Learning to Swim by Annie Cosby

O’Leary, up in the attic. I briefly wondered what she was doing up there by herself. She moved out of sight again. I decided using your own attic wasn’t a crime and whirled back around to go home.
    On the way, I walked in the sand, kicking up dusty clouds to keep myself occupied. It wasn’t enough and I couldn’t help but wonder what the sinking feeling in my stomach was. I didn’t think it had anything to do with my terrible conversational skills. I was used to embarrassing myself. But every time I saw it in my head—Ronan’s arm around the Jen girl—my stomach sank like I was on a roller coaster.
    What a crappy roller coaster.
     

 
     
     
     
     
    Selkies
    Selkies
     
     
    It was only a matter of time before I was forced into the presence of Owen Carlton again, and unfortunately for me, my mom was there, too. “Would you excuse us, Mrs. Manchester?” he said in that polite voice of his that he reserved for talking to adults. “I’ve been dying to speak with Cora alone.”
    Mom was beaming as she shooed us into privacy. It was the Carltons’ own dinner party that I’d been wrangled into attending, and so he had the upper hand in the situation. Not knowing the terrain, I had unknowingly followed my mother into the pool hall—Owen’s own den. Now he led me out of the room and up an impressive set of stairs.
    “I was just getting ready to go,” I faltered, caught up in the grandeur of the portraits of the Carlton family strung along the staircase.
    “You just got here,” he said matter-of-factly.
    He took my hand and though I pulled some at the outset, he was persistent and I saw little point in resisting. We appeared in what resembled a second game room on the second floor. This one was smaller, free of a pool table, but complete with air hockey and foosball.
    He led me over to the air hockey table where he spun around and pinned my waist against the table. He grinned and said, “Long time no see,” before pressing his lips against mine.
    I wrenched my face away. “Are you kidding me?” I said.
    “Cora,” he sighed. “I’ve been dying to see you ever since that party.”
    “Oh, you must have misplaced my number,” I said, gathering my sarcastic strength from somewhere in the depths of my teen-angst-filled soul.
    “No, I just thought you were going to be pissed at me,” he said.
    “You’re clairvoyant,” I replied.
    “Cora.” He wouldn’t budge, my body pressed firmly between the foosball table and his annoyingly chiseled body, my face inches from his. “I miss you.”
    My remark about the painful length of six days was lost somewhere in my throat where a strange unwanted lump was forming. I was saved the trouble of replying by the appearance of Blondie, leading her redheaded male by the hand.
    “Whoa, I didn’t know this room was taken,” Blondie giggled.
    “Seriously, guys?” Owen said, leaning away from me, but keeping a firm grip on my hand. “Our parents are downstairs. That’s sick.”
    Blondie giggled again and shrugged, but whatever her plans were, they were destroyed by the bimbo’s appearance and her insisting upon a match of foosball.
    “Cora and I will take on any of you,” Owen said with that easygoing nature that had succeeded in bringing down my guard the first time around. He snaked an arm around my back, and while I went to pull away, the image of the leggy blonde with pigtails popped into my head. Jen . She had a name now.
    Rory. It was familiar and comfortable, like I had known his name all along. The boy, Ronan, was a disagreeable thing of the past. Rory was somebody new, someone I could talk to. Rory was—Rory and Jen.
    I let Owen lead me to the foosball table with a hand on the small of my back.
     

     
    “Ronan is finished in the garage,” Mrs. O’Leary told me one day.
    I had been hoping conversation would stay clear of him, but I felt my heart shift just a miniscule amount at the thought of him not hanging around Mrs. O’Leary’s anymore.
    The