With everything silent like this, I can’t help but think. Like think of that moment from the bar weeks ago when the bouncer’s fist pummeled into me as if he had something to take out on me. He did, I guess. Or a problem he felt he had to handle on behalf of the community.
When will I ever stop being the person people look at and think, “Isn’t that the guy who murdered that poor girl’s parents?”
Charz. Back to her. Images of her long blonde hair hiding her face when I found her in her room during those days I stayed over after Walter died. They play over and over, even in my sleep. Now they appear along with my nightmares of people dropping from the lift wires, their bodies snapping, and my friends saying I can get stuffed and find other murderous-type friends to hang with.
I think of her because it seems that everyone from the media to strangers and even my old friends hates me for something they reckon I did.
And the daughter of people who actually died from that accident at Mason’s doesn’t hate me. Actually, I think she feels the same way about me as I do her. But that’s impossible because I love her more than I respect myself.
My guilt doesn’t seem to be so untouchable since I almost fell into a coma in the pool. Given that in that moment I thought I could die with so much undone and unsaid, I now know no one can hurt me more than myself, and no one can fix my fuckups other than me. In the end, if I had to die right now, I’d want Charz to know how much she means to me, and everyone and everything else can keep their opinions, regardless.
I’m Dexter the diabetic. I’m not fat. I can pump more weights than almost anyone I know and I’m not less of a person because of my damaged body.
Just because I was caught at the wrong place, at the wrong time, doesn’t mean I have to take the blame. I do feel responsible, but that part of me becomes smaller each day and I know that one day in the future, I’ll be able to live happily without that blame crushing me.
I’m also awesomely versed in understanding death by the ripe old age of twenty-one. In fact, I have a feeling I know why Charz ran off once the paramedics came. She couldn’t let me drown, or leave me unconscious by the pool, but the moment she knew her care wasn’t needed she got out of there.
Because I see it.
I’m the reminder of her broken, non-existent family.
In that moment, I was a symbol of death to her. But I’ll show her that nothing will keep us apart. I won’t let death stand in the way of our life together.
28. Beachball Blues
Charlee
“What did you wear?” is the first thing I ask Darcy as he lugs in his lone backpack. He’s been living with Nana and Pa the last few weeks and he moves back in to our parents’—our, I have to start saying that—home with that little thing?
“I only wear sneakers,” he replies, dropping the backpack and jogging to the kitchen.
“Figures,” I mutter.
I pick up his bag and tack on a note: “Unpack this or else I’ll feed it to the kangaroos in the bush behind our place.” For good measure, I start writing another note, perhaps for a trail to his bedroom where he could not possibly miss my clues.
“…sweet! Okay, but I’m ready, like, now, Marty. Fine, ten minutes.”
Darcy huffs and slams the cordless phone back into another cradle in the hallway. His explanation is by way of a massive grin.
I drop my forehead into my palm. I mumble, “Please tell me you haven’t invited your friend Marty over two seconds after you’ve come home.”
Darcy considers this then shakes his head. “Nope, haven’t invited my friend over.”
His answer doesn’t sound right, but if he was talking about meeting his friend for an online PlayStation game, I’m thrilled. So thrilled I will be pushing him into his room. I’m not ready for more than one rowdy boy in this house. Baby steps.
He sprints up the stairs and I seem to be gravitating to the pool room before I even decide where I want to go. That place is my home.
It’s not until I trip and fling my hands out to catch myself, narrowly missing a crash by catching the back of a reclining chair, that I really come back. Looking down, an inflatable beach ball has somehow planted itself in my path. I kick it hard and it ricochets between walls, stopping in front of the two French doors that lead out to the balcony.
Why, Mom? Why, Dad? Isn’t it enough you’ve left me? Do I have to see this reminder of stinking hot summer days in the pool house forever and ever? That every time I see this ball, I see Dad counting how many times he can whack Mom in the head before she gets really pissed off.
Collecting a breath and exhaling, I grab the beach ball and put it aside. As I push open the French doors, my predictable tear ducts give way. The tears boil up, my cheeks on fire. They’re heavy, so heavy, and I almost can’t stand—
Thump. Thump, thump.
The noise gets louder, going up the stairs. Screaming voices join it and suddenly I don’t know what I was about to do, but I sprint back to the front of the house.
Another smaller bag is planted beside Darcy’s and dirty shoeprints are scattered along the tiles and up the carpeted stairs.
I’ll kill him, is my first thought. My second is to run up those stairs and thrust open his bedroom door, or the games room door, wherever they are, like angry people do in the movies.
Skipping up every other stair, ears pricked for the source of the noise, I know where it’s coming from before I get there. When I lunge at the door, it flies open, and yeah, I feel like I’m starring in a movie. Except that I have a strange feeling eating behind my lips, snarling these awful things at me to yell at Darcy, telling me to scream things I’ve never said. After a moment, when I take a breath, the air soothes me.
Three boys, including Darcy, stare at me. I’d stare at me too.
At least I didn’t get angry.
“What’s…”
“We’re playing, Charlee. Can you get out?” Darcy says, finger pointed outside the games room.
