Into the Deep (3 page)

2

Head Above Water

M
y chest heaved as I tried to find air but only came up with water. I remember feeling hands on my chest, and lips hovering above mine. I remember murmured voices that sounded like I was hearing them from the end of a long tunnel. Someone said something about blood, someone wondered if I was dead. I heard it all clearly but the words were distant and had a strange ring to them. I wheezed and jolted upward finally finding my breath and my eyes popped open. I saw Damon hunched over beside me, looking frightened, his eyes wide, mouth curved down into a trembling frown. He moved his hands back to his sides. There was an audible gasp and I looked around to see all my friends above me looking on with concern. I had fallen, I had nearly drowned. Damon had pulled me from the pool and I could still feel soreness on my chest where he’d pressed against my ribs to preform CPR.
     “Ivy, are you okay?” Tiana asked.
     “You scared the hell out of us,” Eliza added.
     Christy remained silent. When I looked to her, I saw her arms were wrapped tightly around herself and her eyes were cast at the ground as if they were tied down to something heavy.
     I sat up and Damon helped me to my feet, my hand instinctively moved to the back of my throbbing head. There my fingers found a mass of hot, wet tangled hair. I felt dizzy and my head was spinning. My eyes caught Chase’s and the intense glare of his green eyes made me look away. That was when I saw the puddle of an oily black substance on the cement where I’d been laying. As I glanced to the pool, I saw a smoke-like gray color swirling in the water. I pulled my hand away and looked down at my fingers. They were coated with blood.
     “You with us, Ivy?” Christy asked. “You look like shit.”
     I looked to her. She may have snapped out of whatever daze she had been in, but I felt like I was slowly falling away from reality. My head felt heavy as if my brain were swollen. It felt as if it was a sponge that had soaked up all the pool water and now sat engorged balancing on my neck, and I was bleeding.
     “Ivy?” Damon then asked.
     When I looked to him, I found that, despite the pain, I could focus. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine I think.”
     “Thank God,” Christy said, “I so didn’t want to have to call an ambulance and explain what we were doing here.”
     I did my best not to roll my eyes at her and then we heard it. The not so distant sound of a car pulling to a stop, and then the main pool house door opening and clicking shut.
     “What’s that?” Ti said and we all turned to look toward the pool house. Then the light inside flicked on.
     “Shit, it’s the security guard,” Eliza said, “We’ve got to go.”
     “Go where? We can’t get back out through the pool house,” Chase said as we all scrambled to gather our things.
     No one bothered to wonder what the guard would think about the blood, not even me. I had my clothes in my arms and was slipping my shoes on when I heard the grating sound of metal being dragged across concrete. I looked up and saw Eliza pushing one of the small round tables up against the brick wall.
     “Come on, we’ll go up and over,” she said and we all froze, unsure if that was the best way out. “Anyone have a better idea?”
     None of us did. Eliza climbed on top of the table, throwing her clothes over the wall. She was the first to jump over and the rest of us followed. Once we reached the cars, I was revisited by the dizziness that had overcome me moments earlier. The rush of adrenaline from the fear of getting caught was wearing off as I sat in the passenger seat beside Tiana. For a moment my eyes fluttered shut and I worried that I’d lose consciousness. Tiana glanced at me. Her normally plump lips were a thin worried line, her eyes wide and unfocused. She was shaken.
     “You alright?” she asked.
     All I could do was nod yes, but it was only to calm her. I wasn’t alright. The entire ride back to Eliza’s, I fought to stay awake. My hand held the back of my head tightly as if I were trying to hold it together and, in my mind; I felt like that was exactly what I was doing. I feared my head was cracked apart and that my skull would be in pieces. I didn’t know then that it felt worse than it really was, only that a part of me still wondered if I would live through this.
     When we arrived at Eliza’s I realized that I had blacked out for most of the drive. It seemed as if from the time I got in Tiana’s car to the time we pulled into Eliza’s driveway that only seconds had passed. I shared this with no one.
     Everyone circled around me as I staggered out of the car. Damon was quick to grab my arm and help me over to a lawn chair in the back of the garage. At the time, I assumed they were concerned for me, and maybe to some degree they were. Later, however, I would come to realize that they were all far more selfish than I once thought. Looking back, I can tell they were more worried about getting in trouble themselves. Someone should have called an ambulance. Someone should have called their mom or dad. I should have gone to a hospital. Maybe if that had happened I wouldn’t have been left with any… residual effects.
     The girls were flustered and completely unaware of what to do. Damon was eager to help me but didn’t know what I needed. It was Chase who took control. As for me, my eyes moved around the dimly lit garage, seeing everyone in a surreal, spacey haze that reminded me of looking through a kaleidoscope. Chase grabbed my head and forced me to look at him. He didn’t say anything, just stared into my eyes.
     “I think she has a concussion,” Chase said, his words echoed in my head. Then he turned away from me.
     They were all chattering now asking one another what they should do.
     “I’m fine,” I said, though I didn’t know why. I think mostly I just wanted them to stop talking. Their voices were making my ears ring.
     Time flickered away from me for a moment then because the next thing I was aware of was Damon and Chase rinsing the blood out of my hair and parting it. The wet strands resisted being separated from one another and tugged against my scalp. I winced in pain. I also noticed that sitting in my lap was a first aid kit and my fingers gripped the corners of the white plastic box.
     “My older brother cracked his head skateboarding when I was twelve,” Chase said.
     I found his voice soothing.
     “I went with my mom and him to the hospital. All they really did was staple the back of his head and give him Tylenol, just Tylenol, said he couldn’t take Advil, or aspirin… Here, hold that in place.”
      I think he was talking to Damon and I felt hands on my head then a cold liquid. Later I would realize that they used skin glue to seal up my wound.
     “It’s really not that bad,” Damon said. “A lot of blood, but it’s not really wide or deep.”
     “We really don’t need details,” Christy said.
     Soon they were done and helping me stand. I thanked Chase. He smiled at me and I felt lightheaded for a whole new reason. After that, Tiana was insistent that I couldn’t drive home and I watched as they talked amongst themselves. Even now, looking back, they seem dreamlike, their voices distant and resonant, their images fuzzy and glowing. As they talked, I felt like I wasn’t really there. I was an onlooker, an outsider. Eventually they came to a consensus and Tiana drove me home in her car. Damon followed in my Scion and they dropped me off waiting until I walked up the front steps to drive away.

