Drowning in You (36 page)

Okay, so
what
are
we doing,
then?

He sings:

Lust is when
you breathe in my ear / Like is how you churn me inside / Love is
the home right here
—and Dex places his
palm to my heart—
Life is us on this
unstoppable ride.

As he finishes the words I
fling my hand over my eyes, feeling the tears coming.

“
Charz,” he
whispers, pulling away my arm.

I don’t want him to see me like
this. I’m meant to say thank you, right? Or give him a cheesy
smile? Maybe burst into happy laughter? Instead, silent happiness
streaks down the side of my nose, edging my lip, off my chin…

And onto Dex’s finger. He wipes
both my eyes with his thumbs. “What’s wrong, babe? Did…did you like
it?”

“
Y-you…sang to
me?”

Dex pulls a
face. “Well, duh. That was my singing voice and since there’s no
one else here, it was for you. My baby is
so
smart.”

I snort, rolling my eyes. Fine,
he wants to be like this? “What’s song’s that?”

“
It’s mine. I
wrot—,” Dex starts, then realizes how I got him right back, just as
easily.

“
I’m that
special, huh?”

“
You’re the
only special to me. Charz, I’ve been an ass to you for so long.
I’ve been thinking, and you’re right. I didn’t let people get to
know me. I didn’t like showing people I have diabetes. I pushed you
away for ages thinking I did the unforgiveable by being responsible
for your parents with the ski accident…” he trails off and I can
only guess what he’s thinking.

“
It’s fine. I
should be sorry. I start poking around in your life like I deserve
every answer—I’m the one with unreal ideals.”

“
No, that’s
the thing. I’ve never had a girlfriend besides Lily and she died
with Jack in the car crash.

“
That’s what
those tattoos are about—my brother and that crash and so many
things I can’t say to his face now. I never told anyone I had
diabetes outside of my blood relatives, Elliot and Lily. Never let
anyone get too close to me. As a kid we moved as soon as I got
close to any of my friends. Dad’s moved us all over the world in
hope of The Job.

“
I grew up for
years without a father just when I needed him. I suppose I kept
everything to myself since it felt natural. I held people back from
my secrets and fears so I couldn’t risk hurting, but that wasn’t
living at all. I had a half-life before you.”

Dex sandwiches my hand between
his, brings it up to his lips and holds me there. Kisses me. “Our
dads were friends from fifteen. One accusation from my father to
yours caused a rift that separated best friends for the rest of
their lives. They spent longer apart than they did together as
friends. Your dad gave us money for Jack’s funeral, and my dad was
saving up to wire the gifted amount back, ‘cause he knew Walter
would never accept it willingly. But at the end of the day, it’s
just money. In the end, my dad never got to apologize to your
dad.”

Dex has learnt a lot since the
day we looked over the yearbooks. I want to ask why and how, but I
don’t because it makes so much sense. Why Dad would always extend
his business trip by a day or two when he went to America. Why I’d
heard Mom and him talking about things that never made sense as a
kid.

I imagine their lives—best
friends separated by a fight that consumed them. No wonder Mick
seems to be so distant from the rest of the family. Who wouldn’t
become their regret, and lose themselves, when one mistake you made
changed so much. I imagine never speaking to Rosa again, and bile
rises in my throat, sending an awful feeling down my spine.

Dex pulls me
against his side, so his body heat from his taut chest muscles
sears my skin through my thin summer dress. “I don’t want to spend
decades bumping into each other at shopping malls, or saying
congratulations to each other on getting married to other people.
All I know is I can’t stand not being around you. I think about you
as I fix a cracked radiator at work, while I’m at the gym, in my
sleep. I tried forgetting you initially, but I couldn’t and I don’t
want to. I’ve changed these last weeks with you. Not into someone
else, but you’ve taken away this shell I used to block everyone
else from myself and now that I can breathe you and touch you and
be with you, I think I feel more like
me
.”

Wow.
“What about things you keep saying about everyone
else—your friends, strangers?”

