by Rachel Wells
Lisa was tiny in stature. The weed hit her hard and fast, but she reacted to it poorly. Paranoia seemed to be the prevailing effect of the drugs and it was an appropriate expectation—more an extension of Lisa’s already timid, nervous personality. She noticed Sharon straying before the others had yet to reach their peak high. Her eyes twitched in rapid coverage of the landscape. She could not focus them, but she saw enough to know that Sharon was too far out in the water by herself to be safe. Lisa lost her words and so resorted to tugging on Heather’s sleeve in an attempt to direct her attention to the lamb straying from their flock.
Heather slapped her hand away after the fourth tug on the underarm of her favorite sweater. Her voice was slower from smoking, but irritated nonetheless, “What? Shit, Li.”
Lisa remained incapable of speech, but gestured around them frantically. A sudden tickle from the aftereffects of the weed hit her throat and sent her into a coughing fit. After this, she regained her voice, though it was higher than normal. “Sharon! Sharon!” She was interrupted by another coughing fit. “Sharon is out in the water! Look!” Lisa pointed out to the lagoon, jabbing at the air in front of her several times to make it clear how urgent it was for them to turn and look.
“Shit, Li. Can you relax for a minute? Water probably feels really good with what she’s tripping on.” Heather irritation dissipated from her voice leaving behind a mellow tone and slow speech to hint at drugs. She did not bother to turn, choosing instead to take another shallow drag from the joint she held possession of.
Cheryl was the one who turned. She saw the source of Lisa’s justified urgency when she noted Sharon wading through the water, not toward them, but out into the lagoon. Already, the waves she created tickled the fingertips at the ends of her dangling arms. “Sharon!” Cheryl called to her and jostled Sadie as she moved toward the water’s edge. She missed the glare she produced from Sadie—focused on getting close enough to reason with Sharon and draw her back to shallower depths.
Cheryl’s sudden reaction caused Heather to turn and give credit to Lisa’s worry. Indeed, Sharon was too far out for comfort. She did not pay heed to their calls as the rest of the girls followed Cheryl and begged Sharon to return to the shore. She ignored them even when their tones turned patronizing and then harsh. Their was only the call of the moon in the distance.
As she waded further away and the water level rose, she lifted her arms to shoulder level so her palms skated across the surface. When it rose above her shoulders, she left her arms drifting down below like seaweed. Sharon walked on her tiptoes when water threatened to creep into her mouth. Although she resisted at first, she soon lost all chance of footing and welcomed the onslaught. At last, her head dipped underneath. The water surrounded Sharon and swallowed her whole. She felt so free in this private underwater world. Above, she could still see the bull’s-eye moon; though it blurred from the newly erected barrier of the water. Sharon grew colder the longer she stared at the obscured moon, though it was not an unpleasant feeling. It was like the water had crawled inside her and balanced her temperature to match that of the liquid around her. The equilibrium was calming and peaceful. She loved the acceptance she felt. “This is really good X...” However, not quite good enough to counter the primal panic waiting on the fringes of Sharon’s mind. As her time below the surface passed, it grew darker. When she looked and could no longer see the moon, her target, she yielded to the panic. She flailed, fearful and alone, sending clear distress to the surface for her friends to see.
From the shore, about thirty feet inland from Sharon’s position, the four remaining girls stood and watched the water stir and froth as Sharon churned it from beneath. Lisa started crying at her friend’s clear difficult in resurfacing. She resumed tugging on Heather’s sweater and whimpering, “Heather! Heather, do something! What do we do? Huh? What do we do!”
Heather knocked Lisa’s hand away with more anger evident than before. Her voice matched the action. “I don’t know, Li! I don’t fucking know! Shit!” She paused to look from Lisa back out to the water. The waves slowed in frequency and intensity, hinting at misfortune below. Copying Lisa, Heather grabbed Cheryl’s arm. She used the grip to pull Cheryl around to face her. “Cheryl! You’re the first aid, doctor type; what the hell do we do?”
