Drowning in You (3 page)

Maybe I’m already in? No, Dex,
no. There’s no way that fucking angel is in any way “in” with you.
Or that you deserve her or any reward.

Thinking of this makes my head
spin, reminding me I absolutely need sugar right now because I’m
not sure this stupid body can walk itself back home, argue with Dad
for ten minutes and then manage to sneak into the pantry for sugar
before completely collapsing.

I hate this all-too-familiar
sensation—the wobbling, separating from my thoughts, as if this
isn’t my body and I’m stuck in this useless thing that won’t do as
I say.

“
Dex!” Charlee
has my arm. She has my arm—my arm that’s rigid from pleasure, from
her touch—in her little fingers. She holds my other one, too and
she’s right there, that sweet candy perfume stripping the rest of
the strength from my body, and it escapes in a soft, breathy
sigh.

Having her sweet candy scent in
my head is going to be hell from now on.

“
Here, get in
my car. It’s pouring!”

Now I notice the rain. Was it
like that earlier? Maybe it was always raining this hard. All I
know is if I can make out the two melons of her breasts through her
loose top, the rain must be coming down. And I must be out of it to
not have realized the weather before.

It would be so easy to slip
into her car. I’d make her laugh again, so she’d do that thing
where she would grin and tuck her chin into her chest, yet she
couldn’t wipe me from her mind, and then I could brush my fingers
over her cheeks to behind her neck where I could pull her to me. I
know she’d like that. All girls do.

But this can’t
happen. I killed her mom. I’m responsible for her dad’s life
hanging in the balance—which I hear about daily, thanks to mom’s
updates. I deserve punishment. Why am I allowed to live my life as
if nothing happened? I hate being let off without resolution. As
much as I didn’t want to lose my friends, as much as I hate the
stares, the egg-throwing and mass public hate, it gives me
something to feel. I should be hated for ruining Charlee’s
family.
She
should
hate me.

Right now, all
I know when I see her grin at me, and grip my arm and look like an
angel is that
I do not deserve
this.
I don’t deserve any pleasure from
Charlee when I’m the one responsible for taking away all
her
pleasure in
life.

What I really deserve is to
watch her slip away. It would be the only real thing I’d feel when
I’m confused and hating myself. It would hurt so bad that it would
have to be real compared to the nightmare I now live.

But that means using her as a
prop in my punishment, and that’s worse.

We share the same look for a
moment, her eyes on my face and mine on hers. This moment is ours.
My hand is so close to her hip that I could…

“
Is he coming,
Charlee?” Darcy yells over the rumble of the rain.

Charlee says, “Coming back now.
Don’t worry.”

I can’t stop myself from
wondering if her bra is black or gray.

She gives me a weird look so
maybe she caught me. Good. Maybe now she’ll go and leave me—but
then she does something really stupid and says, “You’re absolutely
coming with me, Dexter. It’s pouring and you look like you’re going
to faint.”

“
Actually,” I
say, and I’m grinning from ear to ear, like a total douche, “I
think…”

My cell goes off. Saved by the
bell. My crotch hates this moment, but my head knows I’ll look back
and remember this as the best possible interruption.

“
One sec,” I
say, and then, “Yep. Hi, Raych.”
It’s
Rachael, I mouth
, as if Charlee is meant to
know who she is. “Yep, still on. Cool. See ya in a few.”

Snapping my cell shut, I both
hate this moment and am thankful at the same time, because someone
like Charlee deserves to have someone day in, day out. A guy she
can trust. Someone like me shouldn’t go near her because it doesn’t
matter what anyone else says, I was operating the ski lift when her
mom was killed and her dad broke a dozen bones and ruptured half
his insides. Yet this girl with flowing blonde hair and a mouth
that can’t help but smile at someone dangerous like me wants to
help me. I don’t know why. I don’t deserve her.

