“You weren’t here for the lecture; you can’t just get in the water!” Zarar says.

The girl wades farther in, yelling back to him, “I’m fine, Zarar. I’ve read the safety manual!” She yelps as the water level rises. “SHIT, THIS IS COLD! Shit, shit, shit!”

She climbs into my boat, right over the bow. Her hands brace against the edges and she steps in, landing in a crouch while I watch like a dumbfounded deer.

“What are you doing? Stop! Go get your own! Leave me alone!” I find myself shrieking as half the lake falls off of her with a freezing splash and settles into the bottom of the boat.

She grins as I scream at her, casually situating herself on the plank opposite of mine.

“Are you absolutely insane?” I spit. “Zarar is still yelling at you from the shore!”

She doesn’t even turn around. She keeps smiling like she’s amused. Like we’re friends. “Then we should paddle out farther so we can’t hear him.” The momentum of her climbing in has sent us considerably farther out already.

I gape at her. Something about her is … unsettling. Probably the blue nose ring.

Now that she’s so close, I can tell she’s around my age. She doesn’t look … threatening. The bits of her wavy shoulder-length hair that aren’t splayed upward toward the heavens in the fountain are sticking out in every direction around her face.

We’re drifting outward now with the current. Should I row us back? I glance over her shoulder at the beach. Zarar is watching, but he’s no longer shouting.

I turn back to the girl. “I don’t want you in my canoe. I’d like you to leave me alone. I reported you to Terry this morning.”

Her lip curls back in a weird little snarl. “You reported me to Terry?”

“Yes, you violated my personal space.”

Her eyes are kind of familiar.

She blinks. “Siri, you ran into me!”

I look away and cycle through a row. And then another, trying to suffocate the unexpected onslaught of anxiety rising in my chest. I focus on the burn in my shoulders. “I said I was fine and you didn’t leave! I don’t like talking to people. I wanted you to leave me alone and you didn’t and it was weird and now you’ve hijacked my canoe!”

“Do you really not recognize me?” Her voice sounds raw.

I squint, pulling the oars through the water again because if I stop, I know the panic will get me. Why am I getting so anxious? I was angry before. She’s just a girl. A girl with familiar eyes. And terrible fashion sense.

She looks confused, and sad. And then her eyes go blank. “Dude, we really need to talk.” Her fingers fiddle with her overall clasps like she pushed the emotions from her face to her fingertips.