Cheryl looked trapped by the sudden pressure on her to save their friend. She blinked while glancing back and forth between the lagoon and Heather. “I—I don’t—”
“She’s fucking drowning, Cheryl! What do we do?” Heather had maintained her hold on Cheryl’s arm and shook her now.
This was not the time for Cheryl to lose confidence in her know-it-all nature. The blank stare remained on her pale face, though. She lost even her partial words and resorted to shaking her head. It was Cheryl’s turn to pick a scapegoat for the responsibility. She turned away from Heather to Sadie, who remained standing behind them a couple of paces. She watched with an added coldness to her stare. It appeared she was the least shaken by the current goings on. A chill moved through Cheryl before she strung together a comprehensive sentence. With trepidation, she asked, “Sadie, what—do we try to go out there?”
Her voice matched her stare, “Why?”
Cheryl was taken aback by Sadie’s nonchalant response. “What?”
Sadie flicked her cold gaze from the stilling spot out on the water and turned it on Cheryl instead. She spoke matter-of-factly, “Why? She’s too far out for us to reach her, drag her back here, then administer CPR. She’s practically dead already.”
Cheryl repeated herself, “What?”
Annoyance crept into Sadie’s tone, “Do you want to drown trying to save her? Because that’s what will happen.”
Cheryl whipped her head around in a continuous arc to divide her confused face between Sadie, Heather, and Sharon’s fading ripples. “Then we need to call someone!”
“Settle down, Cheryl. By the time they get here, she’ll be just as dead, just as permanently. I need you to calm down and think about it.”
During their blind questioning of potential action toward saving her life, Sharon continued to sink. The tips of her bare feet brushed the sparse weeds growing through the rock bottom. She could not distinguish her limbs from the liquid around her anymore. The acceptance she had described before turned into a possessive, unrelenting hold on her—one she wanted to break away from. Her heart felt like it was in a race against itself. It beat too quickly without purpose, for she felt the blood continue to rush inward from her extended arms and legs rather than cycling through and giving her will to move upward. When she tried to breathe warmth and life in, she just grew colder. Though she worked toward a simple, solitary goal, she could not will her limbs to move and save her from the all encompassing darkness. Involuntary twitches of expiring muscles were the sole movements produced. Everything felt cold and hollow, as though the water had departed from her lungs and taken her soul with it. The black came down on her like a heavy curtain in an instant. Before that extinguishing moment, Sharon remained locked in a limbo—like being trapped in a corpse. “Isn’t someone supposed to save me?”
Sadie, though keeping up with everyone else in pace of consumption, was the least affected by the weed compared to the three girls around her. She kept her head when she was drunk and she could keep her head now. There was a tightening sensation around her temples, like a crown made for a younger queen being squeezed on to her head and forced to fit. She looked past the buzzing behind her eyes to take in the frightened faces of her friends. Lisa still cried, Cheryl’s shocked face had not changed, and Heather—she was the calmest of the three panicking hens. They always looked to her in any situation requiring a leader, and she had never had a problem with such a role before. Tonight, Sadie wanted nothing more than to be a follower.
An unsettling stillness settled over the rocks of the beach and floated along the calm surface of the water. Lisa’s quick breathing punctuated with sobs disturbed the quiet, but aside from that, it was dead. Sadie main
tained her veneer of calm and control.
Cheryl broke the heavy silence and cried out to Sadie despite her close proximity, “What? What! Sadie! Talk to us! Sadie?” Sadie ignored her as a common practice and did not break her habit now.
After seven minutes gone under the water, no trace of Sharon’s quiet entrance remained atop the pool. Bubbles containing her last breaths had long since traveled upward from the depths and popped.
“Sadie?” This time it was Heather who called out to her; less insistent or panicked than Cheryl. “Sadie, what...what do you...do you think...”
Sadie knew the endings of Heather’s broken up thoughts without her finishing. What did she, Sadie, leader of the people, think they should do? “Shit. She has the rest of the X in her pocket...” Aside from her concern for the drugs in Sharon’s pocket, Sadie blanked on a specific plan. Given the situation and its outcome, they were all walking the thin line between witnesses and bystanders. Sadie recognized this fact and from it, was spurred into action. “Keep it simple.” She leaned her head back and took a deep inhale of the evening air. No trace of tragedy lingered in the air; it still tasted fresh and clean. It helped to clear her head of the aftereffects of the weed. Her head came back down and she took in the frightened girls lined up in front of her. “Total control.”
