"Viv, come on!" The water's not even that deep!"
As Bella jumped on her toes by the pool in the afternoon sun, I squinted to see her. Her pink swimming suit caught the light. I could hear my dad's voice in my head. He said something about staying inside until he got back from his meeting. But it was unbearably hot outside, and Bella had been pleading with me for an hour to go outside.
"We're not supposed to be here without Mom or Dad," I said, but I was already walking toward the pool deck.
"They'll have no idea." Also, you're pretty much an adult now that you're twelve." Bella smiled and showed the space where her front tooth used to be. "Please?" Just for a little while?"
The pool was very long and very blue. It looked appealing. The adults were always watching whenever we came out here, shouting about pool rules and safety. But now it was just us, and the water looked perfect.
"Fine," I said. "But we stay in the shallow end."
Bella's squeal of delight made my chest warm. She was always so happy when I gave in to her ideas.
I slipped into the water first, the coolness running over my skin like relief. Bella followed, but she stayed on the edge, her skinny legs hanging.
"It's so nice," I called to her. "Come on!"
She bit her lip, the way she always did when she was thinking too hard about something. "What if I can't touch the bottom?"
"You can touch right here. Look." I stood up in the shallow end, water barely reaching my chest. "See? It's not deep at all."
But Bella was looking at the deeper end, where the water turned from light blue to dark. "What about over there?"
"That's the deep end, silly. We're not going over there."
"But what if I wanted to? What if I wanted to jump from the diving board?"
I looked at the diving board, then back at my little sister. She was a good swimmer, but she'd never jumped from anything higher than the pool steps.
"You don't want to do that," I said.
"Yes, I do." Her chin jutted out the way it did when she was being stubborn. "I'm not a baby anymore, Viv. I'm nine."
"Nine is still little."
"Is not!"
I sighed and swam closer to her. "Bella, Dad would kill us if he found out we were even in the pool without him. If you jumped from the diving board, " "He won't find out unless you tell him."
Something in her voice made me look at her more carefully. Her eyes were bright with purpose, but there was something else there too. Fear, maybe. Or excitement. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference with Bella.
"I dare you," she said suddenly.
"What?"
"I dare you to jump from the diving board. If you do it, then I'll know it's safe."
I felt my stomach flip. The diving board wasn't that high, but I'd never jumped from it either. Mom and Dad always said we weren't ready.
"That's not how dares work," I said. "You can't dare me to do something and then do it yourself."
"Fine." Bella stood up, water dripping from her legs. "Then I dare myself."
"Bella, no, " But she was already walking toward the diving board, her wet feet slapping against the hot concrete. I rushed out of the pool after her.
"Bella, stop!"
She turned around, and I could see the determination burning in her eyes. "You always treat me like I'm little. But I'm not. I can do things too."
"I know you can, but, "
"Then let me."
I watched her climb the ladder to the diving board, her moves careful but confident. When she reached the top, she turned to look at me, and I saw her swallow hard.
"Maybe we should wait for Dad," I called up to her.
"No." She shook her head. "I want to do this now."
She walked to the edge of the board, her toes curling over the end. The water below looked impossibly far away.
"Bella, please, "
"Will you catch me if I can't swim back up?"
The question hit me like a punch to the chest. "Of course I will. But you're a good swimmer. You don't need me to catch you."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
She nodded, took a deep breath, and jumped.
For a moment, she looked like she was flying. Her arms spread wide, her face scrunched up in focus. Then she hit the water with a splash that sent waves across the entire pool.
I held my breath, counting the seconds. One. Two. Three.
She should have surfaced by now.
"Bella?"
Four. Five. Six.
I jumped in, the water shocking my system as I dove toward where she'd disappeared. The pool was deeper than I'd realized, and the bottom seemed miles away. My lungs burned as I searched, fear rising in my throat.
There, a flash of pink in the deep end.
I swam toward her, my arms pumping furiously. She was floating just above the bottom, her eyes closed, her hair streaming around her face like seaweed. I grabbed her arm and pulled, but she was heavier than I thought, and my lungs were screaming for air.
I broke the surface, gasping, and tried to drag her up with me. Her head came above water for a second, but then she slipped from my grip and sank again.
"Help!" I screamed, but there was no one to hear me. "Somebody help!"
I dove down again, my chest burning. This time I wrapped my arms around her waist and kicked as hard as I could. We broke the surface together, but Bella's head lolled to the side, and she wasn't breathing.
