Drowning in You (7 page)

Pulling my hoodie from my gym
bag, I hurl the rest into my room. The air outside is frigid when I
step out the back door. At first, I rationalize that it isn’t so
bad because Chicago winters shit all over Melbourne when you
compare weather and freezing temps. Snow either flutters—Mom’s
word—or it pummels you and you’re either cold to the bone or your
balls are so high inside you, you wonder how much of a man you are
on those days. But we always have layers to protect us. Here? My
calves have goose bumps and the bargain price I paid for this
hoodie makes total sense, because it looks a helluva heap better
than it is at keeping the warm in. I find a beanie in one pocket,
mess out my hair and pull it over my head.

The room Dad’s in has the
window open. Our junk room needs airing whether we’re home or not
because our house has piles of stuff we haven’t used since way
before Tahny got pregnant. Stuff that old leaves a smell.

The grass is a bit mushy when I
test out the firmness, so I settle for squatting and crab-walk
until I’m under the windowsill.

Yes.
Out here it’s loud.

Dad says, “I can’t do that.
That’s a fucking rip. What do you take me for?”

The sound coming through the
receiver is muffled but I reckon if I shuffle in closer and squat
higher… and I catch one word. The voice says, “Payback”.

Payback in any terms isn’t
good. No one says I’m giving Jim payback for gifting me a
grand.

Children use payback for kids
who steal crayons, teenage girls use payback for girlfriends who
tell their secrets, and adults use payback only when it’s worth it
because by this stage, you’re no longer worried about petty
issues.

Payback by my father is
worse.

Childhood seems like another
world once you’ve grown up, and you wonder how you could ever have
been as stupid as kids these days seem to be, but this conversation
sparks a memory and suddenly it’s just yesterday for me.

The images flicker through my
brain. Mom walking me to school every day; me playing Nintendo 64
by myself; having to learn what to do on my own at the age of eight
to impress a girl in my class. All because some people Dad knew had
him too busy for his own family and got him involved in stealing
donations from a fake organization for parents of cancer patients
who gave money to research cancer drug trials. Kept him out of my
life for four years and eight months.

“
What about
what fucked up at MSR?” Dad says, his voice traveling from one side
of the room to the other.

MSR. A medical
term? A new trial drug? But he said
at
MSR. Sounds like a
place.

The penny drops. Mason’s Ski
Resort.

Is Dad worried
about the plan falling through again if he did actually have
something to do with that disaster?
Falling through
is a cowardly fucking
euphemism for shifting blame. For keeping himself out of trouble
for what happened at Mason’s—the same thing that had the cops all
over my ass—his
son
—and killed Melissa May.

A feeling
churns inside me. It’s a hook grabbing onto my insides and pulling
them into a swirl, knotting it—a type of pain that only my mind
understands. The way I deal with this is muttering
fuckfuckfuck
as a single
breath.

My thigh muscles are so tight
they start to shake. I slip a little and my beanie rides up my
head, caught on the nicks in the brick wall. I grip the beanie and
yank it down before the freezing air slips through and coats my
head.

“
How, huh?”
Dad replies. “
Why
,
after everything,” Dad repeats, a dose of rage in his
tone.

My cell vibrates in my pocket
and I forget about the air biting at my calves and my shaking
thighs, falling into a heap on top of Mum’s flowerbed. While I’m
down, I check my phone. It’s Raych.

Want me to
come round baby?
it says.

I tap,
Busy.

Then I tuck the cell away in my
pocket and squat just below the windowsill again.

“
Years. It’s
been years. I don’t feel comfortable with that. That man was a
lowlife piece of shit. He’s the one who fucked up my family,
your
family.” A breath.
“Forget it. Trust me,” Dad says, his voice sounding from the middle
of the room, finishing at the far end wall.

I can’t hear the response
because Dad’s too far away from the window. My phone buzzes again
and it can only be Raych because no one has techno fingers like
her.

