“So you’re going to tell Avery, then?” Sierra picks up the pace to a light jog, and I follow her lead. Coach expects us to jump right into conditioning, so the brisk trek to the boathouse is our warm-up.
“Absolutely not.”
Sierra rolls her neck as she bobs. “You’ll have trouble convincing her they only gave away one spot ED.”
“I know.” I mimic her actions. “Will you cover me?”
“Do I have a choice?” She stops suddenly then, squaring across from me and locking eyes. “This is pretty fucked up, Olivia. Last night, after you left…Avery was pissed. Like, unhinged angry.”
“What happened?”
She squirms. “Nothing. I mean, she ranted a lot. She wants me to hack into Ms. Bankhead’s files to see who else got her Harvard rec. She assumed Emma was Tipton’s only outlier. I covered your ass. You’re welcome.”
“Are you going to do it? Hack the counselor files?”
Sierra purses her lips. “I don’t know. I’m hoping Avery cools the fuck down over Christmas break so I don’t have to.”
We fall back into a run, the path curving around the lake until the Swiftensell Boathouse is in view.
I pray Sierra is right and Avery will feel her feelings and deal. It isn’t worth destroying our friendship over something as stupid as college admissions. And yet our entire friendship has been based on college admissions, so…
“Come on, we’re going to be late,” Sierra says, lengthening her stride. But we’re never late, because Sierra keeps us meticulously on schedule. There’s no one on the path ahead of us, and as I suspected, when we get inside, it’s clear we’re the first ones here.
The Swiftensell Boathouse is not exactly a boathouse. More like a state-of-the-art training facility. It was built fifteen years ago, about fifty feet from where the original boathouse still stands. We use that one for extra storage now. Swiftensell is three stories high and multifunctional. On the ground floor is every piece of gym equipment imaginable, from weight machines to treadmills to custom indoor rowing tanks that sit alongside dozens of ergs.
Upstairs are sleek locker rooms equipped with rain showers and steam rooms, so you can sweat out the day’s practice before heading down the hall to one of three conference rooms-cum-lounges. In season, we gather around large tables and Coach runs over practice and race footage on the one-hundred-inch 4K Ultra HD TV screen. I really should be a better athlete, given all the amenities.
Downstairs are the boats in a half dozen cavernous bays whose doors open onto docks right on the riverbank. From November to January, we do the majority of our training inside, away from the harsh hand of winter.
We drop our bags and coats in the girls’ locker room one floor up. Sierra preps protein shakes for us so they’re ready for later. We head back downstairs, Nora Patrick and Indigo Jackson offering groggy nods as they pass us on the stairs. Three more girls trudge through the doors when we hit the landing. The rest of the team should be here soon. There are fifteen of us on girls varsity, and boys varsity boasts a similar number. They’ll arrive at 6:30 a.m., because why not let the boys get an extra half hour of shut-eye, right? It’s fine by me—whoever gets the late shift is stuck on the shitty old equipment with broken monitors, loose chains, and wonky seats.
The rowing room is pitch-dark, so Sierra heads over to the control panel as I walk down the center aisle by instinct. My destination is the farthest erg on the right, which affords me a perfect view of the river through the floor-to-ceiling windows. When the sun starts its ascent, throwing dusky purples and sweet peach-pinks into the sky, I will have a front-row seat.
The lights come up as I’m halfway to my quarry. I skip ahead, unzipping my jacket as I go, then tossing it over the seat of my favorite erg, claiming it.
“Sierra, come on!” I turn and gesture to her to come grab the one next to mine. But Sierra is frozen at the door, staring at something in the middle distance. I follow her eyeline to the shallow pool to my left. Tangled between two oars is a person. Someone is facedown in the water, auburn hair floating around her like a halo.
“Hey, that’s not funny.” I move closer to the wannabe mermaid. This is someone’s idea of a hilarious prank, putting on a bad Ariel wig and timing her submersion perfectly to our arrival. But as I move closer, she doesn’t jump up, yell “Got you!” She’s still.
“Liv—” Sierra’s steps are halting and tentative. Fear is etched across her face. I get close enough to see, really see, the body. Because it has to be a body. It’s not moving.
It. When do you cease to be a person and start to be a body?
Sierra rushes to her side, shaking a lifeless arm. With trepidation, I inch closer to take in the details. Red hair, blue dress, black leggings, and then…my eyes catch on her shoes. She’s wearing boots, expensive boots. No one ruins genuine leather designer boots for a prank. Not these boots. The soles are red, because half the point is so you know they’re Louboutins. I was with Emma when she bought them.
Emma. Emma has auburn hair. Emma was wearing a blue dress over black leggings, and those boots.
Emma is in the rowing tank.
Emma is a body.
Emma is dead.
A scream rips from my throat. And then I vomit onto the rowing-room floor.
Boots aren’t enough to ID a body, not officially. So when the cops arrive, they turn Emma over and have Coach Gray make the positive identification. I volunteered to do it, but every adult snapped an emphatic no at me, and a ruddy-faced cop ushered me into the lobby to wait. Everyone else is being corralled upstairs so they can take our statements. They can’t keep me from hovering outside the rowing studio, though. Emma was my friend, and we deserve to know what’s going on.
Was.
Emma is in the past tense now, I guess.
I collapse hard on a wooden bench, my tailbone radiating pain up my spine. I check my phone. It’s 7:15. Emma has been dead for an hour and fifteen minutes. No, longer. God, I want them to tell me something, anything. How long was she floating in that pool? When did she die?
My vision swims, the sour taste of stale vodka rising in my throat. I squint my eyes shut, plunging myself into pleasant nothingness. I break into a cold sweat. The anxious swirl in my stomach told me something was wrong yesterday. All of this, last night. Like I knew.
Why did I turn right, toward Whitley? What if I’d come to the boathouse instead? Could I have saved her? Or maybe I’d be another victim.
I pinch at my thighs, trying to bring myself back. My stomach remains knotted, my skin clammy and cold, but I can stop the horrible, negative tapes playing the what-ifs over and over. It’s not productive to think that way. I narrow in on the practical instead. Like Emma’s sweater, folded neatly over her chair. When did she come in? Why did she go back out? And why the boathouse? Emma didn’t row.