My trembles haven’t subsided,
they’re taking over all of me, so everything I am is this separated
body where the words come out as a square and my mouth is a
triangle and they don’t feel like my words anymore. My head feels
like it’s wobbling off my neck, backward and forward, but I’ve
gotten so good at trying to focus that I don’t think I’ll crash
into her.

“
My buddy
Raych is coming by—” and it’s funny how easily I can lie “—to
hang.”

“
Oh.” That
grin she couldn’t wipe away is gone.

I can just as easily give her
something as I can take it, I think.

“
But next
time.”

I’ve fucked it this time. I
know it and she knows it. I can’t stop smirking with one corner of
my mouth and my arms are tensing around my chest, mostly so she
can’t see how pathetically my diabetic body is shaking, but I’d be
lying if I said I didn’t know I was looking bulked up like
this.

“
Yeah.” She
tucks her hair behind her ear again and wipes the rain from her
eyelashes. “Absolutely. Yeah!”

“
I’m sorry
for…well, yeah.”
What the hell are you
thinking? You can’t talk about her dead Mom!
“Hope you’re well.”

Something takes over her
expression and all of the color disappears from her face. Then she
blushes, smiles a goodbye type of thing, and dashes back to her
car.

Darcy waves at me, and she sort
of waves while trying to hide her face, and I want to run after
her.

But I can’t.

I wobble and slump into the
gutter and slap my hands on the concrete. The coolness is calming
because I’m sweating in this rain and all I want to do is close my
eyes but I can’t because if I do that, I won’t wake up.

I’m so damn hungry right now. I
need food and I start imagining shoving mushy chocolate cake in my
mouth, and ice cream and everything else. I close my eyes and slump
my head on my shoulder to allow myself just this bit of rest
when—

Beep!

“
Dexy!” Raych
calls, screeching to a stop.

I grab her hips and kiss her on
the cheek, but I’ve slammed my cheek into hers and I’m sure it hurt
her although I can’t feel a thing.

She rolls her eyes. “You’re
fucked again, aren’t you?”

She thinks I’m
a druggie. I’m that much of a coward that I can’t tell this girl I
fuck that I have diabetes and so she hears me slur
Rayyyccch
and sees me
stumble to her car and hop into the passenger seat, and makes up
her own mind. Of course she thinks I’m a druggie.

I’m scavenging for anything,
throwing empty paper bags from McDonald’s takeout over the
backseat, cigarette packets up in the air and eventually find a
stick of Mentos. They’re mints but I know this brand isn’t sugar
free and so I rip it open. They scatter all over the carpet floor
but I finger around, trying hard not to pass out while fumbling
with the candy and pop three, four, five, more, into my mouth.

After two minutes I can feel
it—reality—coming back. My fingers are frozen from the cold
temperature outside, and embarrassment is settling in as it always
does. Did I look that out of it? How close was I to falling into a
coma?

“
Got the
munchies, huh?” Raych says, and doesn’t hide her smirk.

“
Oh, yeah!”
and then I have an urge to clamp my mouth shut because this
is
not
what she
meant and this looks very, very bad. “I mean, no. No.”

“
Dexter,
please don’t do that. My mom doesn’t like it when you come over
whacked.”

“
Sorry, babe.”
I finger her top because I’m riding the high after the hypo and my
mind is still re-attaching to my body and by the time I realize
what I’m doing Raych’s top rides up, and I’m feeling for her bra
but she doesn’t have one on today. Instead my finger touches the
softest, roundest things I can ever imagine.

It’s like
this—I was slurring, stumbling, falling and now I’m hardening and
sharpening and pressing my lips into a thin line. I’m buzzing and
these breasts—
breasts
, just the word gets me hard—are everything I need right now
because I’m back in control of this body and I won’t hurt Charlee
by touching her. Instead, I pull Raych’s hips up over her seat and
down on me.

I can’t go back home ‘cause
Dad’ll probably beat me. Or my stuff might be on the street already
‘cause Mom won’t be there to stop him and if I have nothing else to
do, nowhere else to go, I might call Charlee.

