When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey (novels to read txt) 📗

then they let it fill up with water and told kids to swim in it. Instead of calling it what it is, which is a hole in the hill, we call it a reservoir. We call it that even though nobody is ever going to use the water in it for anything other than swimming and telling scary stories about bodies being dumped in there by the mafia.

Because the reservoir isn’t really a reservoir, there’s no infrastructure to it at all. There’s no guardrails anywhere, no parking lot, no changing stalls. There are some trees that you can go into if you have to pee or dry off or make out with someone, and there are a few flattish outcroppings of rock that are good for sunbathing. Other than that, it’s just the hole—deep and dark, without a shallow end to speak of. There’s a long rope ladder that hangs down into the water, so you can climb out once the cold seeps into your bones. The water is always cold, and it’s a relief from the heat, but it’s unbearable after the first ten minutes or so. The rope gets replaced every year, and every year it’s made of the same frayed, knotted plastic material. Everyone who grew up near the reservoir knows the awful feeling of it digging into their bare hands and feet as they shiver their way up to where their towels wait in the sun.

The flat rocks are crowded with towels. Every so often, someone gets up from their towel to jump in the water. A long trail of wet footprints leads from the top of the ladder to the broad, blinding patch of sun. Roya and I slip our shoes off and walk past the patchwork of beach towels. We settle in a splotch of shade at the edge of the outcropping, dangling our feet in the air over the water and watching people jump. A scrawny kid stands at the edge looking down. His friends are yelling from the water. He’s got his arms wrapped around his ribs, and he keeps walking up to the edge and then flinching away.

Roya cups her hands around her mouth. “You gotta run at it!” she shouts. The kid looks over at her—he can’t be older than thirteen. “Close your eyes and run!” Roya says, then waves her hands at him, egging him on. His eyes flick down to her legs, dangling over the edge of the rock. She’s wearing shorts, and the dusky brown of her skin glows against the dark rock. “Do it!” Roya shouts, and a few people lift their heads from their towels to stare.

The kid nods, jogs backward, and screws up his face. Then he runs, his arms pumping, and like a cartoon character, he runs straight off the edge of the rock. He seems to hover in the air for a second, and then he’s yelling, and then there’s a splash and all his friends cheer. Roya cheers too, clapping her hands and peering down into the water below us.

“Way to go, kiddo!” she cries, and she’s grinning at him, and the poor kid is looking up at her like she hung the moon.

“You know he’s in love with you now, right?” I say, and she laughs one of her big laughs, the kind that makes other people smile even though they didn’t hear what was funny in the first place. Below us, the kid is getting splashed by his friends.

“He won’t be scared to jump next time, though,” Roya says, kicking her feet. “That’s the key to doing stuff you’re scared of. You gotta run at it.”

I glance over at her, and she’s staring down into the water with a little secret smile on her lips. Her hair hangs down over her shoulder in a waterfall of tousled waves. I lean back onto my elbows and close my eyes, listening to the splashing and yelling that echoes up from the water. I can’t pick out any individual voices—they all blend together in a wash of summer-noise. I swing my legs through the air and wonder if, a hundred years from now, some other girl will be swinging her legs in this same spot, feeling all the same things that I’m feeling. I think probably not, but maybe something close. Maybe she’ll feel everything I do, minus the murder-anxiety.

“Hey.” Roya’s voice is about an inch from my ear, and I jump, and she lets out another big laugh. “You startle so easy, Alexis. If I was meaner, I’d think it was funny.” Her hair is brushing my shoulder and her face is right next to mine, so close that almost all I can see is her eyes, but then I look down and I realize that I was wrong because I can see her mouth, too. She boops my nose with hers and then leans back onto her elbows, mirroring my pose. “I’m gonna miss this,” she says.

“Hnngmh?” I’m going for nonchalant-interrogative, but it comes out slightly strangled, because of the way her hair slid over my shoulder.

“Hanging out like this,” she says. “In the fall. It’ll be hard, being apart from everyone.”

“We’ll still hang out, though, right?” I say. Do I sound clingy? I hope I don’t sound clingy. I hope I don’t sound desperately afraid that she and Maryam will abandon me the moment we all set foot on campus at State. “I mean, like … at school and stuff?” I add in a pathetic attempt to remain nonchalant.

“Of course we will, dummy,” she says, shoving my arm with one hand. “Like all the time, are you kidding? Me and you and Maryam are gonna be all sewn together into one giant three-headed sweater. You two aren’t allowed to stray more than a hundred feet from me at any given moment.”

“Okay, okay, I get it—”

“It’s just that I’ll miss this,” she says. She gestures at the reservoir. “I mean … I want to leave and everything. I want to