Drown

3. Give Me The Summer

As the pan sizzled and popped, I sat on my hands, watching him quietly. He was leaning over the pan with his eyes squinted and I wondered what I was doing at his house, why I was here at all. Curiosity, maybe. And even more, I didn't want to be home. Not home where my mother was too often just a body under a blanket, so quietly there I sometimes wondered if you never spoke, never lived again, did you even exist at all?

As if he couldn't stand the silence, he spun around to face me. "Josh Miller can be slightly intense. So if he says anything that crosses a line," Vincent winced as someone crashed into the kitchen, on a skateboard, and cut him off completely.

"Incoming!" A flurry of red hair and gangly limbs fell off the skateboard and sprawled himself on the floor. I blinked.

"Hello," grinned Josh Miller. He was staring up at me and he couldn't be more than fifteen years old, braces and bright red hair that curled at the ends, all awkward long limbs and big feet that he didn't seem to know how to control.

I looked up at Vince for an explanation. "You idiot," Vince muttered at the so-called Josh Miller but there was a fondness there that was hard to miss, and then turned back to his omelet. I had felt bad telling him I wasn't even hungry, so when he started whipping out eggs and other ingredients I had stayed silent, watching.

"So, like, is it true that your head feels like it's exploding when you're drowning?" Josh Miller asked. "Read that on wiki. Sounds painful," he said with innocent curiosity.

Vince said, "Shut the fuck up, J."

"I guess you could say that," I answered at the same time.

That night was a little blurry. I could only remember the strong feeling of-I want to die, I should be dead, shouldn't I? Yes. Yes I should.

Josh stared at me for a little longer, and there was a quiet, understanding there in his eyes, a wiseness you wouldn't see in many teenagers, and finally he pushed himself up off of the ground and sat himself in the chair across from me. Once Vince served the food, Josh Miller barreled on to eat everything on his plate and I pushed my serving towards him as well. He ate that as well.

"My eggs weren't good enough?" Vince asked but he was smiling. He didn't let me attempt to come up with an answer. "You know, I'd like to walk. Would you like to walk?"

He was already striding out his kitchen door, once again knowing I would follow after. I wondered what he would think if no footsteps followed. I wondered if he'd turn back. Probably not, I decided. Probably not.

* * *

It was a quiet walk because I didn't know what to say, and he simply either didn't care for conversation or he was at a loss for words also.

"I know I shouldn't ask," he said. I knew what was coming. So I ripped off the band aid before he could ask.

"I jumped into the water with my shoes on," I said. "And I wasn't going for a night swim." I stared at the sand under my feet, and then at the ocean that I think would always be the place I almost died. I could never look at it the same way again, but I supposed maybe that's how it was for everyone who had drowned and lived. Or maybe just for me. Knowing that if I was ever under the depths of that water again, I might just pray there was no boy to jump in after me.

"I didn't think so," he said and left it at that and I wondered why there was nothing else. No more questions, no judgement in his tone. (I could feel water still, there was water still sloshing through my brain, slowing everything down, and the feeling of drowning was still there, potent in my mind, hovering under the surface-and I was gasping. Endlessly gasping for air, even now. Even now when I was above the water.)