Ocean Blue ✓

chapter eleven

elliot

Alyssa is so frail in my arms, too tiny to be believed. Her strawberry blonde hair hangs over her freckled shoulders, wet and stringy, yet still curly and light. She's fragile and vulnerable and so not the girl from the Front last night that I can't believe this is happening.

Her eyes won't open, and the only thing I can think to do at this point is shake her, which is definitely something I should not be doing. When there's a voice from the kitchen, I'm relieved beyond relief. The boy who leaves the kitchen looks just like her, with short messy hair and puffier lips. Also, pissed. He looks very pissed.

"Why are you carrying my sister?" he asks in an unbelievably soft voice. Seriously, it does not match the look of extreme pissed-offishness in his eyes. "What the fuck?"

"She—at the pool? There was—well. Fish?"

Panic enters his gaze. "Shitshitshit," he mutters. Another boy walks out of the kitchen behind him—this one, I recognise. Jace Westerfeld.

Damn, okay, is Alyssa's brother the one from the Dunes then? Everything from the Instagram posts comes rushing back, and I hate that it's hard to not look away. "Um, yeah, I don't—"

"Jace," says Alyssa's Brother, not even looking back at him, "could you wait in the kitchen?"

Jace for his part looks completely flustered. "Uh, yes? Is she...."

"She'll be fine," Alyssa's Brother says with a calm surety. "Here, her room is this way."

I follow him through a small little hallway just leading off their box-stacked living room. He opens a door at the end of it, nodding me through. Her head hangs over the edge of my arms, limp and effortless. If I had another hand, I would wipe away the stray strands of strawberry hair away from her full lips. Long lashes meet rosy, freckled cheeks, and I have to tell myself to focus on not tripping instead of staring at her.

"This is her room," he says, and I have never been more grateful in my life—despite her tinyness, Alyssa's weight is beginning to kill my arms. The fact that I haven't had a hard workout in over a year is definitely not helping.

Her brother flips the lights on as I struggle over to her bed. Alyssa's bed has an unmade dusty pink duvet, so I gently lay her down atop her sheets and step back so her brother can fuss over her pillow placement. It's my first chance to really stare at her legs.

Little half-moon crescents dot her skin, some pink and fleshy, others scabbed over. It looks like someone went ham on her legs with some seriously sharp nails. The skin around the scabs is red and blotchy, almost like a rash. It's all I can do to stare—stare at those flushed cheeks, that spattering of freckles on her forehead, the angrily peeling skin on her legs.

"Right, okay," her brother says, taking a few steps back and running his hands through his hair. "Okay. So. Um. I'm gonna throw you out into the living room with Jace, and if you say a fucking word to him about this, I will rip your eyes out of your face and shove them down your throat so that you can see me shove my foot up your ass from the inside. Got it?"

"That was very vivid," I say like an idiot who doesn't know how to use the word "yes."

He narrows his eyes at me. "Very vivid. I have way more where that comes from."

"You—I—" It's way too much of a struggle to not sass back. "Yep. Cool. Okay. Sir."

He rolls his eyes at me, a very effective dismissal.

Jace leans against the kitchen counter when I make my way back into the main living room. He nods almost imperceptibly, a nod I recognise from the dude bros of school, and I manage a nod back (a nod which is definitely nowhere near as cool as his, but whatever).