Why am I the only one looking?
And I know. . . I need to protect them. Max doesn’t look right, and she isn’t looking at all.Mum? Why don’t you look, mum?. . . My heart hurts. . . She. Doesn’t. Like. Us. . .
When I look back at Max, his eyes are closed. My heart feels fast. It makes me feel dizzy. “Max. Max. Don’t close your eyes, Max.” I think I spoke. I tried to speak, but no one was looking, and now I’m watching him slide down into the water. My throat burns. My heart burns. My head burns.
I start to laugh.
I laugh so loud, and it won’t stop. A sound that rips through me and it nearly hurts. I feel tears fall down my face. Hot tears. They burn. It all burns.
Max. . .
I laugh.
Then she looks, looks and starts to yell at me. For laughing. My laughing made her look. She stands and walks towards me. Something hot hits my cheek. Her hand. And again. It’s warm. I like it. Mum is mad. She puts her hands on my shoulders and pushes me under the water. . . it isn’t deep. It isn’t cold anymore either. She lets me go, and I float under the water for a while, laughing.
Then I see Max.
Under the water opposite me.
His eyes are closed.
Mine are open.
I’m looking.I burst up. Mum is gone, but I’m looking. I drag Max up. He is heavy. But I pull him out of the bathtub. Out of the water. I grab the towels. All of them. I wrap them around us. Max needs to be warm. I hold him. I’ve stopped laughing now, but I can still hear it echoing in my head. I think I broke my brain in the water, but I was still looking.
I was looking, Max.
I’ll keep looking after you.
Bronson
Present day
I finishthe bottle of whiskey. Placing it on the carpet, I watch it roll onto its side, a small pool of brown liquor collecting on the underside.
Despite the hour, the overhead downlights are bright. And although I’m not alone, I’ve never felt more so. I can’t drag my eyes from her body for long. The clicking of the clock keeps an ominous tab on the moments that pass, on the silence that her state and my madness bring.
Leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees, I focus on the subtle movements of her lovely naked form flopped across my mattress like it used to be. But this time. . . she. . .
My eyes narrow on her.
She doesn’t have anyone to blame but herself.My baby.. . She knows me better than this. Did she really think I was going to let her go back to him?
Bitch.
I growl at the word, despising its simple definition, its inadequacy, everything about it. Especially how it popped into my head while watching her deep in drugged slumber. She’s not. She’s not a bitch. Fuck no. She is the most incredible creature to ever indulge me. And all this time away from me, she’s been festering with that last day. . . with the way I treated her.
But I hate that she didn’t come back to me. She knew where I was. Anger surges through me. And I laugh cruelly because she is right. . . I am angry with her.
But not for what she did. . .
For her absence.
For her presence.
For letting him touch her.
For flaunting the thing I want more than anything in front of me, like I wouldn’t tie it up and keep it.