But I’m on my way already baby
;)

Great. Can’t she go a few days
without nagging me?

I’ll make it quick. I’ll blow
your mind, Dexy.

I’m busy
Raych. I just saw you. Cya next week,
I
reply.

“
They’re not
my millions,” Dad says. “That ski disaster didn’t kill—” but the
other person must cut him off.

Shit. This is harder than I
thought it’d be. Dad sounds threatening, yet at the same time he’s
fishing for something else I can’t figure out.

In record
speed, my cell vibrates again, saying,
I
know you won’t dump me cuz I know people who’ll fuck you up. Haha
jks.

As my fingers hover over my
cell’s keys to ask if she’s being fucking serious because we’re not
even together the doorbell rings.

Dad’ll see me if he comes out
to get the front door. In a spur-of-the-moment decision I
tip-toe-race to the side door and pop my head through. “Home, Dad!
I’ll get that.”

And while I jog around the
front to let Raych know I can’t dump her because we were never
together and I don’t want to see her again all I think is this:

I only get one chance to redeem
myself to Charz, and it’s only going to get fucked up because of
the mistake waiting at the front of the house.

* * *

Elliot is waiting by my front
door when I clear the corner. Thank the fuck.

“
Erm, you
‘kay?” he asks.

“
Bad timing,
bro.”

“
You look like
shit.”

“
Still lookin’
better than you,” I say, landing one in his shoulder.

He scowls, throws one back but
I duck and he wobbles, saves himself with flailing hands and wipes
away my smirk with a swat.

“
What?” I say.
He’s just staring. It’s too weird.

“
What’s been
going on?”

For some reason I turn,
surveying my neighbors, while tugging my beanie lower. Bits of blue
poke through expanses of gray clouds. The houses are dull. Even the
one with the terracotta roof seems colorless and drab. Just
neverending rows and rows of mirrored driveways, and alternating
double- and single-story houses. They all blend together to form a
muted backdrop as Charz’s face forms over one house, and an image
of Walter keeling into a ball and coughing up blood is plastered
over the one in front of us. Lastly, I see Dad grinning to the
person on the phone about Walter having millions. To what? To steal
from him?

Bastard.

“
Uh,” I say,
hands clamped under my hood, on top of my beanie, “Nah, nothing
much.”

I’m still getting used to
hanging with Elliot alone. Sometimes our other buddies, Robby and
Ben used to tag along and chain fart for an entire day of gaming,
or they’d keep rolling out horrible ‘your mom’ jokes, which is
funny the first time, but gets old by the tenth. Still, it’s weird
not having their annoying quips to deal with. And right now I wish
that past life I thought was shit was what I could have now.

“
Let’s pretend
I’m not confused.” Elliot jumps down the front steps, squelches
through the mushy grass and opens his car door. He plops into the
seat for a count of two, then reverses each action exactly the same
until he’s on the porch again, hands dug in his pockets.

“
Erm, you
‘kay?” he repeats.

I roll my eyes. “Look…” But I
stop. I need to tell him I really can’t talk. If I’d been taking a
piss that would be a better time than now, but now is the worst
timing ever. Or it was, because now Dad’s footsteps are approaching
the door. I’ve missed my chance to tell Elliot about Dad and his
secret call.

Dad pulls the door open, keys
looped over his fingers and waves goodbye, driving away.

Fighting the urge to ditch
Elliot and run like hell, I turn back to him. “Uh, yeah. I…forgot
what I was going to tell you,” I say. Ditching Elliot isn’t such a
good idea anymore. If Raych really comes around…well, I’d be
screwed. I’m such a dick for trying to pull a Sherlock Holmes. As
if I was actually going to get anywhere.

Suddenly, I realize what a wimp
I’ve been, sneaking around, listening in on Dad’s phone
conversations. I never analyze shit like this. It was probably
nothing. The time between my hiding like a little boy, my thighs
burning from squatting, and now is something I’d rather not
share.

“
Wanna
hang?”