“Listen up. We’re all a little high right now and Sharon still has those pills in her pocket. If we call anyone, we’re in shit. We’re especially in it especially deep when you consider the fact that she’s drowned out there and we’re bone dry. There’s no other way to play this than to go home and forget about it.”
Cheryl’s expression transformed from scared to questioning to disgusted. She was in complete disbelief of Sadie’s mellow attitude. She at last conjured some fire to put passion into her voice, “Sharon did just die, right? You realize that? Remember our friend, Sharon? My god, Sadie! What the hell is wrong with you?”
Sadie regarded Cheryl coolly when she addressed with finality, “Go home, Cheryl. Sleep it off and forget about it.” She did not give Cheryl a chance to respond. As far as Sadie was concerned, she had already started walking home—alone. She turned to Heather and Lisa next. “Ladies, I’m leaving now. If you want a ride back home, you’ll follow me. I’m tired.” Sadie pivoted and walked toward her car, her footsteps crunching on the uneven terrain of the pebble beach. Though no one else saw, the hand holding her keys shook with some force. She clenched her jaw to steel her nerve. When she reached her car, she got in and waited for Heather and Lisa to follow with her hands clenched around the steering wheel. She could count on those two of their group of five—no, now four—to do that much. They were reliable based on their predictability. To further push her point, she turned her headlights on to illuminate the girls arguing in front of her. Sadie watched Cheryl try to reason with them with regards to calling someone about Sharon. Her hands flailed in front of her as Sharon’s had flailed below the waters. Lisa was despondent; she remained clutching Heather’s sweater with both of her tiny, trembling hands, now. This time, Heather made no move to shake her off. She allowed Lisa to cling to her while she looked between Cheryl and the headlights of Sadie’s car, making a decision for the both of them. Heather’s hand came up in a weak shrug that brought out heady disappointment from Cheryl. She made a grab for Heather’s hand when her and Lisa took steps toward the car. Heather shook her off as she had done to Lisa previously. She could no longer look Cheryl in the eye as she pulled her hand free and walked away with Lisa inches behind her. Cheryl watched them walk away for half of the distance to the car. For the rest of the time, she locked eyes with Sadie in a last protest of her inaction. Sadie met her gaze with equal determination, paired with a matching level of indifference toward the situation. Eventually, Heather and Lisa climbed in the backseat of Sadie’s running car. Lisa promptly curled up in Heather’s lap without paying mind to her seatbelt. Heather allowed her this comfort and stroked her hair for the silent ten minute car ride home. The silence now was different from the silence that graced the ride in. This quiet lingered like a poisonous gas in the small shared space. They breathed it in as Sadie drove away from Cheryl, the stone beach, the lagoon, and Sharon.
Two days later, Sadie received a text from Heather early in the morning. It was simple, to the point, and horrifying. “Newspaper headline: Teenage girl found in lagoon; identified as Sharon Wilders. Did we fuck up?” “Yes,” Sadie thought, “but we can’t admit to that.” She did not let on to Heather just how bad this was for them. Her stomach dropped and a large knot formed in her throat. She ignored both uncomfortable feelings while responding to Heather as reasonably as she could. Her return message served two purposes; she used it to convince herself that there was no fault to be found at her feet, and also to confirm their story for the inevitable interviews and questioning. “We tried to save her. We tried.”
Heather was no fool. She understood Sadie’s text to be a confirmation of their lie and the end of this conversation. She clicked the lock button on her own phone so the screen went black on Sadie’s words. Heather tucked her phone down in her bra, between her breasts, and leaned back against the headboard of her bed. She looked up at the ceiling and repeated the words in her head, over and over again, until they felt natural and honest. Without pause, she thought, “We tried.”