"Bella, wake up!" I tried to keep her head above water while swimming toward the shallow end, but my arms were shaking with tiredness. "Please wake up!"
I managed to drag her to the pool steps, my muscles screaming in anger. Her skin was pale, her lips tinged with blue. Water streamed from her mouth and nose.
"Bella!" I shook her shoulders. "Bella, please!"
Nothing.
I looked around desperately. The pool area was empty, but I could hear people from somewhere, the gardener, maybe, or one of the staff. And there was something else. A car engine, idling close.
I glanced toward the fence and saw it, a black sedan stopped just outside the property line. I couldn't see who was inside, but I had the weirdest feeling that whoever it was had been watching us.
"Help!" I screamed again, louder this time. "Someone help me!"
Footsteps pounded across the deck. Marcus, the pool repair guy, appeared at my side, his face white with shock.
"What happened?"
"She jumped from the diving board," I sobbed. "She's not breathing."
Marcus didn't waste time with questions. He pulled Bella from the water and laid her on the pavement, tilting her head back and checking her airway. Then he started CPR, his hands moving with practiced speed.
"Come on, kid," he whispered between compressions. "Come on."
I knelt beside them, my whole body shaking. "Is she going to be okay?"
"I don't know. I called 911. They're on their way."
The sirens seemed to take forever to arrive, but when they did, they came with a rush of activity that made my head spin. Paramedics rushed around Bella, checking her pulse, inserting tubes, barking medical terms I didn't understand.
"We need to get her to the hospital," one of them said. "Now."
They put her onto a stretcher, and I tried to follow, but one of the paramedics stopped me.
"Sorry, kid. Family only in the ambulance."
"I am family! She's my sister!"
"Are your parents here?"
I looked around wildly. Dad's car wasn't in the yard. Mom was at her book club. "They're not here, but, "
"Then you'll have to wait for them to meet us at the hospital."
The ambulance doors slammed shut, and I watched them drive away, the sounds fading into the distance. I stood there in my wet swimming suit, water still dripping from my hair, feeling more alone than I'd ever felt in my life.
When I looked toward the fence again, the black car was gone.
"What the hell were you thinking?"
Dad's voice cut through me like a blade. He'd gotten home an hour after the ambulance left, and his face had gone white when Marcus explained what happened.
Now we were in his study, and I sat in the chair across from his desk feeling smaller than I'd ever felt before.
"I asked you a question, Vivian."
"She wanted to jump," I whispered. "I tried to stop her."
"You tried to stop her? You were supposed to be watching her! You were supposed to keep her safe!"
"I know, but, "
"But nothing!" He slammed his hand on the desk, making me jump. "Your sister is in the hospital because of you. Because you couldn't be trusted to follow one simple rule."
Tears burned my eyes. "I'm sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry."
"Sorry doesn't bring her back."
The words hit me like a physical blow. "Bring her back? Is she...?"
"She's alive," he said, but his voice was hollow. "Barely. The doctors don't know if there's brain damage. They don't know if she'll ever be the same."
I wanted to escape. I wanted to sink into the floor and never come back up.
"I should have been watching her better," I said.
"Yes, you should have." He looked at me with eyes that held no love, no forgiveness. "Do you know what the worst part is, Vivian?"
I shook my head.
"It should have been you."
The words hung in the air between us like poison. I felt something inside me break, something that I knew would never heal.
"Dad, "
"It should have been you in that ambulance. You in that hospital bed. Not her." His voice was cold, matter-of-fact. "She's worth ten of you, and you know it."
I couldn't move. I couldn't think. I could only sit there and let his words kill me piece by piece.
"Get out of my sight," he said eventually. "And don't come back down until I tell you to."
I stumbled out of his study and up the stairs to my room, my legs barely carrying me. Once inside, I collapsed on my bed and hid my face in my pillow, but the tears wouldn't come. I was too empty for tears.
It was then I noticed Bella's pink hair clip on my desk, the one she'd been wearing when she jumped. She must have lost it in the pool, and Marcus had found it later.
I picked it up, the plastic smooth and warm in my hand. It smelled like water and strawberry shampoo.
Outside my window, I heard a car engine. I looked out and saw the black car again, parked across the street. A figure sat in the driver's seat, but I couldn't make out their features in the darkness.
They were watching our house. Watching me.
I held Bella's hair clip against my chest and mumbled the words I knew would never be enough.
"I'm sorry."