Elliot claps his hands.
“Halle-fucking-lujah!” He nods to his car. “Thought you’d never
ask.”

He has spare gym clothes from
another lifetime when he attempted to go to the gym. We were
seventeen at the time. He went to one session; I’ve been going ever
since. He probably thinks I’m a health nut. But I go because it
keeps my blood sugar levels steady and why should I care what
others think? The fewer injections I have to do, the fewer chances
there are of someone finding out about my condition. That my body
is nicely screwed.

I go to the bench press first
because maybe if I pump my arms until they want to fall off, I’ll
physically not be able to kill Dad when I see him tonight. I press
somewhere around half my weight and lose count after twenty reps,
imagining how Charz would feel to hold. Then I increase my speed,
swearing my head off and mentally punching Dad for wanting me to go
back to work at Mason’s when I’m perfectly happy at the mechanic’s,
perfectly happy being as far away from the place that almost landed
me in the slammer as possible, far from the place that screwed up
every chance I would ever have of ever finding out how my arm would
fit around her—

“
Dude! Your
face is like a beet.”

Panting, I lift and drop the
bar in its holder and hang my head between my legs. I rest my
elbows on my thighs and look up. “Huh?”

“
Your face.
It’s somewhere between a beet and a tomato now, though.”

I look in the mirror. He’s
kinda right. My heart suddenly thuds in my throat and my lungs are
about to burst through my skin. After a minute I’m fine, apart from
the lactic acid burning me up.

“
Now might not
be the best time.”

“
But?” I
say.

He swivels out from the leg
press and avoids my eyes. “Does Raych care if you wear sweats to
the movies?”

“
I don’t care
what Raych thinks to be honest, and we’ve never been to the
movies.”

“
You
never
make it
to
the movies?” he asks, as if he’s correcting me.

I throw my hand up. “What the—?
No, I don’t know. I don’t know what I wear and she always seems to
think everything I put on is ‘hot’.”

“
Oh,” Elliot
says.

I lie down, spread my legs and
shimmy into a comfortable position and start pressing again.
Elliot’s my closest buddy but he does these weird things sometimes.
When he’s worried what other people think. He comes to me for some
unknown reason. Why would I know what he should wear to the movies?
It sounds like Elliot has started the leg presses again but it’s
too awkward to check.

It hits me. “You little
bastard. Who is it?” What a champ. Elliot hasn’t dated, heck,
hasn’t dipped his wick in weeks. I reckon several weeks but I
haven’t had the balls to ask.

When Elliot is still silent, I
call out to the ceiling, “Elliot’s got a girl!”

That gets him going. In my
peripheral vision, I notice a few people glance in our
direction.

“
Good one.”
Pause. “I’m thinking of asking her to the movies. Sorry that was
dumb to say.”

I pant, slow my reps, and add,
“What’s stopping you? With her, I mean.”

“
Um…I don’t
have her number.”

Elliot and I both stop at the
same time. I crack first, basically falling into fits of
unstoppable laughter until a hand swats my head.

“
Let’s start
with a simpler question. What’s her name?”

“
Charlee.”

One word.

Seven letters.

Not the name I give her.

A whole gym full of letters
jammed full of her name, flooding me in meaningless sounds, noises,
scattered everywhere, serving to choke my throat. I turn away and
cough out the tight feeling, but it’s still there and I need to say
something to Elliot, so I turn around and say, “That was close.
Pushed myself too hard.”

Elliot nods, agreeing. Thank
God he doesn’t normally come to the gym with me because that’s far
from pushing myself hard. At Charz’s name I’m no better than him
though, breath coming in ragged gasps, face red. We’re both spent
but I can’t imagine he’s half as lethargic as I am.

“
Sounds…hot.”
I mumble.

This is not
good. Maybe it’s not
my
Charlee. Maybe twenty years ago, Charlee was a
popular name for baby girls here in Australia. Maybe Americans just
use normal names and Australians use weird names like Charlee all
the time.