if he liked them, and the Big Ten and Big East recruiters who had already contacted him about college football.
“Do I look any different?” he asked as the two of you stood in line for the high dive at the community pool. It was the summer before junior year (after your mother had finished her dying and your sister had started college in Arizona). Braden looked the same as always, almost goofily handsome, with his mother’s perfect cocoa skin and mahogany hair.
“Why would you look different?” Even before the words were out of your mouth, you knew what he was going to say, and your lower body seemed to liquefy. Fifty yards away, Braden’s girlfriend tanned with her friends. In a bikini of little more than strings and triangles, Josie was the quintessence of high school—blond with green eyes, a member of student council and the dance team. “You guys did it, didn’t you?”
Braden flashed his aw-shucks grin, and a white-hot poker stabbed you between the eyes. It would be a year before you met Phoebe Fisher and got beyond first base.
Still, you must have said something a normal person who didn’t abhor his best friend would have said, because the conversation continued. But all you could think about were the Neiman Marcus catalogs you still had under your bed.
Behind you, a pack of skinny, wet middle-school kids screamed that the two of you were holding up the line, so Braden started up the ladder.
“What should I do?” he asked.
You told him to do a back flip because you could do it better, and you needed to be superior at something.
Fisting your hands so tight your knuckles turned to white knobs, you held your breath and hoped Braden wouldn’t be able to complete the dive. Still, you were utterly amazed when he twisted awkwardly around and crashed, almost completely prone, into the water. You were even more surprised when he didn’t come up.
The lifeguard—a senior at your high school who constantly bragged about bedding the girl guards—stared on from his chair in disbelief, paralyzed by what to do in the face of an actual emergency. So you were the one who dove in. As you reached out for him, Braden’s head bobbed up and broke the surface of the water. Gasping and thrashing, he looked at you and went under again. You grabbed his shoulders, broader and more filled out than yours.
Instead of pulling him up, you held him under. In your hands, his body jerked, and you felt a rush of excitement that you were really doing it. Chemically treated water filled your nose, your mouth, your ears.
One, maybe two seconds.
The pool was on an approach pattern to O’Hare, and a plane flew overhead—a stiff white bird in the blue, blue sky.
Just like that, and it was over. Once again you were Oliver Ryan, the boy the Washingtons referred to as their “other son.” Yanking Braden up, you swam with his body to the side while he sputtered and choked. With help from the gathered crowd, you pulled him out of the water. His arm slung over your back, you took him to the locker room, where he sank into one of the toilet stalls and threw up pool water and snack-bar nachos. “Brade?” you asked, kneeling next to him.
He nodded. “Thanks, Ollie, I owe you.”
“Any time,” you said, feeling sick from the smell of chlorine and vomit and thoughts of what you’d been doing. If there was a hell, you were pretty sure you were going there—and it was probably that moment right before takeoff, when the plane picks up speed.
Braden looked at you for a long time. And then you felt his mouth on your own, lips soft and warmer than you would have expected.
Shoving him away, you asked why, even though it wasn’t really all that earth-shattering. And then you didn’t hate him at all but felt inconsolably sorry for him.
“I’m not—” you started.
But he shook his head. “Don’t say it, please.”
And both of you sat there, hands between your knees, until the locker room door swung open and three boys—towels
“Do I look any different?” he asked as the two of you stood in line for the high dive at the community pool. It was the summer before junior year (after your mother had finished her dying and your sister had started college in Arizona). Braden looked the same as always, almost goofily handsome, with his mother’s perfect cocoa skin and mahogany hair.
“Why would you look different?” Even before the words were out of your mouth, you knew what he was going to say, and your lower body seemed to liquefy. Fifty yards away, Braden’s girlfriend tanned with her friends. In a bikini of little more than strings and triangles, Josie was the quintessence of high school—blond with green eyes, a member of student council and the dance team. “You guys did it, didn’t you?”
Braden flashed his aw-shucks grin, and a white-hot poker stabbed you between the eyes. It would be a year before you met Phoebe Fisher and got beyond first base.
Still, you must have said something a normal person who didn’t abhor his best friend would have said, because the conversation continued. But all you could think about were the Neiman Marcus catalogs you still had under your bed.
Behind you, a pack of skinny, wet middle-school kids screamed that the two of you were holding up the line, so Braden started up the ladder.
“What should I do?” he asked.
You told him to do a back flip because you could do it better, and you needed to be superior at something.
Fisting your hands so tight your knuckles turned to white knobs, you held your breath and hoped Braden wouldn’t be able to complete the dive. Still, you were utterly amazed when he twisted awkwardly around and crashed, almost completely prone, into the water. You were even more surprised when he didn’t come up.
The lifeguard—a senior at your high school who constantly bragged about bedding the girl guards—stared on from his chair in disbelief, paralyzed by what to do in the face of an actual emergency. So you were the one who dove in. As you reached out for him, Braden’s head bobbed up and broke the surface of the water. Gasping and thrashing, he looked at you and went under again. You grabbed his shoulders, broader and more filled out than yours.
Instead of pulling him up, you held him under. In your hands, his body jerked, and you felt a rush of excitement that you were really doing it. Chemically treated water filled your nose, your mouth, your ears.
One, maybe two seconds.
The pool was on an approach pattern to O’Hare, and a plane flew overhead—a stiff white bird in the blue, blue sky.
Just like that, and it was over. Once again you were Oliver Ryan, the boy the Washingtons referred to as their “other son.” Yanking Braden up, you swam with his body to the side while he sputtered and choked. With help from the gathered crowd, you pulled him out of the water. His arm slung over your back, you took him to the locker room, where he sank into one of the toilet stalls and threw up pool water and snack-bar nachos. “Brade?” you asked, kneeling next to him.
He nodded. “Thanks, Ollie, I owe you.”
“Any time,” you said, feeling sick from the smell of chlorine and vomit and thoughts of what you’d been doing. If there was a hell, you were pretty sure you were going there—and it was probably that moment right before takeoff, when the plane picks up speed.
Braden looked at you for a long time. And then you felt his mouth on your own, lips soft and warmer than you would have expected.
Shoving him away, you asked why, even though it wasn’t really all that earth-shattering. And then you didn’t hate him at all but felt inconsolably sorry for him.
“I’m not—” you started.
But he shook his head. “Don’t say it, please.”
And both of you sat there, hands between your knees, until the locker room door swung open and three boys—towels
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