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right?”
    We both looked at each other and started
laughing. I felt normal for the first time since having the
dream.
    ****
    I decided against telling Aunt Jo that I’d
almost drowned. It would only worry her, and I really just wanted
to forget it. I’d just wear jeans for a few days while my bruises
healed.
    It was almost time for Ben to arrive, and I
wondered where we were going. It wasn’t like him to be late. I had
to get a move on.
    I wished I could have worn my new dress or
even one of the old dresses I’d made over a year ago, but they
didn’t fit anymore. I’d definitely grown taller over the last year,
something I was thankful for. I was only about five-foot-four—not
exactly short, but not exactly tall either, especially when I stood
beside Ben.
    Though I loved my new dress, I knew that,
unless we were going to a costume ball, it wasn’t exactly right for
whatever Ben had planned. I decided instead to wear the only other
dress that fit, fortunately a long black one that I knew he liked.
They hid my legs fairly well, though there were still visible marks
around my ankles, as though someone really had grabbed at them in
the pool.
    I had dismissed the whole notion of someone
pulling me down. Someone would have seen something, right? It was
totally ridiculous, a mind trick just before unconsciousness hits.
I’d been thinking about my dream all that morning, so it was only
natural that I’d conjure the scary woman from the deep, right? And
I couldn’t remember whether or not I’d hit anything on my way in or
out of the pool. I thought it most likely that Ben and Zack had
accidently done it when they pulled me out. I told myself that it
all made good rational sense. So why didn’t I believe it?
    As I dressed, I heard the doorbell. I asked
Aunt Jo to finish zipping me, careful not to let her see my legs,
and quickly went to answer the door, my black heels—a legacy from
Mom—still in my hand.
    His smile told me everything I needed to
know.
    “Hello, Gorgeous,” he said, presenting me
with pink roses, my favorite flowers because of my mother, who’d
also loved roses.
    I could feel the blush starting on my face,
but Aunt Jo saved me.
    “You kids have fun. Not too late, Em,” she
reminded me, taking the flowers to put them in the only vase we
had. Aunt Jo pulled it out for special occasions. I wondered if she
and Ben were cohorts. She had that vase a little too handy when the
doorbell rang.
    “Don’t worry, Miss Jo. I’ll have Emily home
before eleven,” Ben assured her.
    He opened the front door for me and winked at
my Aunt, who shook her head. Like me, Aunt Jo had liked his
cheerfulness from first sight.
    When I saw that he’d dressed up, I wondered
what he had in mind.
    He grinned at me.
    “It’s a surprise,” he answered as if reading
my mind.
    I looked sideways at him as we drove along. I
loved the light at dusk, the way it bathed his features in the soft
early evening glow. He turned to smile at me, reaching for my hand.
The feeling of security our relationship gave me had been a
mainstay in my life, especially since I’d lost Mom, and I knew
Annie was right in more ways than one when she said I was the
luckiest girl in school.
    We turned into his parents’ drive, which was
empty.
    “So where are your Mom and Dad tonight?” I
asked.
    “They’re visiting Jake for parents’ weekend,”
he replied, parking the pick-up in front of the garage. We’d often
laughed about that. The garage was mainly filled with overflow junk
from the attic, mostly fishing and camping gear. They had to park
their cars out in front. The Harmons were definitely not neat
freaks.
    Jake played football at the University of
Florida, and though Ben and his family were very proud of him, I
knew Ben missed his brother.
    “I’ve got the house all to myself this
weekend,” he said.
    Some parents couldn’t trust their kids to
stay at home alone for a few hours, let alone an entire weekend,
but Ben’s parents felt the