“I’m not sure that’s important—”
“Say ‘stone’ for me,” she says, her eyebrows quirking upward.
“Stone?”
She feels her way down my waist and her hands dive into my pockets without a word. Holy fucking crap, she’s mental. Now I don’t know what mood she’s in, but I feel exposed having her so close to my junk, so I grab her wrists, ready to yank her out. She must have guessed I’d react this way, so she clings onto the material inside my pockets, grabbing the edges of my boxers underneath. Now she’s definitely too close.
“Charz…”
She mumbles something, and it’s only when she yanks me forward, and we’re airborne over the water, that I realize she said “empty pockets”.
I crash into the water above her, both of us sweeping low, the weight from the pool pushing us down until I think her ass has hit the bottom. When I come up, I flail at the air, coughing up water.
“Charlee Fucking May. What’s gotten into you?”
“Stone,” she says, exaggerating the hint of the American accent I still have. Then she giggles and jumps into my lap.
“Have you got a stone for me, Dexy?”
What am I, her baby? Then it hits me. I lean in and wait for her to exhale, to smell it on her breath, but she lunges at my face and crashes her lips to mine.
Holy fuck, what was I here for again? Very, very suddenly I can’t remember anything as Charz’ nipples poke at her bathing suit and all I want to do is nip at them, suck and drink her bliss.
“Shut up, will you?” she asks of me.
Well, now I know for sure she’s most definitely had at least one drink while I was upstairs. She’s nuts.
“Mmm,” she grunts into my ear, pushing down on me. Yup, she realizes exactly the effect she’s having on me.
She tangles her fingers through my hair, and pulls my mouth to hers while she hungrily bites at me for more. I grip onto her waist and pull her down on me hard. It’s painful thrusting her on me when my shorts, sweats and her bathers separate us. I need them gone. Now.
I’d much rather rip them off, but not like this. Not when she’s not my girlfriend, and not when things are too unsteady for her to be my girlfriend. Not while she’s not herself after that drink and certainly not with her father dead for only about two weeks.
“Give it,” she breathes in my ear. “Come on,” she begs.
Certainly, I think by grabbing her waist and ignoring all my thoughts to do anything otherwise, pushing her back down on me until it hurts so good and I don’t even know what I’m doing. I grab her hair and thrust it back so her chest arches into me, her head dipping back, her breasts against my chest, nipples hard nubs against me, feeling like we’re already skin-to-skin with these wet clothes.
Stop, some part of me thinks. I have important things to say. Always, somehow, my pull to Charz is as instinctual and innate as my need for sugar when I’m having a hypo. It’s that or total collapse. As my hypo overrides my rational thoughts, so does Charz. I’ve never been a whipped boyfriend and I’m not Charz’s boyfriend to begin with, but she dips her head back, arches her gorgeous body, and I am easily reduced to an obedient child.
Her neck is so beautiful, so I kiss a spot just under her ear, under her chin, and unable to pull myself away I kiss a path down her sleek neck and back up to that spot that makes me lose every thought except for the way her breasts and hips curve and, well, everything in between.
“Don’t make it stop, ever, please,” she begs, prying open my drawstrings.
That’s when it hits me—of how horrible I am by taking advantage of this girl I love. That tone in her voice wasn’t sexual desire, but a human longing for need, for help. Yes, in this moment, I love every bit about her from the way she fiddles with her hair to how she could look stunning in an over-sized T-shirt and baggy sweats.
And taking advantage of her when she’s so delicate like this is wrong.
“Charz,” I pant, forcing myself to think of my mother naked because holy crap, yep, it does the job. I pull Charz off me, and take a moment to clear my head. “We really need to talk.”
“Oh, Dex, you see…” Charz drawls on, “You can do me and then go back to Raych. Because I’ve come to realize I don’t mind. I really—”
“I—I can’t do this with you,” I say, suddenly sobering.