I pick Raych up by the hips
again and push her up, down, up, down on my jeans and we can both
feel me and she’s moaning, which makes me groan, too.

“
Oh, fuck,
baby!” she cries. “Wait.”

Raych leans over and feels for
her car keys, yanks them out of the ignition and chucks them
somewhere, I don’t know where, because her lips are pressing on
mine, and then they’re sucking on mine, and then she’s already at
my neck, sucking me into her lips.

“
Here?” I say.
She knows what I mean.

“
Right here,
baby,” she moans, thrusting on me again, now all of a sudden
topless, like that, with her boobs on each side of my nose. It
feels so good like this because it isn’t complicated with her. We
know what we want, what to expect, and I don’t have to worry about
disappointing her or screwing up.

“
You fucking
think of leaving and I’ll snap you,” and she presses down on me so
suddenly this motion
really
hurts, “right off.”

Hyper alert, I realize just how
bright it still is for this time of the night, even in winter. Old
ladies would have a heart attack seeing a topless girl straddling
me in this seat.

Raych’s anger makes me somehow
remember the baby hairs of Dad’s nose touching mine, not enough of
a gap for air to pass. Just the wrath of his threat.

I want to forget the bad memory
that is my life.

Raych goes on kissing down my
collarbone and it feels so hot but I can’t keep my mind in this
moment, which is rare.

I remember
what Dad’s words really meant:
If
he makes this.

He’s talking about Walter May.
The guy is in a hospital bed, barely alive.

But still.
Walter May
is
alive, and now it makes sense why Dad emphasized
Right, but Walter did
not
die
back
in the kitchen.

I don’t think Dad’s happy
Walter made it.

3. Love the Drug(gie)

Charlee

As I work through my swimming
training, I want to keep grabbing at the water in front of me,
pulling my body through the weight of it. Never come up for air.
Never. Breathe. Again.

Then something tugs at my feet
and suddenly I’m half-weightless, half pushing against the wall of
white water.

“
Darcy!” I
cry. I cup some water, throw it at him, and repeat this until he
splutters,
enough, enough!
and we separate again. I do forty laps, a mix of
backstroke and freestyle, because when I’m like this it’s really
hard to do anything but sing, and I need that after running into
Dexter.

Lyrics come to me, or I invent
them, and my body is this rhythmic beat where I’m literally
floating in this water and nothing is dragging me down.

I haven’t
trained in so long and my arms burn. I love that feeling.
Burn
. For my mom and dad
and Dexter. Because I’m stupid for still wanting him. Still, I melt
at his touch, words. Pretty much anything and everything about
him.

That’s when the tears come and
now I cannot swim because my arms are strips of lead, my legs
trunks of coal. And it hurts. Two miles in a training session is a
slow one and I’ve only swum under a mile and my chest heaves as I
scoop through the water, but now I’m sure I must be going
backwards.

And then I know. It’s because
of the tears. I can swim six miles and recover better than this.
But now?

Slowly, I crawl up the steps,
more of a zombie than anything human. I think Darcy is calling me,
asking where I’m going, but it’s too late to check because I’ve
stepped out of the pool house and into the main living area. My
towel is on the deck chair by the pool and I want to wrap it around
my shoulders, but instead I fall to a heap on the floor.

I know Darcy is fine in there.
Like I was at his age, he’s one of the state’s top swimmers for
ten- to eleven-year-olds, so there’s no way he’d need me to watch
him anyway.

It must be five minutes before
I realize I’m curled in the fetal position. I prop myself up on one
hand and see the gray-cream outline of where my wet body has
darkened that bit of the carpet.

That’s all I am. A shadow of
who I used to be.

Naturally, I fumble for my cell
and Facebook message Rosa who’s in some country where it’s
sweltering, and the sand at the beach is white hot.

One
day,
I send her.

Don’t do this
again, hon
, she replies before I’ve
managed to wipe the tracks of tears from my cheeks,
you know I’d have let that plane take off without
me if we knew the accident would happen when it did.