She assumed it would fall on her to get Lisa to agree to all this secrecy. The two words were simple enough that Lisa would be able to hook onto them and envelop them into a repeat track, even in her obvious state of mental distress. Her mind was past the point of fragile; it was brittle, now. A slight tap at the right angle with the right probing question and she was likely to crack. Heather would wrap her in a shroud of security and assurances. She would keep Lisa safe from herself for as long as she could.
With Lisa in mind, Heather slipped her legs over the side of the bed and into her shoes. She knew that if Lisa were to see the newspaper headline without an immediate rock to lean on, she would crumble. With a consideration toward the time sensitive nature of this problem, she did not bother to change out of her lounge clothes. She swiped her hair into a messy ponytail without checking the mirror. After grabbing her wallet and locking the door, she jogged the distance to Lisa’s house; right at the end of her block and then a quick left. She would leave Cheryl for Sadie to deal with. They plainly disliked each other, but she knew Sadie would prefer to handle the particulars with her. Cheryl had a mind of her own in terms of group decisions. She perfected the role of “odd man out.” Her contrary nature—especially in relation to Sadie’s wishes—was the biggest threat in this matter. Lisa’s house appeared ahead, on the left. Heather halted in her jog a couple houses before her true destination. She leant forward with her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Righting herself, she played out multiple versions of the pending scenario in her head. In all of them, she had to comfort a weeping mass of Lisa while promising they were clear of any wrongdoing.
In a moment before Heather found herself at the door, more nervous than she had been two nights ago, and already regretting the conversation ahead, her phone rang. She dove into her bra to retrieve it. The screen flashed with “SADIE CALLING...” Heather felt nervous picking up the phone, but she ducked out of sight of Lisa’s front facing windows to take the call. “Sadie? What’s up?”
Sadie’s speech was rapid fire and direct. She gave Heather the backbones of an alibi other than “we tried.” When she spoke, her voice was as cool as it had been on the beach while she watched Sharon drown. “Are you listening very carefully, Heather?”
“Yes.” Heather held her breath after confirming her attentiveness. This felt like the sort of speech that would not be repeated. She didn’t want to miss a syllable while breathing too loudly.
Sadie continued, “Good. We met at the beach. Sharon was already there and she was already high. She bought the pills; enough to share. We declined, but stayed at the beach to hang out. Sharon reacted poorly. She went too far out into the water for any
one to do anything to help her. We tried. We couldn’t save her. We panicked. If anyone asks you any questions, you stick to that version of events. Get it?”
Finally, Heather blew out the stale air in a loud huff to breathe freely once again. The story was not too far from the truth to feel like a lie to her. She thought it was better defined as a misdirection. The only detail left out was the marijuana, and even that was not a substantial charge. Heather felt much calmer than when she had first walked up the porch steps of Lisa’s house. Her voice matched her sudden shift in mood, “Got it.”
“Good.” Sadie hung up without saying anything else. Heather was locked down and now it was her turn to tighten the lid and lock Lisa down, as well.
Heather stood from her crouched position beneath the front porch windows to face the door. She tugged down the hem of her shirt and brushed back the flyaway hairs from her ponytail before knocking on the door with some new measure of confidence. This was going to be easier than previously indicated by Cheryl’s overboard panic. In an accidental imitation of Sadie, she rolled her eyes at the thought of Cheryl continuing to harp on the wide extent of their involvement. Heather did not feel right about it, but she put aside her guilt and the incredible sadness of losing a friend in order to protect herself and her remaining friends. She would convince Lisa to do the same thing, just as she expected Sadie to persuade Cheryl that it was the lesser of two evils.
~ ~ ~
Crunching footsteps coming down the manmade shore toward Sadie snapped her awake from year-old memories and signaled the late arrival of her friends. She picked up another two pebbles and skipped them across the water before she was joined by the three other girls. There was a round of nodding heads in place of spoken greetings and then, an uncomfortable and tense lull while they waited. Sadie’s eyes rolled without her noticing and she spoke without hiding her annoyance, “Well, Cheryl? You’re the one who insisted we all drag ourselves to the last place any of us want to be...” Her arms crossed while she waited. The past year laid consistent strain on their already flimsy friendship. Without admitting it, they accepted being stuck in this mess together, but had no expectations that they were still friends at the end of it.