Charz turns away and waltzes out of the water, leaving me realizing I’m not only trembling, but also slurring and off balance. I was so occupied with the computer thing and Elliot and then her all over me…shit.
“I’m not hurt, Dex. I’m not. Don’t worry,” she says, oblivious.
I try not to startle her, so I take a step forward, arms outstretched for balance. It’s moments like this my pride isn’t a concept anymore, because survival mode takes over.
Blackness swirls in my head, clouding my vision. My feet slip, dropping my shoulders under, but I manage to straighten.
Right then, I realize I could slip under this water, and it would be quite possible for Charz not to notice—just walk away. My head would be too heavy and my mind too slow, not processing, to make me stand up. Beyond that, when I have a bad hypo, my muscles relax. They’d give way and under the surface my cries for help would send a surge of water down my throat and I’d die. I’d lie under the water, crying for help, drowning, as blackness wiped away my vision. Maybe the last thing I’d know is feeling the water holding me under, limbs useless, all spent from energy, as my hypo spins me out until I finally fall into a coma.
And. No. One. Would. Know.
It’s a scary feeling. One that reminds me of how my brother, Jack might have felt when he and Lily slammed into that tree.
What do you want most in that last moment? I know I need Charz and forever will.
That’s when I realize what Dad and Walter were talking about. This thing between them. Mustering every ounce of energy I have left, I splash to stand and say, “Charz. Help.”
She turns around, seeing how quickly my body has betrayed me. This useless, diseased thing that I lose control of in an instant. I have a million things to tell her, from all about Jack to how much I love her, so I try again, “Help!” and she dives in, scooping me up and pushing me to the edge.
My head lolls back, and everything seems so happy and dreamy, yet there’s the side of my brain screaming panic, shrieking at me to get my ass out of there and find some candy now. But that side isn’t in control anymore. My sugar has plummeted farther than ever. I know there must be damn near none in my body now, because the slightest of movement washes blackness over my eyes.
I’m so, so tired, so I count backward from one hundred. I get to ninety-eight before it’s all too hard, so I go for the straight one, two, three. I can’t fall into a coma if I’m counting, can I?
I close my eyes, because the sparks of light up in the hazy roof hurt too much and make me dizzier.
I don’t know why, but she is ramming me against something hard. Again, she says something, and it takes ages for my mind to process this as, “Come on, Dex. Get up!” and I realize she must not be able to drag me out of the water. My dead weight must be almost triple of hers.
We glide to the side, me counting from one again, because I can’t keep up, because behind my lids everything is so dreamy and sleep has never been so tempting.
More sounds, but I don’t know what she’s saying. I hear the words, and I know them, but their meanings are lost. Meaning is something that happens in the mind, and now, with blackness having taken over my vision, and realizing it’s all too late to go and grab some candy, three things occur to me.
One, I’m running away from my issues by not caring enough about my diabetes in the same way that Charz chose to drown herself in alcohol and lies tonight to escape Walter’s death.
Two, I hope she can get me out of here and to a hospital in time, so I can tell her about what really went on with her dad and my dad.
And three, I black out before I remember ever leaving her poo
l.
26. Ask. Answer.
Charlee
After heaving at Dex’s body for what feels like forever, I finally lug him out of the pool, and my hands feel weird, as if they’re still pulling at him. My cell in one hand, I hover over his body with my other to his chest because I need to feel the rise and fall as the line connects. I need to feel him. I am directed to ambulance services, one is dispatched to my house, and an officer stays on the line with me.
“Is he awake, Charlee?”
Fingers trembling, I touch his face to poke some sort of life out of him, but all my hand does is slap his unconscious body. Seeing his wet hair splayed across his face, I smooth it two times after it’s back because the motion feels right. Seeing his soaked clothes and how big he suddenly seems reminds me of my mother’s lithe, broken, small body, because death, you see, comes in any form, in any size.