A
t a little past ten, I walked through the front door. My hair was still wet but I’d pulled it up into a pony tail and thrown my shirt and jean skirt back on. I still felt dizzy and there was a bump forming on the back of my head beneath the glue that held my skin together. But that was of little concern to me after I walked through the door. I could hear Mom in the kitchen. She was talking to someone on the phone then hung up as she heard me close the front door.
     “Ivy?” she called and I could tell she was upset with me.
     I saw her come around the corner and for a moment she looked at me with relief. Then her eyes grew darker and I saw the corners of her mouth curve down in disappointment.
     “Ivy, where have you been?” Her voice was firm and for a moment I didn’t know how to respond. “Don’t give me some lie about studying. I just got off the phone with Mrs. Hall and she said you girls were out all night. I want the truth, Ivy.”
     I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The surreal haze that had taken over my vision before faded and my mom stood in front of me with sharp, bright intensity.
     “I’m sorry, you’re right. I lied to you.”
     She seemed to calm a little with my honesty.
     “We, um, we went for a swim.”
     She looked me up and down and took in my wet hair.
     Then my honesty went out the window. “At the Pool at the Y. We were going to study, but Christy had guest passes that were going to expire today.”
     Mom sighed. “You should have told me the truth, and I’m not too happy about you girls going out on a school night,” she sighed again and I could tell her anger had deflated some, “but I’m glad you’re being honest with me now.”
     I cringed a little inside knowing that I hadn’t given her the complete truth.
     “Just… go to your room.”
     I nodded and made my way upstairs. That night I slept terribly. At first I think I’d been afraid to even fall asleep, and after that I kept waking up every few hours. I had a restless and dreamless sleep and found myself the next day with a pounding headache and stiff neck. There was still a large bump on the back of my head from where I hit the bottom of the pool, but I wasn’t bleeding and I was still alive.