“
Between you
and me,” Dex says, leaning inches from my lips, “I think the world
can go screw itself if it’s trying to keep us apart. But now the
most important demand.”

“
Demand,
huh?”

Dex breathes into my ear, “Yes,
demand, since you like when I bring out the best in you. You’re
going to be my girlfriend,” he says, pulling back to undress me
with his eyes, “because I want everyone to know you’re my
girl.”

How does he know that’s exactly
what I was thinking? A day, years—it feels like yesterday and
forever that we’ve been like this and my days crushing on him just
a silly memory. He remembers how I hate when people cheat by asking
questions instead of learning about what that person wants. And
he’s absolutely right. More than half my family is gone and Dex has
been my strength and tears and laughter and love too. I want
everyone to know he’s mine.

He waits for my response, which
I make my “yes” clear by pushing his shoulders back and straddling
him, tucking my feet under his calves. After, I remember to nod my
answer.

I can’t kiss him like this. His
eyes tell me the same thing, filled with a yearning so strong, it
fires up my heart into my throat. I stare at him, and realize in
this moment that…

“
Dex,” I say,
gulping.
Just say it!
“I, um, I l—”

“
Heeelp!”
A voice screams from
below.

It’s from our side of the boat.
Dex and I stick out our heads out the window, to see little Adam
disappear under the surface of the river, the inflatable once on
either arm shot out to either side of him. “Adam!” Tahny
shouts.

In the split second I assess
the water below, Tahny’s ear is stuck to her shoulder as if
something is stuck—an earring? An adult-sized inflatable ring is a
body length from her. No one else is in view. I don’t have time to
look at Dex.

I bend through the window and
slip outside, letting the air take me. Water is my love and my
fear. I am my fullest self in water, and I am also at my most
terrified of letting people down.

As I fall, a thousand thoughts
cross my mind. I’m seeing my student who almost drowned swim
freestyle without aids. I see my dad cheer me on from the stands, a
dot in the crowd, my name bursting from his lips. I see Darcy
swimming laps of our pool at home. I see Dexter almost falling into
a coma at the bottom of my pool.

The trees in the distance are
perfectly lined, all standing in zigzagging patterns near the edge,
where the muddy water meets the earth. The sky is a brilliant blue
today, topping off the stunning scenery.

Then I hit the water and sink
deep, the cold river a shock after the warmth of Dex’s arms, and
pop back up to the surface. In my peripheral vision, I see a small
figure plunge from the deck of the houseboat and shout for Darcy to
get Tahny without looking his way. It’s his linguini arms, his
gangly legs and the particular way he handles the water that tell
me it’s him. He’s too far from Adam, and I’m too far from
Tahny.

Adam’s fingertips dip under the
surface, his neon bathing suit my guide as he flails under the
water, sinking.

I dive under, kicking my legs
above me to thrust deeper and swoop my arms. I catch him by an
armpit. Pulling him up, I cradle him and thrust him above the
water. Thankfully, he coughs right away, spitting out water.

I hold him to my chest with one
arm and kick my legs out, propelling us back, using my other arm to
paddle us. Except Tahny is now a shadow under the water because
Darcy hasn’t reached her yet. Her arms flap frantically above the
surface. In survival mode, I go for her too. Hoisting Adam in a
one-hand cradle above the water by the cuff of his bathing suit, I
try to keep his head above the surface. With my other arm, I reach
below me, but Tahny’s shoulder slips out of my grip like an ice
cube. I manage to hook my toe under her armpit so I can pull her
back up.

Tahny is in full-on panic mode,
shouting in every direction for her son, but I easily block out her
hysterics as I lug her under my arm—over her shoulder to under her
other armpit—and with Adam in my other hand. I’ve practiced this
for my training before but I’d always failed trying to drag two
people. Having Adam is easier since he’s little but…

I suddenly
realize I. Don’t. Feel. A. Thing. I didn’t let myself think or
panic. I just did.
And look what I’m
doing.

I concentrate on continuing to
frog kick, bringing us back slow and steady. The boat seems to come
too quickly. It’s only when hands reach for Adam that I realize I’m
not there yet. I let Darcy take Adam from my arms.

