Read Online I Know It's Over by C. K. Kelly Martin - Free Book Online

body like a sleek second skin.
    “Were you really?” she said quickly.
    “Yeah.” I reached over and stroked her arm. It was flecked with freckles and golden from the sun. “I don’t know what you want from me. What happens now that I’m here?”
    Sasha laughed and looked down at her arm. “I have no idea.”
    “I thought you always knew what you were doing. You had all the answers in English class.”
    “Not really,” she said. “I just like to discuss things. There’re lots of classes where you don’t have the chance. Math is rules. Science is fact.”
    “You don’t like science?”
    “No, I do. It’s just different.” She explained that her dad was a doctor and that she’d inherited his scientific brain. She said she wanted to get into forensics because there were definite answers waiting to be uncovered, but at the same time there was this other side of her personality that liked ambiguity and that’s where English class came in. “I like stories that don’t tell you everything, that leave you room to think. Dreams are a bit like that. You never know exactly what they mean. Like last night I had a dream that my brother had an eagle and there was a storm coming and I knew it had something to do with the bird. I was so scared. I was sitting in my room waiting for this storm to hit and nobody else in my family was even worried. It was weird. Do you remember what you dreamt last night?”
    “I don’t usually remember,” I said. In this case I actually did remember, but the information wasn’t suitable for her ears. I told her about a dream I’d had last week instead. I was skating on the biggest natural outdoor rink you can imagine, but when it was time to go home, I couldn’t remember where I lived. The harder I tried to remember, the more panicked I got.
    Sasha was quiet. She rolled onto her chest and said, “I wonder why it’s always easier to remember the bad dreams.”
    “There’s probably more of them,” I guessed.
    “I hope that’s not true. Couldn’t it be because they’re distressing?”
    “I guess it could be that. This is very philosophical for a day at the beach.”
    “Don’t you think about stuff like that?” she asked.
    “Sure.” I shrugged. “It just doesn’t usually come up in conversation.”
    Nathan returned around about then, his hair dripping and the back of his shoulders a painful shade of pink. “You’re starting to fry,” Sasha warned. He collapsed onto his towel next to Sasha, cold drops landing on her legs.
    “Ahh!” she yelped, flipping onto her back. “Nice and cool!”
    Nathan held his body over hers and shook his head vigorously, like a wet dog. Tiny drops of water landed on her swimsuit, her arms, and her shoulder blades. Sasha laughed and punched him on the shoulder. It was kind of erotic to watch and sent my brain spinning in wild directions. I’d have been jealous if I didn’t know the truth about Nathan. In fact, I’d probably have been mad at him.
    “I’m going in,” I announced, already on my feet. I walked down to the water, waded in up to my waist, then threw myself in and swam out to the raft. That’s probably where Nathan had gotten his burn, sitting on the diving raft to give me and Sasha a chance to talk. I hoisted myself onto the wooden raft and dove back into the lake. I was like a dolphin in the water; I could swim forever without getting tired, and for a while I did just that, launching myself repeatedly into the water and swimming effortlessly back to the raft. When my head was finally clear, I swam back to shore and joined Nathan and Sasha on the beach.
    “We thought you were never coming back,” Nathan joked.
    “I was getting hot,” I said. One hundred percent true.
    Nathan nodded. “I have to get going. That shift at the restaurant, you know?”
    No, I didn’t know, but I got the picture. He was leaving us to our own devices. I wondered if Sasha had mentioned anything about me during my absence, something that had