Drowning in You (16 page)

“
Nana once
told me Daddy uses dialysis to make his kidneys work,” Darcy says
as I fasten my seat belt.

Backing out, I squeeze into the
jam of cars trying to exit the school without so much as a flipped
finger or honked horn. “Dad’s kidneys aren’t working.”

“
Nana tells me
the dialysis does make his kidneys work but…” Darcy
says.

Half a minute goes by, during
which Darcy stares at the side of my face as I drive. “Nope.”

“
Pa says his
blood got poisoned. And Pa says Daddy’s heart is very
weak.”

Darcy goes on like this for
ever and ever. Heat swells in my eyelids, the first sign. My throat
constricts, a second sign. Darcy’s still talking to someone, I
think. I can’t be sure of how I’m responding other than the
occasional shrug or “mm-hm”. When I scratch at an itch on my cheek,
my finger comes away wet. Confused, I wipe that cheek again and do
the same to my other cheek. Both hands are shining wet.

I realize I’m crying when I
breathe, when my throat makes a gurgling sound.

“
Are you
crying, Charlee?” Darcy says, craning his neck to inspect
me.

I swat him
away. I should have made myself tell him to be quiet, that
my
heart is too weak, not
Dad’s. Our dad isn’t going anywhere.
Darcy, don’t you know that?

I am an outsider. Everyone but
me is so sure my dad will die. But I will not succumb to those
negative thoughts. Thoughts like that show on the outside and my
father needs strength from me.

It’s while I’m considering that
I would never be so defeated as to think my dad will die from his
injuries that I finally make up my mind.

An
eighteen-year-old guy who has never stolen money from his parents
and who never cheated on the hardest exams of schooling life,
overcoming pressure from friends to deface property, or cheat or
drop out, is
not
the type of guy to plan an accident that could tear apart so
many families.

More than that, when I stare
into Dex’s eyes and there’s a longing inside so deep, I wonder how
far he’s probing inside me, how long he’s wanted me, despite his
words otherwise.

The more thinking I do the more
Dex appears…innocent.

Next thought: what’s stopping
us being together, then?

15. The Hypo Hero

Dexter

Charz is the only one home. I
know this because I caught the bus here after work today and have
watched her wind up the long driveway and open the middle roller
door to park inside. Like the idiot I am, I’ve been crouching
behind this bush for longer than I want to find out. My ankles and
calves almost give way after all this time.

I haven’t manned up and knocked
on that door, and the cramps are horrific pains by now, so I guess
that means I’m not going inside to chat to Charz. As I climb over
the bushes and back to the road, I taste something at the back of
my mouth. I run my tongue over that spot and swallow, feeling the
taste, and how I have food cravings and that…I hold out my hand
horizontal to the ground and it trembles. Now that I’m thinking
about it, my head’s light and my thoughts are jumbled.

I cross the street, not fazed
if someone sees me emerge from the bushes. I cut across the path,
stomping through emerald-green grass and stepping through plant
beds full of red, pink and orange blooms.

Since everything feels sick and
happy and woozy and weird, I almost walk through the door. To stop
my nose from smashing into it, I steady against the wood.

My muscles are so, so heavy in
this moment. Slow, too, because I hang my head against the door
with my hands still resting on the sides and the world seems to
rock.

Definitely a hypo. I should
turn around. I don’t want her to see me like this. Better yet, I
should be able to reach into my pockets and eat the candy I’ve
stashed there as Mom suggests but I still don’t carry any with
me.

But I need sugar. And I’m too
far away from any other source. This leaves me one option. I rap on
the front door and wait, shoving my hands in my pockets. I count to
twenty, then wait some more because I can’t trust my judgment to
guess the time lapse. I rap again.

But she’s here! Why isn’t she
answering?

“
Charz?” I
whisper, poking my head through the door. A moment later, when it
occurs to me that I’m staring at a wall-sized projector screen,
three individual leather recliners and a massive U-shaped leather
sofa, I realize I’ve walked into Charz’s house just like
that.

