Torrential (5 page)

“I’m sure I’ll survive,” I smile. “I play really well with others. Oh. Wait. That didn’t sound perverted, did it? Ugh. I take it back.”

I’m not sure, but I think I see the ghost of a smile on his face before his inscrutable expression returns. He turns away abruptly. “Fine.”

“Fine?” I barely dare to breathe. “Just like that?”

“I hardly have a choice, do I?” And with that, he strides off by himself, his limp growing slightly less pronounced. This time, I let him go. I’m too busy being shocked that he actually said yes.
I guess I didn’t really expect him to—I wouldn’t have told anyone about this either way.

I stand on the path for a few minutes, letting the breeze melt the tension from my shoulders, until I see Sebastian get safely into his building. I’m about to follow until I remember something. I dart back ou
t onto the beach, scanning the sand until I see it—his sweatshirt. He forgot it. I’ll give it to him tomorrow. It’ll be an excuse for me to find him and make sure he’s doing okay.

I’m freezing, so I wrap it around my shoulders as I walk back toward my building, surprised at how nice it smells.

CHAPTER THREE

SEBASTIAN

Why?

The question won’
t stop circling in my skull. I lie in bed, staring into the darkness. The pain in my arm and leg has faded, but my chest still burns. Like I swallowed fire instead of saltwater. My head still feels weightless. I wonder if I am dead, and I dreamed it. Dreamed her.

She saved my life.

I grit my teeth. My hand closes compulsively into a fist. Pathetic. I am pathetic. Helpless, dying, and she saw. I’ve prided myself on needing no one, and now I needed this idiotic girl to live.

I won’t be seeing my mother after all.

The
why?
returns. This girl. May. May is her name. I was rude to her. Sharp. Merciless. But she saved me. Put her own life in danger to retrieve mine. Cried when I woke up, when death lost its grip on me.

How is that possible?

If I were years younger and eons stupider, I’d say that she cares. But I’m not worth caring about. I learned that a long time ago. So—something else. She wants something. That has to be it. But what could she get out of saving my life late at night, where no one would see, and swearing to tell no one about it?

She’s strange. An abnormality.

But things will return to normal. I’m not worried about the promise I made her. Spending the semester with her and Tanner—apparently she’s friends with that loser—will never happen. Tanner would never put up with it. And once she speaks to me again, she’ll realize who I am. She’ll leave, like everyone else.

It’s safer that way.

I’ll have to be careful. Scare her away. Be cold. I can’t ignore that involuntary brush of tenderness I felt when she helped me walk. I have to eradicate that. I can’t let her get close. It’s for her own good.

A normal girl
should have nothing to do with me.

MAY

I sleepwalk through my first day of classes, darting into every classroom with the hope of seeing Sebastian, but I never do. His sweatshirt hangs slightly out of my open bag. I have to find him for several reasons—to give it back, to make sure he’s okay, and to tell him what I said last night was just a stupid joke.

What was I thinking? I can’t blackmail someone into being friends with me. After a night of thinking about it, I realized that
Opal’s bet was probably a drunken joke that I was too tired to recognize. Most likely, Sebastian’s disgusted with me. My stomach twists itself into knots all through Intro to International Relations. This time, I’m trying a major in Economics and a minor in International Relations. I’ve switched majors like five times. I guess I’m indecisive.

The moment I ste
p out of class, my phone rings—the crappy new track phone I ran out and bought before classes. It’s Mom. “Hello!”

“Hi, baby!” She
sounds more cheerful than I’ve ever heard her. This could be a good thing or a bad thing. If it’s a bad thing, she’s gone back to gambling and had a big win last night. If it’s a good thing… “I have something amazing to tell you. But first—how’s Rothschild?”

I rattle off a few quick details—the campus is gorgeous, Tanner
’s happy, my roommate seems okay. “Seriously, though, what’s the news?”

She draws out a pause. I can almost see her smiling to herself. “Well…Durringham International called me. They said they found my portfolio online and that they’ll have a job opening at the beginning of December and—would I be interested?”

My heart flies into my throat.

“Isn’t that great?” Mom falters a little at my silence. “They seemed really serious.”

“It’s definitely great.” I work around the lump in my throat. “I’m so excited for you.”

She chatters on delightedly for a few more minutes about Durringham International and how they’d be the perfect company for her, and then lets me go. I stare at my phone, letting students stream past me in the hallway.
Opal did this. It wasn’t a joke.

Is she going to take it away if I don’t do what she asks? I see my mom’s face falling. She couldn’t handle that kind of disappointment.

I ask around, but nobody knows what class Sebastian’s in. What they do know is that there’s a swim meet tonight, and he’ll definitely be there. When I hear that, my chest swells with anger. That idiot. He needs rest, not to swim races.

That night after dinner, I haul Tanner towards the pool. He stumbles after me. “May? You can’t swim now. They’
re having a meet.”

“That’s exactly the point.” I try to sound light and not suspicious. “I always used to watch the swim meets at my old school. I want to see.”

Tanner stops to fix his hair in the library window, and I have to pull him along. “As long as this isn’t about you wanting to drool over Sebastian.”

I’m a terrible liar, so I play it safe and stay silent. I haven’t told him what happened last night. Tanner would kill me three times if he knew I did something so dangerous. As far as he knows, I went back to my room and crashed with
Opal.

The pool is completely transformed from yesterday. Bright florescent lights highlight the water, and the room is full of noise. The tall rows of bleachers on either side of the pool are almost completely full, students wearing our colors—silver and blue—and the opposing school’s, which are apparently red and yellow. The flashing scoreboard lists names and times. Apparently we’ve missed the first few swimmers, but Crane is still low on the list.