M
om gave me her
I’m watching you
eyes as I came down for breakfast that morning but didn’t give me any more grief than that. I took two Tylenol before I left for school and hoped that my headache would clear up before I needed to do anything that required actual thinking. To my dismay, my head continued to throb all through Spanish, Art, my lunch hour, and into the first half hour of Psych.
     I sat in Psych with my head down on my desk. Mrs. Rochester was writing on the white board. Her dry erase marker squeaked as she dragged it across the board with too much force and I squeezed my eyes shut. The noise rang in my ears along with the high pitch shrill of her voice. My headache intensified. For a moment, the throbbing pain seemed to encompass my entire skull. My fingers coiled and twisted in my hair as the pain felt like fire crackers exploding inside my cranium. For a fraction of a second, the pain was so intense that I thought my skull would split straight down the middle, that it would explode, raining brain matter on all of my classmates. Then, just as quickly, the pain vanished completely. I cautiously uncoiled my fingers and opened my eyes, fearful that it would return any minute. It didn’t. When I looked up, Mrs. Rochester turned around. She had asked a question, but I hadn’t heard what it was, and by the look on her face she was scanning the room to pick the perfect victim to answer it.
     “Ivy Daniels,” she said, of course, and I faltered.
     Then from behind me I heard someone say “The hypothalamus.” I glanced over my shoulder but couldn’t tell who’d offered the answer up for me. I looked back at Mrs. Rochester, expecting her to thank the person who had answered and at the same time remind them that they were not named Ivy. But she said nothing. She appeared as though she hadn’t heard anyone say anything at all and was staring at me expectantly.
     “Well, Miss Daniels?”
     “The hypothalamus,” I said and she turned back around to the board and continued to teach, seeming satisfied that I’d answered the question correctly.
     I took a deep breath and ran a hand over the bump on the back of my head. The pain had just stopped, not eased away or slowly faded. It abruptly stopped. I remember thinking all of this a little odd at the time, but I dismissed it. I was just glad my head was no longer hurting.

3

As Real to Them as I am to You

A
week later, I was sitting with Christy and Tiana at lunch. My sunglasses rested on my head, their black frame holding back my hair. We were outside on the common, sitting at a round stone table near the fountain. It was a bright cloudless day, but we sat comfortably in the shade of a palm tree, its feathered leaves creating striped shadows on the ground. I was poking at a chicken Caesar salad, pushing the lettuce around with my fork, when I heard Christy say that she’d kill for a Twix bar.
     “Yeah, me too,” I agreed.
     “You too what?”
     Had she forgotten what she’d just said? “I’d kill for a Twix bar.”
     “I was just thinking that too. They really need to fix the vending machine.” She took a bite of her apple and I stared at her oddly for a moment.
     Then I heard Tiana’s voice.
Like you’d really eat a Twix bar, Miss Psycho calorie counter
, she said. Except I was staring right at her when I heard the words and she hadn’t voiced them. She had been chewing a bite of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich the entire time. Still, I knew I had heard her.
     “Did you just say something?” I had to ask.
     Ti looked at me strangely and swallowed her sandwich bite. “What?”
     My mind felt like it was racing, had I just imagined it? “Nothing,” I said, “I have to go.”
     Abruptly, I got up, grabbed my plate, and rushed from the table, leaving my friends sitting alone in confusion. I threw out the rest of my salad without a second thought and went inside. I practically ran to the nearest ladies room and went straight to the sink. I stared into the mirror and turned on the faucet. Splashing water on my face, I tried to calm down, and then I set my sight back on my reflected image.
     “Get it together, Ivy. You’re hearing voices,” I said as I looked into the reflection of my green eyes. “And, now you’re talking to yourself too.” I sighed, and ran my hands through my hair.
     This was ridiculous, I laughed, realizing that I had to have imagined it. Taking a few deep breaths, I convinced myself that it was nothing but my imagination.
     The bell rang shortly after that and I went to my next class, Psychology. I took my usual seat at the far end of the room, three seats back. Mrs. Rochester was already writing on the board. I looked around as the rest of my classmates filtered in. My nerves were still feeling frayed from thinking I was hearing voices, but I was calm and shook off the thought. I was tired and the bump on the back of my head from my near drowning accident had essentially gone away but the memory of it remained. I concluded that my odd experience was simply a result of fatigue. That was until I heard something again.
    