I almost, almost, let the cell slip from my hand and give in to the pull inside my gut to fly away from here, fly away from death because Dad and Mom are here—bleeding and immobile, and I’m not ready to face that yet.
“Charlee, it is critical if you can tell me if he’s responding to your touch or voice.”
“N-no,” I stammer. “No, he’s…” Dead.
She asks me if he was involved in an accident, what happened directly before this. Well, he just dropped, is what. When a sack of potatoes falls, it tries to spread but the sack holds the guts inside. Dex? His soul left this body before he gave way. In my arms he was faint but awake, now he’s nothing and I don’t get it.
“Do you know of any pre-existing conditions?”
“No!” I cry out. “He’s really fit. He goes to the gym and doesn’t drink Coke.” These are the things that come to mind now. It’s the little things that stick with you forever, while you wait for death. And it’s horrible, because I know the officer isn’t asking me for pesky, irrelevant answers but it’s all that I can say. He’s perfectly healthy, more than anyone else, I want to tell her.
Like my mother.
“No epilepsy, heart conditions, diabe—”
“Yes!” I cry, hearing that trigger.
“He has diabetes?”
“Yes, yes. He does.”
My eyes drop to Dex. I lower my ear to his chest, but turn my face upward so he won’t be out of my sight, and cup his cheek with my hand.
“Type 1 diabetes?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But he likes my chocolate cookies and rum balls sometimes when he says he gets a hypo. Wait,” I find myself saying. “Yes. Type 1.”
“Please check if you have anything semi-liquid to rub on Dex’s lips.” I run to my pantry, thankful to have the space because the panic was starting to mess with my ability to think. I trip on my breath, but catch it back once I get into the main rooms, away from the pool house. The dense, chlorinated air and the shock had strangled my thoughts, but now I’m cooler, away from the scene, helping while not having to see the helpless situation I’m in. “Check for honey, sweetened condensed milk—any thick liquid like that you can rub on his lips.”
Lips? That won’t do anything! I need to give him those rum balls or, or, I know I have Coke! “I know I have Coke. Oh! I have cookies for him. Will they do?”
“In Dex’s state, he could choke on any forms of food or liquid. It’s crucial that—”
“I’ve got it! Honey,” I say bolting back to Dex. My muscles fight me as I lunge to him as fast as I can pump my legs. It’s as if my body is trying to convince me to run out of this place.
If Dex dies. I gasp. If he…
I shake the honey bottle downward in the air in three quick jabs, but the stuff is old and almost solid. I wedge the phone between my ear and shoulder and crush the bottle in my fist, shoving my fingers inside, and scooping out honey. It dribbles over my fingers and spots Dex’s shoulder.
“Now wipe the honey on his gums and tongue and mouth,” the paramedic says.
I do this, swiping crazy amounts of honey. I coo to Dex he’ll be okay, over and over.
The doorbell rings, and the officer says to check if it’s the paramedics. It is, I tell her, and hang up, only remembering to say thank you once I’ve ended the call.
The paramedics rush to Dex’s side, pulling out their gear.
“He’s type 1 diabetic?” the male officer says.
“Yes.”
If I wasn’t sure about the seriousness of Dex’s condition before, I do now. I can tell that by when they pull out a syringe, open a bright orange container and stab it in the vial. You don’t go stabbing injections into someone unless you have limited time to save their life.
The male officer is checking Dex’s vitals, while the lady stabs this needle so long it must spear right through to Dex’s bone, despite his huge arms.
That’s when my body gives out, my head spins and I lose balance. Large hands catch me, and tell me I’m fine.
Now look at me: Dex is dying and I’m stealing his show. That’s how horrible I am. But these minutes have taken hours and I cannot think. I cannot do anything but listen to the soothing voice of some strange man telling me to breathe deeply as my head spins, feeling a mask being suctioned to my face and a sharp bite of air when I inhale.
It seems like the next moment my head clears. There are a few voices as I come to.
