“You don’t have to cuss, Link,” Reece whispers. They’ve been best friends since Link came to live here. This is the first time he’s ever raised his voice at Reece. “We’ll go get ready.” She shoves up from the couch and runs past me to my room. I watch Link’s shoulders drop and it’s times like this I have to wonder if there isn’t something more between them.

“I’ll go check on her,” I say, just to say something. I don’t have to get ready. Dressed in my jeans, black tank and navy sweater I won’t be changing and they know it. This is me and I wear similar clothes every day.

One of the teachers once said you can’t decorate a flopped cake. Since then I’ve worn only dark colors, and the long sleeves to cover my scars. If you don’t stand out, it’s easier to be invisible and that’s all that matters at the end of the day.

“Thanks, Birdie,” he mumbles, dropping down into the same spot Reece was just sitting in.

Reece swipes the strawberry lipgloss over her lips as I walk into my room, and then holds it out to me. We get ready in silence for a few minutes. I watch Reece putting on mascara and as she hands me the stick, I meet her soft blue eyes in the mirror’s reflection.

“You okay?” I ask, offering her an encouraging smile. I love Link but I’m closer to Reece. We are a lot alike. We can spend hours together without having to entertain each other, just walking around, or reading. We just love being around each other. We have that kind of friendship where you don’t need to say a word to communicate. One look and I know what she’s trying to tell me.

She shrugs and her eyes flick sadly to mine. We stare at each other for a while, neither wanting to say it out loud. Link has being changing during our senior year, getting restless and short-tempered.

“We don’t want to upset him,” she eventually sighs, reaching for some deodorant.

“Are you going to swim?” I ask to take her mind of the fight.

“No, if you don’t swim I don’t swim,” she says, throwing the lipgloss into her bag.

“Reece,” I wait for her to look up. I hate when she does things like this, avoid things because I don’t do them, “please swim. Just because I don’t swim it doesn’t mean you don’t have to.”

She gives me her pleading look, the one asking me to tell her why I don’t swim, why I’m scared of the dark, why I am the way I am.

When she gives me the look she’s giving me now, I don’t hold her gaze. Call me a coward, but it’s only been seven years since I’ve stepped out of the darkness, and it’s still too soon to deal with my life before Lyman. When I try to think of that life the darkness is always waiting, ready to suffocate me, to suck me right back in. The anxiety squeezes the air from my lungs, building until it takes on different shades black, pulling me under until there is nothing left of me but the skeleton, the terror.

“Let get this party going!” Link calls out, sounding cheerful again.

Reece gets up freeing me from her pleading gaze. It’s a small relief, but it’s opened the can of worms. Tonight is going to suck, I just know it!

The theme park is also part water world, and that is where the party will be. Water and darkness; two things I fear with an ungodly fear. Facing only one of those at a time is terrifying enough, but both at the same time? You have got to be shitting me! It’s going to be hell. My stomach jolts as the realization hits that I have to face those frightening fears at a party where every single person I’ve tried to avoid will be. Cole Trenton will be there!

Oh God, please don’t let me have a panic attack. Not tonight.

Two days after I moved to Lyman I had a panic attack. Link didn’t know I was in the kitchen when he put the light off. I thought I was going to die. It was the first panic attack where I passed out. The year after the police found me I had minor ones up until that big one. I woke up in bed, still feeling scared and confused, but Pastor Beasley was there holding my hand. It’s all he did for a while, and then he told me the story about the pebbles. He said life is full of pebbles. You pick up pebbles along the way; some might be smooth, some rough around the edges - it doesn’t matter what they look like – it only matters what you do with them. Pastor Beasley believes we all throw our pebbles into the same lake and the ripples we make affect the ripples of other people. Some people’s pebbles skid over the water and they have a smooth life. Other people’s pebbles sink, and they don’t get to live that long. Then there are those – like ours, he says we have to ride the ripples together and nudge each other’s ripples along, safely to the other side of the shore.

He held my hand and said he would always be there to nudge me along, just like the ripples.

I’m clinging to what he told me, as Link parks the car right under one of the lights in the parking area of Fun Tides. I stay close to Reece as we follow the noise of laughter. The closer we get the louder the laughter and music gets.

One look at Link’s sparkling brown eyes tells me we won’t be going home early. I’ve never been here, and I’m relieved when we walk through a well-lit entrance. My eyes do a wild dance to take in everything. To my immediate left are some deck chairs. I recognize some of the kids from school standing around in groups. A ticked booth is on my right. Up front is where the music is coming from, a makeshift DJ stage.

I spot Wyatt and my eyes follow him, hoping he’ll lead me to Cole, but then he disappears into a crowd dancing in a shallow pool and I resume my exploration of the park.

“I’m gonna get somethin’ to drink,” Link says, “y’all want somethin’?”

I shake my head and spot a bonfire on a stretch of lawn between two huge tubes and pools. Fire means light. Guess I’ve found my spot to hide.

“I’m going to head over to the bonfire,” I say, and I do just that, not waiting to see if Reece and Link is coming. We can meet up later again. I just want to get to the light right now, that’s all that matters.

As I step up close to the fire, waves of heat hit my face. I’ve learned to live with the uncomfortable heat in summer, always wearing sweaters to cover myself up. The summer night is hot, and with the fire’s heat licking at my face, I feel sweat dampening my neck and back. It’s a small price to pay for the light, because there is no way I’m sacrificing the light for cooler air. It’s either the bonfire or standing at the entrance like an idiot.

Scanning the faces around the bonfire the only familiar ones are Laurie and Aiden’s. If Cole’s cousins are here then he has to be around here somewhere. It’s his party after all.

Loud hollering from behind me has me turning around. Travis, Cooper and a bunch of guy are responsible for the noise. I watch them run up the stairs to the entrance of a huge twisting tube.

“Insane,” I whisper to myself. “There is no way you’ll get me up there.” I watch them disappear into the black mouth of the tube. You can hear their hollering echoing as they come down the twisting snake, and then one for one their screams are drowned in the deep end of the pool. “Like I said, no way in hell.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” a voice says right behind me. “You should give it a try.”

My stomach tightens nervously. I keep my eyes on the group of guys now fighting to dunk each other in the pool as my mind races to say something back to Cole.

“Are you enjoyin’ yourself?” he asks. I feel him move from behind me, coming around my left side. I can’t help it, my eyes jump to him the second he comes into my line of sight.

I wonder if it will ever change, this effect he has on me. Every time I see his icy eyes shivers race over my skin.

“I am,” I say softly.

I wrap my arms around myself, trying to make myself smaller. I had a four inch growing spurt over the past three years, but the doctors said I will always be small, because of what happened. So when guys like Cole stands next to me, I’ll always feel dwarfed by their size. Cole and his cousins are a different breed altogether.