I poke my head in a few doors,
asking myself with a faint voice how I’m doing this when for
three-quarters of an hour I was crouching behind a damn bush trying
to work myself in.

The house
seems dreamy, yet modern, and like a haze in the distance after
walking for hours under a hot sun, I can’t be sure if I’m dreaming,
or I’m really here, in
Charz
’s house. Fucking low blood
sugar.

I repeat what I see to keep my
eyes open, and keep my body functioning. Hallway. Turn a corner.
Another room. Kitchen.

Food.

I don’t call Charz’s name this
time. Stumbling, I rip open the pantry and see glass containers
that hold cookies dunked in chocolate so I scoff one of those.
There’s a container with rum balls so I take one of those, too.
There’s a family-sized bag of potato chips so I eat them, taking
only double the time as it took to gulp down the rum ball.

Slowly, the
room stops spinning and the light-headedness is all but gone. I
wipe my hands on my jeans but they’re still sticky with the fat and
sugar from the food I ate. From
Charlee
May
’s house!

Once the feeling of passing out
and the splitting headache and trembles pass, I realize what it is
that I’ve done. I look around the huge, spotless room, with not a
crumb of food on the tiles apart from mine, and panic. I crouch and
swipe the mess into my palm. Swipe, swipe, until it seems all
traces of my shame are gone.

As I’m crouched near the floor
with a palm full of crumbs, I hear a splash. A splash? I stand and
check for a garbage can, opening two cupboards before I find a
built in system on wheels hidden behind another cupboard.

I want to eat
more, or at least I think I
have
to. It’s the cravings because my body is still
adjusting from the hypo. When I’m in this state, my mind is a
ten-foot monster demanding I eat everything I can and it doesn’t
matter if I don’t have the money or I’m already full. I don’t have
the willpower to rebel against that voice.

But here in Charz’s kitchen
some rational part of my brain fights back for a moment, and when I
shush that voice, I hear more consistent splashes.

I follow the sound,
methodically weaving around the coffee table and another leather
sofa until I can see her through the glass door. It seems to be
some type of pool house attached to the main mansion.

There are two palm trees
planted in each back corner of the pool house, surrounded by dirt
and small green sprouting leaves. A rough tarmac surface covers the
rest of the space, holding reclining deck chairs in a clump in
another corner, and a waterfall spilling at the far end of the
pool. There’s a floor-to-ceiling-length shelving system too.

But no Charz.

Until the darkened, wet-blonde
of her hair breaks the water’s surface. She’s swimming in the
opposite direction to me. Her head barely bobs above the water
before she goes under again.

I slip my workout shorts down,
yank off my tank in record time and dart to the end of the pool
closest to me, away from her. She does this flip at the wall, her
feet and ass tumbling in a circle before she springs off the wall
under the water. Shaking my head, I slide into the pool with my
boxers on. I brace for the freezing sensation to cup my dick and
balls and it doesn’t take long to hit. I don’t know how she stands
swimming in this temperature, but it takes me a moment to be able
to move and then I slip under and wet my hair, shaking it out of my
face when I stand up.

Charz’s head is also peeking
above the water’s surface when I rub the water away. Her wide eyes
survey me like a security camera, just taking me in, the only sign
that I’ve scared the shit out of her. Seeing her trying to mask her
fear jolts something inside me.

Why am I in
her pool? Why am I
here
? Is she okay?

“
Charz,” I
breathe, wading through the chest-deep end and pushing handfuls out
of the way. “How—how are you?”

She glides through the water to
me. Her body slices through the pressure, making my body appear
more like a football player in a ballet class.

“
You’re in my
pool!” she shrieks.

We both stop at this point, a
body-length between us. Her eyebrows arch upward as she stares at
me, expectantly demanding answers for this craziness.

