The champagne was cold and crisp and exactly what I needed to face the reality that Knox was somewhere at this party. I could handle the looks from everyone else, they didn’t matter. But I needed liquid courage if I was going to see him.
“Come on,” Rachel said, pulling me toward the pool. “Take off your cover up. Let’s swim before you get too tipsy.”
I took a cleansing breath and tossed my black cover up onto a chair, before following her down the stone steps into the shallow end. This bikini was my favorite when I bought it last summer—I loved the cherry pattern and the cutaways at the hips. But now, it’s a size too small, and the strings are fraying.
The water was perfect, cool and refreshing. My nerves simmered down with each minute. I think the humidity was getting to me, on top of everything else.
I sunk down, letting myself feel weightless and free. When I surfaced, Rachel was calling over a group of guys who were treading water while holding beers, near the deep end. Some of them looked familiar, and I tried to turn away, but Rachel grabbed my arm in a surprisingly strong grip.
“Guys, this is Sawyer. We’ve been friends since, like, middle school.”
“I know who she is,” one of them said. It was Brett Dalton. Lacrosse player, trust fund kid, objectively attractive in that country club preppy way. He smiled at me, but there was a hint of pity in his eyes.
Yup, he knows what my father did. Everyone knows, probably.
Two of the other guys said hi, friendly in that same way Brett was being. Rachel started telling them a story about one of our escapades in high school, when Brett pulled me aside.
“You want a drink?” He gestured to a cooler on the edge of the pool. “There’s beer, White Claw?—”
“She’s good.”
The voice came from behind me, and every muscle in my body went rigid.
I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Knox. But I did anyway, because apparently I was a glutton for punishment.
He stood at the edge of the pool in dark board shorts, his arms crossed over his bare tanned chest. I hadn’t seen himwithout a shirt since last summer and somehow in that time he’s become a man. Turning twenty must have done it. Now he had these broad shoulders and defined muscles that hadn’t been there before, and there was this confidence in the way he held himself that made my face flush. His dark hair was wet and slicked back from his face, and his eyes were narrowed at me.
I desperately wished I had the bottle of champagne.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” I said, not really loud enough for anyone to hear me.
“Derek invited me.” His gaze flicked to Rachel, then back to me. A muscle in his jaw jumped, the way it always did when he was angry. “I didn’t realize we were letting just anyone into parties now.”
Rachel’s eyes went wide. “Knox?—”
“I’m kidding.”
Yeah, right. His expression didn’t look like he was kidding. There was nothing playful or warm in his eyes. Just a cold appraisal, like I was a piece of shit he found floating in the pool.
His gaze clashed with mine for another long moment as I tried to read him, as I tried to find some semblance of the old Knox still there. I was about to say something, anything to break the awkward tension, when he dove into the pool without another word.
I watched him cut through the water with powerful strokes, putting as much distance between us as possible. It was clear he couldn’t stand to be near me, like even breathing the same air as me was offensive.
Good. Let him leave.
But with my luck, he didn’t leave, he swam to the far end and hoisted himself out near the diving board where another group was gathered, including Owen.
Owen spotted me at the same moment and his face lit up. He always made me feel better, like I was able to walk on steady ground.
Sometimes I’d wonder how he was so kind after everything. He texted me every single day after the scandal broke. He drove hours from school just to take me to lunch and make sure I was okay. He’s never once made me feel like my father’s mistakes were somehow mine to carry.
Owen patted a guy on the back before jumping into the pool and swimming toward me. I watched him cut through the water for a second but movement near the diving board caught my attention.
Knox put his arm around a gorgeous girl. Someone I’d never seen before. She had long dark hair, a perfect body in an expensive bikini, gold bracelets that glittered in the sunset. She was the kind of effortless beauty that made my fraying bikini strings and grown out roots feel even more pathetic. She laughed at something he said, leaning into him, and he didn’t pull away.
Heat spread through my limbs despite the cool water. This burning that made me want to flee and fight at the same time. To swim over there and shove her into the deep end or disappear from this party, this town, this world.