And then I see him.

Our team is in a cluster on the far end of the pool, squeezed together on poolside benches with their bags and Gatorade bottles on a pile of towels. They’re laughing and jostling each other. Sebastian sits a ways off by himself, standing with his back against the wall and his arms crossed. He looks like he’s managed to filter out all the sound, and he’s staring intently at the pool.

I can’t believe he’s going to swim after what happened last night. I want to march over there and drag him off, but that would be a little conspicuous, especially in front of Tanner, who’s asking where I want to sit. Reluctantly, I find an empty space on one of the first few rows of bleachers.

We watch a couple rounds, Tanner shifting in boredom. None of the other swimmers are as g
ood as Sebastian, and I think Sebastian knows it. He’s got a hint of a smirk. I can’t watch him too much or Tanner will notice, but my eyes keep finding him. He’s by himself, but he doesn’t look ostracized. He looks like he’s in control.

Maybe I was wrong about him being lonely.

When his name is called, I lean forward involuntarily. He has no trace of a limp as he approaches the diving board, his shoulders set and the smirk still there. For the first time, a hush falls over the pool room. The swimmers lining up at the other lanes look intimidated.

“Knowles, Tyler, Bennett, and Crane,” booms the announcer.

Sebastian crouches on the diving board, wound like a spring. His eyes narrow. He looks like a tiger with a singular purpose—to attack. I realize I’m holding my breath. Beside me, Tanner slouches back and rolls his eyes.

The announcer counts down, and Sebastian dives, shooting into the water like a javelin. In seconds he’s far ahead of the other swimmers. When I first saw him practicing—that was nothing. He’s actually trying his hardest now. It’s amazing. I can barely follow him, he moves so fast. All I can catch is a flash, here and there, of a toned arm.

I barely have time to worry about his leg before the race is over, and he’s won. By a lot. The announcer can’t hide the awe in his voice as he reads out the times. But there’s no cheering, only a few uncertain claps. The hush is still there, and I think that’s the way Sebastian likes it. His smirk is even larger as he gets out of the water and strides toward the locker room, his body glistening.

It’s now or never.

“I’ll be back. Bathroom,” I tell Tanner and slip away before he can say anything. I leave the pool room. Outside the double doors, the roar is reduced to a dull rumble. I slip around the side of the hallway and—oh. It’s the boy’s locker room, isn’t it. My cheeks immediately get warm, but I tell myself it’s only for a minute and push open the doors.

There are towels everywhere, but it’s empty. All the team members are outside. Where is he? I scan the half-open lockers, the damp tile floor. Then I notice that there’s steam pourin
g from behind one of the white shower curtains. I hear the rush of water. I take a couple steps toward it and then realize that I very obviously can’t interrupt him while he’s showering.

I turn to go, but there’s a puddle in front of me and my foot slips. I skid a couple feet, twist wildly to catch myself, but I’m already falling and I seize the nearest thing in front of me—an off-white shower curtain. There’s a ripping sound and a bang, and suddenly the world is muffled in white.

Then the white is pulled back, and I’m blinking up at a very naked Sebastian, hot water and steam surrounding him.

I scramble back, stammering something that doesn’t make sense, and I can’t
help but gape for a few seconds at his narrow waist and broad shoulders, every inch of his skin defined.

And his—
whoa
.

He turns off the water. “Let me know how long you’re going to stare. I have other things to do.”

I make an incomprehensible squeaking sound, try to get up, tangle myself in the shower curtain, and fall on my face again. I’m going to die of embarrassment. Scientists will examine my body and say
yes, it was definitely embarrassment
.

I’m supposed to be in college, not middle school. I have to get it together.

He sighs and draws a towel from the shower rack, knotting it around his hips before kneeling in front of me. He unwraps the shower curtain from my ankles and actually takes my hand, lifting me to my feet, which is helpful, because I’m fairly certain I don’t remember how legs work. “You have a habit of getting yourself into stupid situations, I see.”

“I’m sorry—I—came to give you your sweatshirt back,” I say lamely, tugging it out of my bag and thrusting it at him. It’s soaking wet. He catches it with that same flash of surprise I saw after I told him I’d pulled him out of the water yesterday.

I take a few deep breaths, trying to get my head screwed back on. “How’s your leg? I didn’t realize you were planning on swimming today too, especially after last night.”

He tosses his head to shake his bangs out of his eyes. “You do realize this is the men’s room.”

How does he manage to swing me from humiliated beyond belief to infuriated in half a second? “I know it’s the men’s room! It was empty apart from you, so…”

“So you decided the best thing to do would be to attack me while I was in the shower.”

“I tripped!” I protest, completely flustered. “I just—you left your sweatshirt on the beach and I figured I should return it. And…I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He raises an eyebrow at me like he didn’t almost die last night. He steps past me, taking another towel and drying his face and hair. “Stop bothering me.”

I struggle for some way to explain myself, to excuse the fact that I just nearly toppled onto him while he was…agh. “You know, you could be a little nicer to me. I’m not saying you owe me anything, but I did save your life. I wouldn’t be opposed to a thank you.”

He slips the towel over his shoulder and glances at himself in the mirror, which is thick with steam. He mutters something that I’m not totally certain I catch, but it
sounds a hell of a lot like, “No sane person would thank you for saving someone like me.”

What?

“We’re going out tonight,” I blurt.

He’s silent, but I’ve already said it, and whether it was an accident or not I might as well keep going. “
I’m new here and my friend’s said there’s some really good clubs around. I’ve been wanting to check them out. You can even pick, if you want. Either way, we’re going. You should celebrate winning today, right?”