Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian

yourself.”
    “All right.”
    “They seem like nice kids, don’t they?”
    “Yeah, they’re nice,” I said, kicking off my flip-flops. I took off my shirt, which was bloody and gross, and my father flinched away from me, as if seeing my scar hurt him—the exact effect I was hoping for.
    “I’m gonna just hop in the shower,” I said.
    “Sounds good.” His eyes widened, like he couldn’t believe Dr. Penny had already fixed my shower aversion. Acting as natural as I could, I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I watched a big black spider silently struggle as it washed down the drain, and then I sat on the toilet and watched the steam billow around the shower curtain for I don’t know how long. I sat there until I couldn’t stand how much energy I was wasting, and when I came out, my father was gone.
    ***
    It was way after midnight, about a week later. I waited until I heard the logoff ding from my dad’s laptop and the snoring that followed, then tossed my shave kit in a towel and slipped out to our dock. The blinding porch light from Baker’s cabin was off and everything was dark and quiet. Safe enough.
     
    The June water wasn’t much warmer than it had been in April and May, but it was warmer. I’d been doing this long enough to notice the change, however small. I stripped and jumped into the water.
    I swam out and back twice to the diving platform floating between Tom’s and Baker’s shorelines, touching the ladder like a goal, a compulsive thing I did each time to warm myself up.
    Plus the laps helped wear me out. I always slept great on bath nights.
    I shaved in the dark, feeling bad about the chemicals in the shave cream, as usual. Would they make frogs turn hermaphro-ditic? What would E. Church Westmore say if he could see me?
    I shaved quickly because I hated thinking about those things and, in doing so, nicked the cut on the corner of my mouth.
    Again. That was almost another part of the ritual too.
    Then I washed with a bar of soap, rubbing it everywhere, including over my head. My hair was so short now I didn’t bother with shampoo. To rinse, I swam to the diving platform once more, then pulled myself onto the dock and wrapped my towel around me. I sat for a while with my feet dangling in the water. This was my habit, every other night. When Baker had said she’d seen me, I started doing it much later. The bugs were less thick after midnight, actually, which was confirmed by E.
    Church Westmore in his chapter on mosquitoes.
    “Evan?”
    I jumped and my shave kit almost fell into the water. I stood up, checked the towel around me.
    “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Baker said. “What are you doing out here?”
    “Uh …”
    “Do you always take baths in the lake?”
    “Uh …”
    She stood in a bathrobe at the end of the dock, wearing big unlaced brown boots. I hadn’t seen her since that night I’d skipped Jim’s party, and it occurred to me, again, how cute she was.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, stepping closer. My entire body popped up in goose bumps, and the scar on my chest felt as obvious as the yellow line on a highway.
    “What are you doing out here?” I finally managed to say.
    “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Is that why you’re out here?”
    No, I’m out here because I was beaten nearly to death in a gang shower at a redneck boarding school in North Carolina, I thought.
    And I can’t face using a shower in a bathroom without a lock on the door. Maybe not even then. I’m lucky I can take a shit in there.
    But I just told her that I couldn’t sleep, either. That I swam to relax.
    “Cold water doesn’t sound too relaxing.” She folded her arms over her chest in a way that made me realize she wasn’t wearing a bra.
    “You would think that,” I said, a little peeved at her bossy tone. “But actually, it has the opposite effect. Cold temperatures make the body shut systems down.”
    I sounded like a dick. And a nerd. A dickish, defensive