“
Like this,” I
say, my voice hoarse.

Darcy understands and holds him
the same way I have Tahny.

Several feet from the boat, a
soaking Dex is hauling up Mick, who comes out of the river coughing
up water. In the rush, I didn’t notice Mick in the water. Dex had
gone in to get him while I was after Tahny and Adam.

Lisa reaches down to take Adam
from Darcy, bundling him in her arms before she takes him over to a
lounge chair to examine him. Tahny frantically climbs up onto the
boat, darting over to her mother and son. I make sure Darcy gets
out before me, so I can see exactly where he is. Then I grab the
inflatable rings from Tahny and Adam and bring them in, too.

As I grab on to the railing to
pull myself up, an arm catches me and Dex lifts me clean out of the
water by my waist, landing me on my feet. We exchange a smile. Then
I spot my little brother drying off with a towel.

“
Darcy!” I
cry, running and wrapping myself around him.

I kiss his forehead then pull
back to study his face, to take him in. He looks fine—wet, but
otherwise no different than usual. Somehow, I expected a flashing
warning sign somewhere in his expression or written on his
body.

“
Charlee, you
saved him!” Darcy shouts. He whoops into the air. “You saved
Adam!”

“
Darce,” I
say, stroking his cheeks. My voice chokes up, which I hate myself
for because I really need to say how proud I am of him. I settle
for a heavy feeling in my throat and a raspy, “Thanks”.

Darcy tells me how Tahny and
Adam went in for a swim, when Tahny slipped from her ring, her
earring getting tangled between her hair and bathing suit. It was
then that Adam toppled over, lost his inflatables.

“
You got there
so quick. You were amazing, Charlee!”

“
I’m so proud
of you, too, Darcy. Not just because you saved Adam’s life, but for
everything—being such an adult and the one to help me when Dad was
sick. I love you so much.”

Once everyone is dried and
dressed we settle back inside, Lisa telling us Adam swallowed a
mouthful, which he coughed back up immediately. And that apart from
a bit of shock, he’s fine. Tahny takes the next few hours to calm
back down, and even when the sky begins to darken, she still hasn’t
stopped shaking.

Lisa recruits Tahny and Dex to
help with making salads and steak for dinner. Darcy has the sole
responsibility of looking after Adam while he plays around with his
toys.

“
Charlee,”
Mick calls from the back of the houseboat. He’s standing on the
mesh section, the water below nothing but black now that the sun is
almost gone for the day. The remaining light spills over him, his
smile beckoning me.

I join him outside, wrapping my
sweater tightly over my chest.

“
Thank you,”
he says.

“
Mr.
Hollingworth, it was nothing. I did what anyone would have
done.”

“
I jumped in,
knowing full well I was hopeless. I sank about a second after I hit
that water, and all I could think was that I was going to be gone
too, and I’d have so much mess and all your lives ruined if I
drowned and didn’t save my grandson. Thank God for what Dex did for
me, and what you did, saving my child and grandchild. That Darcy is
incredible for helping save my baby boy.” He clears his throat.
“That little brother of yours is some swimmer.”

“
I know,” I
say, stealing a glance behind me, where Darcy is on his belly,
making funny faces for a giggling Adam. “He’ll do so much better
than I ever did some day.”

“
I want to
speak to you about something,” Mick says, his voice low. “Your
father would have said the only bad thing about life is not living
it.” He clenches and unclenches his fingers on the railing and
looks down at the “V” of gold spilled over the black water, where
the lights from our houseboat spill luminescence around
us.

Mick faces me, says, “You can
be sure Walter will always be with you. He makes me want to show my
children how much I love them, just as how he loves you kids.” Then
Mick’s sunken look pricks up. “I didn’t know Dexter and you were
together, but if nothing else works out since the Mason’s accident
and Walter’s passing but you guys, I reckon I could die a peaceful
man seeing our families together again. Your parents were
incredible friends who loved me unconditionally and I see that
quality in you. It’s an honor to have you with us.”