Chapter 4: Poolside
The water was a lukewarm bath, heavy with chlorine and afternoon heat. Jess floated on her back, eyes closed against the white glare of the sky, the world reduced to the lap of water against her ears and the sun burning through her eyelids. She could hear Lily’s steady, rhythmic kicking as she treaded water nearby, a metronome of normalcy.
“It’s next weekend, I think,” Lily was saying, her voice echoing slightly in the concrete hollow of the pool. “The whole town gets packed. There’s that terrible cover band that plays on a flatbed truck, and the fried clam stand that gave you food poisoning that one time.”
“I try to forget that,” Jess murmured, letting her feet sink until she found the rough bottom of the shallow end. She stood, water sluicing from her shoulders. The air, hotter than the water, raised goosebumps on her arms.
Lily paddled over, resting her elbows on the pool’s pebbled edge. “We have to go. It’s tradition. Even if you just eat fries and judge people’s bad tattoos.”
From the deck, in the long, striped shadow of the sagging umbrella, there was the soft rustle of a page turning. Soren had been there for an hour, a hardcover book open in her lap, a glass of water sweating on the table beside her. She hadn’t swum. She’d simply appeared, a silent overseer in a black one-piece, her hair a severe knot at the nape of her neck. She hadn’t spoken a word.
“Soren!” Lily called, twisting her body toward the deck. Her voice was bright, a bell in the heavy air. “You’re coming to the Seafoam Festival thing next Saturday, right? The one with the mediocre music and the questionable seafood?”
The page-turning stopped. A beat of silence stretched, filled only by the distant, crushing sigh of the ocean. Jess watched a droplet trace a path from her temple down her neck.
Soren looked up. She didn’t look at Lily. Her gaze, a pale and assessing laser, found Jess first. It traveled from the wet, darkened ends of Jess’s hair, down over the bare line of her shoulders, the simple navy tankini she wore, the water beading on her skin. It was not a look of appreciation. It was an inventory. A cold, dismissive tallying of parts. Then, and only then, did her eyes flick to her sister.
“Doubt it,” Soren said, her voice flat. “The scent of fry oil and regret tends to cling. And I’ve outgrown cover bands.”
“You’ve outgrown fun, you mean,” Lily shot back, grinning, entirely missing the subzero temperature of the response.
“Maybe that’s the same thing.” Soren’s mouth quirked, not a smile. Her eyes slid back to Jess, who was standing very still, the water now feeling frigid around her knees. “You two enjoy your nostalgia, though. Scout around, find some memories. Let me know if they’ve improved with age.”
She reached for her glass, took a slow sip, and returned to her book. The dismissal was absolute.
Lily rolled her eyes, pushing off from the wall. “She’s in a mood. Come on, race me? Last one to the deep end cleans the sand out of the shower drain.”
Jess nodded, unable to speak. Her skin hummed where Soren’s eyes had been. It felt like being doused in ice, then set alight. She ducked under the water, letting the chlorinated silence envelop her, but it was no escape. The words chased her beneath the surface.
Scout around.
When she came up for air, gasping, Lily was already halfway across the pool, laughing. Jess pushed off, swimming hard, her muscles burning with a sudden, frantic need for motion. She reached the far wall a second after Lily, the impact stinging her palms.
“You let me win,” Lily accused, breathless.
“Did not,” Jess panted, resting her forehead against the cool tile. She could feel the weight of the gaze from the deck. A pressure between her shoulder blades.
She turned, her back to the wall, facing the shore. Soren was still reading, or pretending to. The sun had shifted, cutting the deck in two—one half blazing light, the other deep shadow. Soren sat precisely on the line between them, her sharp profile illuminated, the rest of her dissolving into dark. A woman carved from light and judgment.
Lily hauled herself out of the pool, water cascading, and grabbed a towel. “I’m getting pruny. Snack time. Jess? You want anything?”
“In a minute,” Jess said. Her voice sounded foreign to her.
“Suit yourself.” Lily padded across the hot concrete and into the house, the screen door slapping shut behind her.
The silence descended then, profound and aching. It was just the hum of the distant waves, the faint buzz of a insect near the overgrown hedges, and the quiet, knowing presence on the deck. Jess remained in the water, suspended, feeling exposed. A specimen in a turquoise jar.
She watched as Soren closed her book, setting it carefully on the table. She didn’t stand. She simply looked out, past the pool, past Jess, toward the dunes and the unseen sea. Her expression was unreadable, a mask of perfect, calm indifference. But her fingers tapped once, twice, a silent, impatient rhythm on the arm of her chair.
Then, slowly, as if she could feel the weight of Jess’s attention, her head turned. Her eyes met Jess’s across the shimmering heat haze rising from the concrete. No smirk now. No words. Just a look that held for three long heartbeats—a look that stripped away the water, the sunlight, the pretense of the summer game. It was a look of pure, unvarnished recognition, and it was far more terrifying than any judgment.
Before Jess could blink, could breathe, Soren stood. She picked up her book and her glass, and without a second glance, she walked inside, leaving only the empty chair and the imprint of her shadow.
Jess shivered, there in the lukewarm pool. The sun beat down, but the cold was in her bones, deep and settling. She hadn’t moved a muscle, yet she felt cornered. The festival, the summer, the old rules—they were already obsolete. A new, silent war had been declared, and the first skirmish had just ended without a single shot being fired. She was still standing in the water, but she felt like she was already drowning.