“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation,” he mumbled, paddling away from me.
I flipped over a little to stick one foot in the air, a naked foot. “But see, I lost them both, they’re at the bottom of the lake now, which I really didn’t think about ahead of time, had I paused for even five seconds before slamming into you I would have taken them off.” I stuck my foot back underwater and swam a little closer. “They’re my aspirational shoes, after all.”
“I don’t give a damn about your shoes,” he said, turning his back to me and stroking toward the boat dock. But he hadn’t gone very far when he suddenly turned around, the water swirling with him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Just then, an enormous round of applause erupted from above, and as we looked skyward we saw three levels of the hotel, crammed onto their porches and balconies, watching us and cheering. The cheering, of course, led by my peanut gallery.
“For God’s sake,” he grunted, turning away from me once more and swimming away.
“Hey, hey!” I shouted, stroking smoothly through the water. “Where are you going, come back here!”
He swam faster, I swam faster. He headed for the boat dock, but when he saw the recreation guys and not a small amount of guests now crowding in between the canoes to watch what was happening, he made a sharp right turn and headed out into the middle of the lake.
Toward the swimming platform.
I’d been right about Archie all along. He was a swimmer. And right now he was like a wet blur, he was moving so fast through the water. For every two strokes I was giving it, he was giving it four. He was gliding smoothly, clipping along at a ridiculous pace, but I wasn’t giving up. Fuck that.
I put on a burst of speed, eye on the prize.
“Stop chasing me,” he called back.
“Stop swimming, then,” I shouted, not pausing at all.
“This is insane! You’re insane!” he yelled back, flipping easily over onto his back and not even losing a stroke.
“Says the guy making me chase him!”
“Unbelievable,” I heard him say as he reached the platform and hauled himself up effortlessly. I put my head down and made like a torpedo, swimming straight for him.
When I got there, he was standing at the edge, water dripping off his glorious body. For a split second, he stood between me and the sun. I stayed in the water, in his shadow, his silhouette painted across my wet skin. I could see his face now, so beautiful, so angry. His eyes were like two iced blueberries. Fuck, I love this man.
I pulled myself out of the water, my dress sticking to me everywhere, and stood next to him.
“You want to explain to me exactly what the hell is going on here?”
“Yes. I love you.”
“I mean, what kind of a stunt was that, you threw us off a balcony, for God’s sake, Clara, you could have gotten hurt!”
“Worth it. I love you.”
“What the hell kind of a person does something like that?”
“This person. I love you.”
He started to ask me another question, but I stopped him with my mouth. I launched myself once more at him, jumping into his arms whether he was ready for me or not and kissed him square on the lips. He fell backward onto the platform, taking me with him, and I landed on his whistle.
“I can’t believe you’re still wearing this.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking about my whistle.”
“I can’t believe you blew that thing all the way down.”
“I can’t believe that you— Goddammit, no! No, you don’t get to do this again, you don’t get to one-up me in the middle of a lake.” He tried to sit up, but I pulled him back down.
“Too late, I love you.”
“Stop saying that,” he yelled, leaning up on his elbows, bracing himself over me.
“I can’t. I love you. I love you. I love you.” He tried to sit up once more, but I wrapped my feet around his thighs and tugged him back down. “I’ve never said that to anyone in my entire life, and I’m finding that I love saying I love you to you.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said, his face still full of exasperation, but his voice was somehow softer now, somehow not as angry. “Please don’t say it again.”
“Archie,” I said, as the water from his auburn hair dripped down onto me, “I can’t stop saying it because I do. And I came here today expressly to tell you that I do. I was a stupid jerk who left because I couldn’t handle what I was feeling. I loved you then, of course I did, but I couldn’t say it. I’ve loved you every day since I left and I love you right now. I feel better when I’m around you, I am better when I’m around you. I don’t like my life without you in it. I quit my job. I bought a stupid car. I jumped off a fucking porch on the Fourth of July because I love you and I couldn’t stand one more second on this earth without your arms around me.”
He was silent. I still had my ankles locked around him, not letting him go.
“And something else.” I took a breath, but found that my chest didn’t hurt so much, not like it used to. “My mother went to prison when I was six years old. Before that happened, I’d been taken away from her three times because of her drug use. When she finally went to prison, I went back into foster care because there was literally no one else who wanted me. I never knew my father, her parents were dead, I had no uncles or aunts or cousins or anything. There was nowhere for me to go. And when she got out of prison, she never came back for me. She overdosed a year later, I didn’t find out until I was thirteen. I was with seven different foster families before I turned eighteen and was then on my own. I never looked back. I’ve spent my life knowing that no one ever wanted me, and that was how I made sure my life stayed. No attachments, no roots, no real home, no real traditions. I took care of myself, and that was it. The idea of depending on someone else, of having to need someone else, was nothing I ever allowed myself to do, because if someone else walked away from me, I would break.”
“Clara,” he said, his eyes full.
“But it’s okay,” I said, reaching up and swooping his hair back. “I can tell you all of this now because I’m not embarrassed anymore. I’m not my past, I’m my present. And my future is wide fucking open. I can make whatever kind of life I want for myself, and the life that I want for myself is with you, only with you. Everything, all of it, right down to your antiques and your Archie Special and your freckles and your stupid pointy whistle, I want it. Because I love you, I love you so much, I love you with my entire heart. And until you, there was nothing in it. You’ve literally filled up my entire heart.” I held his face in my hands. “My heart, if you want it, is yours.”
He was silent once more. I barely breathed. Would he? Could he?
Finally, his eyes closed. And he lowered his forehead to mine. “I can’t believe you threw us off a balcony.”