“
I don’t know
why,” I manage, sure that this verbal answer to the questions in my
mind can’t make any sense to her. “I mean…I want to talk to you
about something.”

Her shoulders relax and she
moves forward, wiping droplets from her face. She’s beautiful like
this. A natural in the water. The way her body looks like a
feather, not a lump of weight trying to move through this pool. I’m
just glad I’m crouched in the water and with the ripples from our
movements she can’t, surely, notice my boxers stuck to my hips, and
another bodily appendage.

Suddenly her features twist.
“Get out! Get out of my pool. This room. My house. Out! What were
you thinking, Dex?”

I love when she calls me Dex.
She’d call me Dexter if she really hated me. This is my cue. I risk
pulling her to me and when she doesn’t force me back, I’m glad I
chanced the move.

Her hair is slick, hotter than
any babe on the cover of a mag. Her skin is soaking, the straps of
her suit the only material visible above the water line. We look at
each other for a moment, and I feel her eyes take me in, like she
knows I’m imagining everything her body could do while wet.

“
I’m really,
very sorry, Charz.”

“
That’s not my
name!”

“
It’s my name
for you,” I say, and she smiles but it’s an angry smile, and it
disappears in a split second. The expression on her face tells me
the responsible side of her has reminded her this creep has snuck
in her pool.

Which isn’t how this looks. Is
it?

“
Can I
explain?”

“
Please.”

I run my
fingers through my hair again and push it back out of my
face.
Need to think.

“
And stop
doing that!” she demands, though the look on her face seems more
interested than annoyed.

“
Okay. Um.
Here goes. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about us and the
accident, but I had a moment before—” I sort of almost fainted and
woke up to your scowling face a moment ago “—and I really can’t
explain why I walked in your house and dunked myself in your pool.”
I can, but I’m lying. “Here goes. I didn’t plan for the wires to
snap on the ski lift at Mason’s and I certainly didn’t plan to hurt
your parents that day. But I can’t stop thinking about you and it’s
driving me nuts and I had to tell you that.”

Charz’s face reddens quickly,
including her eyes and she turns from me. White heat shoots through
my chest, so I pull her into me, holding her tight. For a moment,
there’s a hint of pressure between her palms and my chest but her
strength falters and she submits. Wrapping our bodies together, the
water around us feels warm and I stop shivering. The heat feels so
good and I rest my chin on her head, feeling the quivering in her
body diminish. She pushes her hands against my chest, still trapped
between us. When I let her go she takes the warmth and even more.
This water is colder than ever, a reminder her body is gone from my
hands.

“
I’m sorry
this happened. You mean everything to me, Charlee May.”

Her jaw drops, her mouth into
the shape of a letter, but that’s as far as she gets for a verbal
response. Are all kind words that shocking coming from my mouth?
She wades back to me, sending my heart leaping with every step she
takes.

Then she’s in my lap. She
floats on top of me, warm water between her legs and mine. Her
heels are pressing into the back of my leg, clamping her to me. Her
wet arms make a splash when they come out of the water and drape
around my neck.

I’ve had about zero breaths in
this time, but my heart’s hammering away under my skin. She must
feel it through the water because her breasts are close and her
fingertips rest on my back.

“
Charz—” I
half mouth, half whisper.

She ignores my protest and
almost lets her head rest against my forehead. Instead, she stares
straight into my eyes. “I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she
says.

My heart bangs again, sending a
rush directly to my dick this time. I lower myself into the water
hoping she won’t suddenly sit on me. “I had to make you see I
couldn’t hurt you.”

“
I realized
that you had nothing to do with what happened at Mason’s.” She
pulls her face down to meet mine, not moving back so our noses
graze each other’s. Since she’s been soaking, her skin is softer
than the last time we touched. I want to lay her down and drink in
every part of her body.

If I didn’t know better, I’d
say electricity shocked the daylights out of me when we touched,
and I’m nothing but a soul floating on clouds. But I do, and I know
Charz is my drug, and this is my personal high.