I look around at Marty, who’s playing a full-body simulation game, and at his little brother who’s on the other TV playing Warcraft. Their eyes bulge at me, me who’s barged in like a crazy mother and almost flown off the proverbial handle.
I clear my throat. “I thought you said your friends weren’t coming over, Darce.”
Darcy responds by winking at Marty. Well? I prod with my eyes.
“I said I wasn’t inviting my friend over,” he says, a grin across his Peter-Pan-happy face.
“So you lied?”
“No, I didn’t, cuz these are my friends.”
I bite my lip to hide my amusement because, okay, my little brother can be so smart it’s hard not to laugh at sometimes.
“Ba-dum-bum,” I say, banging invisible drums.
I walk away but when I reach the door, my hand flies to the doorjamb, holding me in place. I don’t know why I’ve stopped myself from walking out, but I do know I started imagining the beach ball with the heart-breaking memories along with it. At that moment, Marty cries out a self-professed love for his godly abilities at virtual basketball, which solidifies my feet in this spot.
“May I join this party?” I ask, spinning around.
The two-ten-year-olds give me a long stare and a slack-mouthed nod, but it’s Marty’s little brother, who at seven is able to say “yeah” without any surprising tone.
Darcy’s on his iPad, which couldn’t keep me interested if I tried, and I hate the thought of killing people in any reality, so I pop on the game gear and step on the plate that’ll simulate my actions onscreen to show Marty some competition in basketball.
It takes half an hour, but eventually I do tie my score with Marty, at which point he recruits Darcy’s help to boost his team. Within a minute of Darcy joining the game, I’m back to watching three-pointers and shots, instead of making them.
With my new loss comes clarity. I’m standing here with these white gloves and bodysuit on, a weak attempt at what body armor might look like on me, flicking,
punching, and leaping in the air in front of a TV screen. Why am I even bothering?
I drop my hands, and begin to peel off a glove when a little voice next to me squeaks, “No, wait!”
Turning, I see Marty’s little brother there, dressed up in the same type of ridiculous white gloves and bodysuit I’m in. Darcy stands parallel to Marty, his little brother stands parallel to me and joins my team. Since age has nothing to do with winning this game—I lose at twenty but my ten-year-old brother and his friend can win—this little guy is a legend. He shows me I’m reacting too quickly without focusing on the basket, and shows me how to shoot better.
Another half hour goes by and it’s fair to say that Darcy doesn’t know how to react to loss. He promptly kicks me out of the games room, claiming he doesn’t know why he let his dorky sister in here to begin with, and only emerges a couple of hours after that when Marty and his brother’s parents show up to take them home.
Once the sound of their car fades into the distance, I whirl around to face Darcy, hands on my hips.
“Come on, be cool, Charlee!”
“Mr. Darcy May, you bring those stomping feet and come back,” I say to him as he attempts to run off.
He drags his feet back and hangs his head, saying, “What?”
“Come on. Let’s grab a Coke.”
Darcy lifts his head and joy spreads over his cheeks. The look shouts really!? And yes, really, I mean it. I don’t know what I’m meant to do in this role, but my sisterly urges have yet to be replaced by motherly ones.
Darcy has this thing about going in the pool house. He only goes in of his own volition if he a) can’t be bothered showering, b) it’s hot and he’s bored or c) an alien has landed on earth. Quite ironic for a swimmer, but he only gets in when he has to train. As today is none of those days, he goes around the pool house, out on the fold-around balcony that overlooks the reservoir in the distance.
Darcy falls into his favorite chair, the one where the wood has actually been sanded away by his butt over the years. “Just not diet,” he says, calling out to me.
“Then you can guess what I’ll be bringing you,” I say, as Darcy incessantly begs for me to pleasepleaseplease not bring him a diet Coke.
I step outside the doors and I can’t believe it. The tease of a beach ball is back there, and this time I go ass over head. My hands (more like the Cokes) manage to catch my weight, but the rough surface of the pool house floor grazes my hands and sets off a roar of laughter from my brother.
“Here,” I say, handing Darcy his can, dusting my throbbing hands against my thighs. “It’ll be a bit flat ‘cause of…” and I trail off, as he doesn’t need a reminder about my fall to laugh at.
He inspects it 360 degrees before popping the tab, waiting for the limited hiss of bubbles and taking a swig.
“Oh, give it up,” I say, ignoring his face, which hasn’t lost its look of elation since before my epic fall.
“You’re Mom now,” Darcy says.
Shaking my head at his sudden topic change, I say, “I’m too angry at that ball to use my energy to decipher what you’re saying.”
“What’s decipher?” he says.
We both give each other’s stare another few seconds before turning away. I do want to explain to him what decipher means, but some larger part of me is glad he’s the one who doesn’t know what I mean, or that he’s kidding with me, because I get him. One hundred per cent.
That ball is Dad and I’m Mom now, the one who’s at the butt of the joke. Except I don’t know when this joke will start being funny.
I’m trying. My, oh my, am I trying to be Darcy’s cool sister and Darcy’s responsible parent and Dexter’s non-girlfriend. Sometimes, like before, I think I’ll be okay. Sometimes, when Dex is inches from my lips I lose all sense of right and wrong and just know I can’t live without that guy. Other times, I want to give up, throw it all away, and disappear. Because I really don’t know if I can handle it all.
