Lust For Me, Daddy's Good Girl

The bass from the speakers pulses under my feet, and the air smells like chlorine and expensive alcohol.

Ethan's hand is warm in mine, or at least it was ten minutes ago. Right now, it's wrapped around a red Solo cup while he laughs at something across the pool , something that sounds an awful lot like Chloe.

I've been standing here for twenty minutes. He hasn't noticed.

This is fine. This is fine.

It isn't fine.

Chloe materializes beside me the way she always does , silently, like smoke, that soft smile already arranged on her face before she's even said a word. She's wearing a white sundress so sheer it's practically translucent, and her hair falls in perfect golden waves down her back. She's been sick. That's what Ethan keeps telling me. She's been sick, Aurora, she needs support right now. She looks about as sick as a woman on the cover of a magazine.

"Hey," she says sweetly.

"Hey." I keep my voice even.

She follows my gaze across the pool to where Ethan is talking to his friends, easy and relaxed, the way he never quite is when it's just the two of us anymore. Chloe studies him with an expression I can't fully read , fond, maybe, or victorious, or both at once.

"He's really something, isn't he?" she murmurs.

I don't answer.

She turns to look at me instead, and there's something flickering behind those blue eyes , a calculation, a decision being made. Her smile stays perfectly in place, but it shifts, just slightly. Goes sharper at the edges.

"Between you and me, Aurora," she says, her voice dropping to something almost conspiratorial, almost warm, "if we both fell into the water," she tilts her head toward the pool ",who do you think he'd save?"

My stomach drops.

I turn to face her fully. "What?"

But she's already smiling, full and bright and absolutely terrible, and her hand closes around my wrist with a grip that is nothing like the weak, delicate girl Ethan keeps describing.

"Let's find out," she says.

And then she grabs me, and she drags us both over the edge.

The water hits me like a wall.

Cold. Dark. Immediate.

I go under fast, the shock of it knocking the air straight out of my lungs, and I come up flailing, gasping, water burning in my nose and throat. My arms churn uselessly , I've never been a strong swimmer, and right now I'm barely treading water, my dress soaked through and dragging me down like an anchor.

"Help , " I manage, and then I go under again.

When I surface, I hear it.

"Chloe!!"

Ethan's voice, raw and absolute, cutting through the noise of the party like a blade. I spin in the water, gasping, arms burning, just in time to see him moving , sprinting along the pool's edge, his eyes fixed on a single point.

Not on me.

He runs right past me.

I don't mean that metaphorically. He is there, close enough that I could reach out and grab the hem of his shirt, and he doesn't slow down, doesn't hesitate, doesn't even glance in my direction. He's already dropping to his knees at the far end of the pool, reaching for Chloe, who is somehow both drowning and managing to float very gracefully while doing it.

I go under again.

He didn't look at me.

Water fills my ears and the world goes muffled and strange. My legs are still kicking but slower now, my arms getting heavy, and there's a pressure in my chest that's starting to squeeze. I claw for the surface and break it, just barely, lungs burning as I drag in half a breath.

'He didn't even look.'

The lights above the pool blur and swim. I can hear voices somewhere above me , the party continuing, someone laughing, music still going , and it strikes me, with the particular clarity that comes with dying, how easy it would be to go unnoticed right now. I'm just another body in the water. I'm just ,

Ethan.

I try to shout his name and swallow water instead.

My arms stop working.

The world goes sideways. The last thing I see before the dark closes in is Ethan, kneeling at the pool's edge, cradling Chloe's head with both hands, his face bent close to hers.

Air.

Real, actual, burning air forces its way into my lungs and I choke on it, my whole body convulsing as water comes up and I roll onto my side, gasping and coughing against the concrete.

Hands. Someone's hands are on my back, firm and steady, and there's a voice somewhere near my ear , low, male, unhurried , saying something I can't parse over the roaring in my own skull.

I get another breath in. Then another.

The world reassembles itself in pieces: the pool lights, the crowd that has formed a rough ring around me, the wet concrete cold against my palms. And then the hands pull back, and I blink until my vision clears, and I see him for the first time.

He's crouched beside me, close enough that I can make out the dark lines of a mask that covers the upper half of his face. Dark jacket, dark eyes beneath the mask, unreadable and steady. He doesn't say anything. He just watches me breathe.

"She's fine," someone in the crowd announces, and the ring begins to dissolve.

I push myself upright with shaking arms, and that's when I see Ethan.

He's standing fifteen feet away. He has Chloe wrapped under one arm, her head tucked against his chest, his free hand rubbing slow circles on her shoulder. Even as I watch, he shrugs off his jacket , his jacket , and drapes it around her, pulling it close like he's wrapping something precious.

Chloe looks up at him and says something I can't hear.

He ducks his head to answer her, and smiles.

A bystander finally tugs at his sleeve. Says something. Points at me.

Ethan looks up.

Something crosses his face , guilt, maybe, or the attempt at it , and he takes a step toward me, Chloe still anchored under his arm.

"Aurora,"

"Don't." My voice comes out raw and strange, scraped hollow.

He didn't look for me. He didn't look.

I press my palms to the concrete and stand up, legs unsteady. The mystery man has stepped back, giving me space, but I can feel him still nearby , a quiet, deliberate presence behind my shoulder.

Ethan takes another step. "Are you , I didn't know you were,"

"Why did you save her first?"

The question drops like a stone.

Everything around us goes quiet, or quiet enough. The music is still playing somewhere, but the people closest to us have stopped moving, eyes shifting between me and Ethan and the girl tucked against his side.

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

"Ethan." My hands are shaking. I press them against my thighs so he can't see. "Why did you save her first? You ran past me. I was right there."

"Aurora, come on,"

"Answer the question."

He glances at Chloe. That glance alone tells me everything, but I wait, because some part of me still needs to hear it, still needs to watch him say it out loud.

"Chloe , " he starts, his voice dropping like he's trying to make this smaller, more private, less real, "she's sick. I've told you that. She's been sick for months, she can't,"

"She can't what, Ethan? I was drowning."

His jaw tightens. And then he says it. Quietly, like it's reasonable, like it makes any kind of sense in any possible world:

"Don't be dramatic, Aurora. You didn't die."

The words land somewhere behind my sternum and just sit there.

You didn't die.

I think about Chloe, smiling at me across the pool's surface, grip like iron around my wrist. I think about four years. I think about dinners I skipped and plans I canceled and the way I slowly, methodically made myself smaller so there was more room for him. I think about Chloe, who was there first , Ethan's first girlfriend, his first love, the girl who apparently never really stopped being the most important person in any room he walked into.

She knew he'd choose her. She's always known.

I look at Ethan for a long moment. He's still holding Chloe. She has her fingers curled in the fabric of his jacket, his jacket that she's wearing, and her eyes are downcast and demure and absolutely satisfied.

My voice, when it comes back, is steady. Quieter than I expect.

"She should've thought about her health," I say, loud enough to carry, loud enough for the people around us who've been watching this whole time, "before pushing both of us into the pool."