How had I managed to never hear his voice (outside of my dream, that is) before yesterday? Maybe the teachers had been going easy on him for his first days of classes at a new school, but now it seemed like every single one of them was part of a conspiracy to make me break my resolution. They all called on him at least once the rest of the day.

Hearing him behind me sent increasing strata of tingles over my flesh each time. I kept my legs tightly crossed under my desk, my teeth all but permanently clenched. The tension in the air was almost unbearable. I wondered if anyone else could feel it. Like at any moment he might suddenly say something nasty about me out of nowhere. I knew I was probably just psyching myself out, but I wouldn’t put it past him. If yesterday had been any indication, despite his usual strong-silent-type routine, when he did open his mouth, he apparently didn’t have much of a filter. Especially where I was concerned.

By the time school was out for the week, I was exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to just crash and forget all about the past five days. My parents attempted to goad me into watching a movie with them, Mom wheedling me with a batch of her homemade apple cider that she was perfecting for the annual Portsmouth Pumpkin Festival the weekend after next, but I just didn’t have the energy to deal with them, and I managed to escape.

Typical Andi Slate, in bed by 9:30 p.m. on a Friday night. At least I was too tired to spend much time stressing over the dreaded pool party. But the weariness didn’t keep me from dreaming about him.

Of course.

~*~*~*~

Saturday afternoon found me staring at the three bathing suits I owned as they lay splayed across my bed. I’d known about Jerrid’s party since the first week of school, and had been planning to wear my white sundress with the navy-style buckles on the straps and the little embroidered anchor on the pleated skirt. It would have been the perfect goodbye-to-summer outfit paired with my rope-heeled wedges. I hadn’t even considered bringing a bathing suit. I certainly wouldn’t be swimming at the party.

When it came to water, I was all oil. We just didn’t mix. Swimming was simply something I did not do. It was kind of ironic considering my parents’ life vocation and where we lived, but the dark truth was that the ocean terrified me.

There’s a word for people like me: Thalassophobic. And I was a textbook example. When I was a kid, I used to have nightmares about being swallowed up by stormy waves, devoured by serpentine sea monsters or drowning under my parents’ research boat while they were too busy with their binoculars and notebooks to notice I’d even slipped off.