I’m clinging to the edge of the deep end, staring downward through the glossy barrier between me and the sweet, sweet silence down below. And then, just like that, I’m under too.
The water presses against the hot skin of my face, and it feels like a weight has been lifted off me.
It’s so quiet. There isn’t any sound, only the rush of blood in my ears. No more laughing, no more Victoria screaming, not even the sound of my own wracked tears. Just … silence. Once frightening, now inviting.
I’ve heard of SCUBA divers experiencing something called rapture of the deep, where they become so entranced by the beauty beneath the surface of the water that they forget to leave. I think I understand that now.
As I look at the darker depths of the water beneath me, I feel that nothing has ever been so inviting to me in my life, and I let go of the edge of the pool. All I want is to drift to the bottom in this beautiful blue world, where I am the only one who exists, and where there is no pain and torture, no loneliness, no sorrow.
Only peace and beauty … only me … only for a little while longer.
I sink slowly, letting the silver bubbles slip from my mouth and rise above me as I go down, down, down … until my feet touch the bottom, and there I close my eyes and wait serenely for the end to come.
The end of what, I’m not sure.
But something, something has to end.
Chapter 11
All the world is soft and blue.
My mind goes back over the torturous days and nights I’ve had at school, the days and months and years that I suffered through one foster home after another, over and over again with no base, no home, no real family, no one who cared for me. This has been all of my life, from the very beginning.
If I haven’t found a place in this world by now, I don’t think that I ever will.
There’s a small part of me that knows I’m not in my right mind. But it’s a small part. Too small.
I don’t know the exact moment I inhale water. I just know that I feel a terrible, sharp pain inside me and a sudden awareness overtakes me.
I’m drowning. Really drowning.
This isn’t like before, on the boat. I was just afraid I might drown then. Now, I really am. My body thrashes and my eyesight blackens at the corners, but when I close them, I see a confusing display of disjointed colors. That yawning, stabbing, terrible pain squeezes at my insides just as something strong and firm wraps around my waist.
I can’t see. I can’t even register what’s happening. One moment I am drowning and dying and the next I’m being pulled from the water. I feel solid ground beneath me, but somehow, I’m still drowning.
A mouth closes over mine and forces oxygen into me, and then something heavy presses down in repetition on my chest, and I choke out all the water that was in me. It pours out like a fountain, leaving my body burning from the inside out. I gasp in air and try to open my eyes, but as I do that, I am crushed against the solid wall of a chest, and wrapped in strong, warm arms.
It takes me a moment to realize that the arms and chest are trembling; shaking just a bit, and I push my head back so that I can see who is holding me. I look up into stormy-blue eyes framed by long blonde waves of hair.
“Wills …?” I ask in a whisper. I can’t believe it’s him. Maybe I died and went to a new world after all. It seems an awful lot like the one I was in, except for the boy holding me so tightly to me and weeping. He’s weeping?
“You’re crying!” I blink in wonder and lift my fingers to his face to wipe at the tears mingling with droplets of pool water. He shakes his head and I can see so much pain and misery pouring from him.
“What is it with you trying to die at that stupid Halloween party every year?” he smarts off to me, but I can hear the earnest compassion and care in his voice, and I am dumbfounded.
“What are you doing here?”
He reaches a hand to my face and gently pushes my wet hair away.
Wills searches my eyes with his for a moment before speaking. “I just couldn’t take it anymore. What Victoria did to you tonight is even more unforgiveable than her trying to get you drunk last year. Last year it was unintentional. This year … she was hell bent on destroying you. And she almost did.”
Now I’m sure that I’m dreaming. I stare at him as he tells me the truth about what he’s really been thinking and feeling, and I never would have guessed a single word of it.
“As soon as she sent you outside, I knew I had to do something. I’ve hated pretending all this time that I don’t like you, that I don’t miss you, and that I don’t want to be with you. It’s been so hard for me to live up to Astor’s expectations and ignore you and push you aside like you don’t matter. You do matter. You matter so much to me. You have since you sunk the boat on the lake on the first day of school last year. I knew it all along. I’m just so damn stupid and slow.”
There are tears rolling out of his eyes, and I can see that he is bleeding out everything he has been holding back for so long. It’s so unbelievable to me, but I know that he means every single word of it, and I can feel a soft, warm glow growing inside of me as he shares so much of himself with me.
He rolls his eyes a little as he looks up, and then back to me again. “And then you joined the swim team and it was torture for me, seeing you here so often, looking so beautiful in your suit, so close to me and so, so far away. It drove me crazy.”