And then at times like now I’m on a fence, and I have to make a choice. Do I go for what seems right or what I want?
29. Uncover Us
Dexter
I ring Charz’s doorbell and stand back in line with the bricks so she’ll have no excuse not to answer. She’s been ignoring my calls so I’m coming to her.
But when the door swings open, I’m whacked in the head by a plastic beach ball. Darcy sniggers behind his hand, calls out behind him, “Looks like it’s not you after all. Dex didn’t catch it. He’s going to be forever doomed.” He comes over to shake my hand then leaves me there.
Charz comes around the corner wearing a tank-top and leggings that hug every inch of her, saying, “No, he won’t because that means he’ll have to—”
That’s when she notices me. I have the ability to shock her silent, and by the scowl on her beautiful face, it’s not a good thing.
I trap my hands on either side inside the doorjamb. “Okay, okay. Whoa. Slow down.” Nope, she keeps stomping towards me. “No? Okay, let’s agree to disagree.”
I step in and shut the door behind me. Charz crashes into my body and I catch her by the waist. Guess she didn’t expect me to do that.
“You’ll need to go. Darcy and I are busy.”
Still clutching her waist, hoping she doesn’t realize I’m testing how she reacts to my fingers moving along her tank, I sneak a look past her shoulders, up the stairs. “Looks like he couldn’t have been happier for me to come and pull him away from your company, actually.”
She gets this look on her face as though she’s tasted alcohol for the first time and I’m the alcohol. “You wish. Please, I’m busy.”
“I’ll be quick. I swear.”
“Dex…” she mumbles.
It’s too late. I’m jogging to their massive entertainment room. The one with the grizzly bear rug whose frozen growl greets me as I enter. I notice the bookshelf at the back and head there, Charz’s footsteps catching up behind.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to check something.”
“This isn’t your house, Dex.”
I stop at the bookshelf, feeling exactly four feet tall compared to this mammoth of a thing. “Which is exactly why I came here.”
She stares me down, walking up cautiously, slowly. I turn and start scanning the shelves. There’s everything from a collection of encyclopedias to Charles Dickens all lined up in a row, and other authors who seem old alongside modern people like Dan Brown and Michael Connelly, but I don’t know the others either, given my boredom for novels. But there are tons. That, I can appreciate.
“What are you looking for?” she asks.
“Our yearbooks. You kept them, right?” All girls keep that shit. Every girl I know thinks their school diaries with scribbles and pictures shoved on top of each other—many try to tell me it’s “art”—are “sentimental”.
“What else was I going to do with them? Throw them away?”
In response I shrug. “You could have. Where are they?”
She smiles and heat fills my belly, and far below that, too. It just so happens that Dexter Hollingworth gets horny over everything Charlee May does.
Everything except when she doesn’t call or answer.
She tugs on my shirt, sort of grabbing the top half of my arm since the sleeves are bunched at my elbows.
“Where are we going?”
She takes me back to the stairs, throwing me a quick look, tongue tracing her lips. She does it coolly, which makes her look hotter. I decide to shut up and appreciate the curve of her ass, those stripy undies, and her long legs from behind.
“Here. Not there, Dex.”
We step in her room. I’m not even over the threshold when a shiver buzzes down my spine. I shake out my shoulders, the pressure loosening, yet it spikes again when I notice Charz has been staring the whole time. Her room is still huge. Her bed is still a mile long, her wardrobe takes up several feet over two walls, and her desk sits a mile away against a far wall.
>
But standing here, just Charz and me, the room is tiny. With all the tension, it’s close and dense, and everything has been shoved in here as a tight fit.
“You don’t actually think I’d keep my school yearbooks with Dad’s intelligent stuff, do you?”
I laugh. “Good point.”
She crouches and leans forward into her bookshelf. My eyes are magnetized to those stripy undies barely covering her ass through the material when it turns semi-transparent as she bends down. I look away to save myself grief, only to have my attention land on her bed, which sends passion spreading through me, like alcohol burning in my veins.
“Here,” she says. “Which year?”
I think back. “Year before your graduation. Do you have every year, or just your last one?”
She pulls out a book, hands it to me. I tuck it under my arm. “You don’t have your dad’s too, by chance?”
Charz gives me a quizzical look. She sits cross-legged on the floor and folds her arms across her chest. “What’s this plan of yours? You want my dad’s yearbooks?”
“That’s why I came.”
She ducks her head and mumbles, “Oh.”
Shit. I crawl to her on my knees and rest my hands on her shoulders. I tuck a few strands of hair behind one of her ears because I love how that makes her look even prettier. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
She gulps, and staring at my lips, says, “I’ll see what I can find.”
Five minutes later she comes in and I flick through the pages. This is Jack’s graduating year all right. He was a popular kid, too, photo-bombing different shots, hands hooked over his buds and hot chicks’ shoulders.
The type of photo I wanted to see is there also. Walter May is in a photo with my brother, Jack alone, which is strange considering I didn’t know they knew each other existed.
Drowning in You Page 22
