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One minute, Nancy is pulling herself up the rope of bedsheets, and the next she is falling, falling, arms flailing through something even less than air—
Until she lands with a splash, the water a hard slap across her back. For a moment longer, she’s still falling, plunging through churning bubbles that make it difficult to tell up from down. She’s reminded of diving after Steve, but the water’s warm and clear around her, so it can’t be Lover’s Lake.
When she surfaces, shaking wet hair out of her face, she can see that she’s in Steve’s pool, the Harrington’s back yard turned an eerie blue by the underwater lights. Steam rises from the surface of the water around her, curling into the chill air. There’s nobody out on the patio beside the pool, but she can hear Carol’s shrill laughter faintly from somewhere inside the house. She glances up to see the light on in Steve’s window, and then, instinctively, she looks to the diving board.
“I was wondering when you’d get around to me,” Barb says.
Nancy’s heart seizes in her chest. Barb looks just like Nancy remembers in her puffy blue coat and pink blouse. Her bare feet dangle in the water, something misshapen wrapped around her injured hand. The light glints off of Barb’s glasses, hiding her eyes.
“Although I guess what else should I expect?” Barb continues. “I was never your first thought, or your second, or even your third.”
“Barb,” Nancy whispers, already feeling guilty tears springing to her eyes.
“It’s OK, Nance,” Barb says with a small smile, and Nancy can’t believe how long she’s waited to hear those words. “I always knew you were selfish. You never cared about me, or anybody else. All that mattered to you was what you wanted. The only reason you kept me around was because I didn’t push back.”
Nancy wants to climb out of the water, to go to Barb and wrap her arms around her, but all she can do is tread water. “That’s not—”
“Isn’t it?” Barb cuts in. There’s blood dripping from her hand, dark and thick. Nancy can see the stain of it in the water, spreading like a void. “Who insisted we spend an entire weekend shopping for a new outfit in case Steve happened to notice what you were wearing? Who decided we should both sign up for Newspaper, even though I wanted to join Drama Club instead?”
“I—I wanted to spend time with you,” Nancy protests weakly.
“Who picked which movie we saw every single time we went to the Hawk? Who vetoed my music choices whenever we were studying?”
“That’s not—” She remembers those as friendly arguments she won because she persuaded Barb to see things her way, or because Barb didn’t really care one way or the other.
“I let you win, Nancy,” Barb says, and this time her smile doesn’t offer any reassurances. There’s something wrong with her mouth, Nancy notices, something dark and viscous smeared across her teeth. “I always gave you what you wanted, because that was the only way you’d pay attention to me.”
That dark stain of Barb’s blood in the water has become a vortex, drawing Nancy closer—the current’s slow but inexorable, a pull that could easily drown her if she let it. She cuts her arms harder through the water, but she can feel herself slipping closer to Barb, closer to the coiled nothingness at her feet.
“All I wanted was to matter to you,” Barb says, and the darkness is spilling from her lips now, dripping down her chin and across the ruffled collar of her pink blouse. She’s still smiling, her teeth slick black and shining. “But I never did, did I, Nancy? At least not enough.”
“You did,” Nancy tries to tell her. “You did, you did, you’re all that matters,” she tries to say, but the current is pulling her under, the blood-black water filling her mouth.