Fuck detention
, the male voice practically yelled, but I looked around and could tell that no one else had heard it. You couldn’t go around saying the ‘F’ word at Alta Ladera, or probably any other high school for that matter, without getting sent to the principal’s office.
I wish I had a smoke
, the voice said again and I looked to my right to see Brant Everett slump into his seat.
     He looked tense. I watched as his fingernails lightly scraped across his scalp and his eyes rolled up to stare at the ceiling. He was twitchy, almost as if he were fighting the cravings of nicotine addiction. He skipped this class often and the look on his face made him appear as if he didn’t want to be here now.  I wondered if maybe he’d gotten caught smoking on campus again and had been forced to go to class, or maybe he’d been given detention for all his absences. Could what I heard have been his thoughts? Had I been hearing Christy and Tiana’s thoughts earlier? It sounded completely crazy. Brant looked at me then and it jostled me from my musings. He caught me staring and his frosty blue eyes narrowed in on me. I looked away.
     Mrs. Rochester turned around, finished with her whiteboard notes for the moment. I saw her notice Brant in the seat beside me.
     “How nice of you to join us today Mr. Everett,” she said.
     “Pleasure,” he said smugly.
     I looked up at the board then and my heart began to thump like the foot of frightened rabbit. Today’s subject of interest was written in caps in bright red marker,
Schizophrenia
. It was underlined. Beneath it was a bulleted list of its key symptoms: Delusions, Paranoia, and finally the last point on the list, Hallucinations, seeing or hearing things in which others do not experience. I felt my stomach twist and began to wonder if I was truly losing my mind. People can’t really hear other people’s thoughts, but some crazy people think they can. I slouched down in my seat and listened intently as Mrs. Rochester started her lecture.
     “I thought we’d delve into a little abnormal psychology today. Now, schizophrenics will tell you that the hallucinations they experience are just as real to them as I am to you. While the cause of schizophrenia is often under debate we do know that it tends to occur in people during late adolescence or early adulthood. Also, we tend to see that hallucinations are worse when a person is under stress…”
     I started to zone out as Mrs. Rochester continued. I felt like I had just gone down a check list of my own and marked every box. Are you between 15 and 25? Check. Have you recently been under stress? Check. Are you by chance hearing voices that are not really there? Big check.
    
This class bites
, I heard someone say and it rattled my thoughts.
     I looked to my left and saw Timothy Nelson put his head down on the desk. I didn’t know what to think. Was I seeing into other people’s minds or was I losing my own? I focused my attention on every word Mrs. Rochester said after that. Focused so hard I hoped that nothing but her voice would enter my mind. I didn’t want to hear anymore voices, and at least for the rest of Psychology, I didn’t.
     I was supposed to go to two more classes after that, but instead I did something I’d never done before. I left school, skipping the remainder of my day. I had walked in the opposite direction of my next class and went outside onto the common. From there it was a short jog to the parking lot and the school security guard was nowhere in sight. As I neared my car, I saw a puff of smoke float up from around the side of the building. I paused for a moment. Then my sunglasses slipped from my purse and fell to the ground with a clank. I picked them up, and stood as blue eyes emerged from around the building. More smoke drifted up to the sky. I gave Brant a glance then continued walking. Neither of us said a word to each other, but I could tell he was watching me as I made my way to my car.