The hand that picks up my head and lifts me from ground is so familiar, the type that instantly registers in your brain as oh, it’s Dex, that I know this before opening my eyes and looking up.
“Are you okay?” we say at the same time.
“Aren’t—why aren’t you in hospital?” I say. He almost died!
“Charz, baby. This stuff happens to type 1 diabetics. These cool officers here have done their job. I’m actually pinging here with this sugar rush.” Dex sighs and grabs me against his chest. “But what’s important is you saved me, Charz.”
Something snaps at this. I didn’t save him! I had a shot or two of vodka, leaped into this pool, ignored Dex trying to tell me he was having a hypo and almost killed him. If I’m not a death omen, I don’t know what is.
I was selfish and wrong to think I could bring Darcy home and everything would return to normal after a few months, maybe a year. Tonight, watching Dex so nearly lose his life under my responsibility has broken my heart. I’m good at near drownings. I saved a little girl, my swimming student, from a fear of water, yet I almost killed Dex.
I see the warning this time: I’m never going to escape death.
“No,” I rasp, running back inside the house, the image of my room in sight. “Please, leave,” I call, slamming the pool house door behind me.
It’s my barrier between my toxicity and Dex’s naïveté.
* * *
“Yiasouuuu,” Rosa calls from downstairs.
I pull my pillow over my face, clutch it with both forearms and scream. My voice is a tiny little squeak. I go unnoticed and it’s how I like it. But Rosa doesn’t give up. Her voice echoes down to the pool house, and it’s when it peaks in the middle that I know she’s coming up the stairs.
“Ciao?” She calls at the top, three rooms down from mine. Then again in Maltese. She’s a world full of joy.
“Charlee!” she squeals from my bedroom door. I know this not because I can see her, but because her tone is off-the-charts high, enough to wake the dead.
“Here,” I mumble into the pillow suffocating the air. It’s hot in here, stuffy, cozy—the way I describe it changes depending on my mood, which has ranged from unhappy to devastated to guilty and everything in between since the early hours of the morning.
“I’ll pretend you haven’t heard me yet or else,” Rosa grumbles. Then, rip! I’m naked. At least, it feels that way. The cocooning sensation of my warm sheets, fluffy comforter and pillow was just right. Reactively, I shrink into the fetal position, tucking my chin to my chest and hugging my knees. “Or else,” Rosa continues, “I’ll be royally pissed you don’t want to see my bronzed face after more than two months.�
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“Two months?” I whisper, poking my head up like a rabbit out of its hole.
“More.” She lies beside me, and blinks, trying to read my expression. She strokes my cheek. “Charlee, baby. What’s going on?”
“Everything. Nothing.”
“I suppose I should stash away my screaming and anger until later on, then?”
I nod into the space between my knees and chest.
“Melissa?”
I bob my head, still tucked away.
“There’s something else?” she asks, not convinced. And I get it. She would have heard more of my mother-related breakdowns if that were my only problem. But there’s a gaping crater, the rocks falling away every second, and my lie of omission has passed the point where I can easily say anything.
“Is it Darcy, Charlee?”
I nod.
Her hand comes to my shoulder and strokes the arm of my nightshirt. “Dexter?”
At that I burst into tears. I could have killed him. I could have killed him for my carelessness. I’m a swimming instructor and I could have very well killed the guy I…I could have killed Dex.
Rosa gasps then says, “You didn’t! Is there something going on? Or was there?”
I bite onto skin near my knee and sob hard. My tears are hidden here and I cry noiselessly, with only my shaking shoulders giving my silent breakdown away.
“What does Walter—”
Dad’s name grabs my attention. I shoot up into a sitting position so fast Rosa starts.
“Do not say his name.”
Rosa’s chin shakes in response. She whispers “no” to me, her hands held up defensively. She scrunches a pillow under her head and sighs a cloud of fatigue. She tries a smile on one corner of her mouth, but that fails too. She settles for picking at her nails and looking everywhere but my eyes.
Drowning in You Page 20
