Drowning in You (29 page)

I see the warning this time:
I’m never going to escape death.

“
No,” I rasp,
running back inside the house, the image of my room in sight.
“Please, leave,” I call, slamming the pool house door behind
me.

It’s my barrier between my
toxicity and Dex’s naïveté.

* * *

“
Yiasouuuu
,” Rosa calls from
downstairs.

I pull my pillow over my face,
clutch it with both forearms and scream. My voice is a tiny little
squeak. I go unnoticed and it’s how I like it. But Rosa doesn’t
give up. Her voice echoes down to the pool house, and it’s when it
peaks in the middle that I know she’s coming up the stairs.

“
Ciao
?” She calls at the top, three
rooms down from mine. Then again in Maltese. She’s a world full of
joy.

“
Charlee!” she
squeals from my bedroom door. I know this not because I can see
her, but because her tone is off-the-charts high, enough to wake
the dead.

“
Here,” I
mumble into the pillow suffocating the air. It’s hot in here,
stuffy, cozy—the way I describe it changes depending on my mood,
which has ranged from unhappy to devastated to guilty and
everything in between since the early hours of the
morning.

“
I’ll pretend
you haven’t heard me yet or else,” Rosa grumbles. Then,
rip
! I’m naked. At least,
it feels that way. The cocooning sensation of my warm sheets,
fluffy comforter and pillow was just right. Reactively, I shrink
into the fetal position, tucking my chin to my chest and hugging my
knees. “Or else,” Rosa continues, “I’ll be royally pissed you don’t
want to see my bronzed face after more than two months.”

“
Two months?”
I whisper, poking my head up like a rabbit out of its
hole.

“
More.” She
lies beside me, and blinks, trying to read my expression. She
strokes my cheek. “Charlee, baby. What’s going on?”

“
Everything.
Nothing.”

“
I suppose I
should stash away my screaming and anger until later on,
then?”

I nod into the space between my
knees and chest.

“
Melissa?”

I bob my head, still tucked
away.

“
There’s
something else?” she asks, not convinced. And I get it. She would
have heard more of my mother-related breakdowns if that were my
only problem. But there’s a gaping crater, the rocks falling away
every second, and my lie of omission has passed the point where I
can easily say anything.

“
Is it Darcy,
Charlee?”

I nod.

Her hand comes to my shoulder
and strokes the arm of my nightshirt. “Dexter?”

At that I burst into tears. I
could have killed him. I could have killed him for my carelessness.
I’m a swimming instructor and I could have very well killed the guy
I…I could have killed Dex.

Rosa gasps then says, “You
didn’t! Is there something going on? Or was there?”

I bite onto skin near my knee
and sob hard. My tears are hidden here and I cry noiselessly, with
only my shaking shoulders giving my silent breakdown away.

“
What does
Walter—”

Dad’s name grabs my attention.
I shoot up into a sitting position so fast Rosa starts.

“
Do
not
say his
name.”

Rosa’s chin shakes in response.
She whispers “no” to me, her hands held up defensively. She
scrunches a pillow under her head and sighs a cloud of fatigue. She
tries a smile on one corner of her mouth, but that fails too. She
settles for picking at her nails and looking everywhere but my
eyes.

Time won’t move. I’m stuck in
this moment for what feels like forever until it’s too, too much
and I blurt, “Dad’s dead too.”

“
What?” Rosa
squeaks. She clears her throat and tries a second time, “When? Are
you—okay?”

That undoes me again, spilling
sharp-edged tears that sting my face. My nose is raw and red, my
cheeks at their last layer, my poor skin all but eaten away by
layers of potent tears.

Rosa slips her arms around me
and says, “So your dad passed away from his injuries?”

“
Apparently he
was leaning out of his bed and…he slipped, Ro. He slipped, cracked
his skull. He lost consciousness fast, but the doctors fought with
his body in surgery for hours. Dex stayed with me, and I was lucky
to have him care for me so much. His mom, Dad’s nurse, was the one
who told me.”

I push against Rosa’s arms. Her
body goes slack and I prop up on one elbow, wiping my face dry with
my sleeve. “I’m too tired. I’m too, too spent. Too everything.
Everything’s…”

My bones rattle from agitation
because in my head, it’s simple. I’m lethargic, I’m unenthused, I’m
lazy, I’m the walking dead, I’m soulless—I’m nothing anymore.
There’s no fight left, and I suppose it’s better this way because
Darcy has our grandparents caring for him now, and I’ll stop
confusing Dex since he doesn’t know how to handle “us” and I can’t
help make up his mind.

It’s better this way with me
invisible. This comfort is easy with my expectations limited to me.
It’s hard to disappoint, you see, when you can fail nobody but
yourself.

“
Shh, you
don’t need to speak. Let’s get up because if I’m being honest you
stink like a whore after her night’s work, dunked in chlorine and
left to dry in the dark all damp. If I’m being brutally honest…”
Rosa chuckles, and says, “No, let me save that with my anger at you
for later too.”

After fifteen
long minutes of begging, pulling, yanking at my hair, I surrender,
agreeing to sit up and talk so long as she stops hurting me.
Somewhat satisfied, she runs downstairs and re-emerges at my door
with two
arm
fuls
of food.

“
Here,” she
says, handing me a rum ball and a chocolate-coated
cookie.

“
I don’t like
those much.”

“
Oh.” Her tone
sounds dejected as she puts them back in the container. “I thought
because they were…never mind.” She rips open a bag of potato chips
and holds out a handful of fatty, greasy chips to my lips, the
scent wafting up my nose every time I breathe. Finally, I grab them
and munch, my lips moving into a painful, tentative
smile.

“
Wow, okay, do
me a favor and don’t smile. You’re less scary when you’re
frowning.” She grins and nudges my shoulder with hers.

“
If a genie
could give you three wishes, what would you pick?” I ask her,
curious. The last time we played this game was years
ago.

“
Easy: I’d
have canceled my trip to Europe, I’d win the lotto, and I’d make
Robert Pattinson fall in love with me for the rest of his
life.”

“
You dream
big.”

“
What’s life
without almost impossible goals?”

“
Almost
?”

“
Yeah. The
best moments in life are the ones when you achieve something you
thought was impossible. Making the cover of
Vogue
, finding a cure for a type of
cancer, sponsoring a child and saving a life.”

I gulp, trying to swallow that
information, but it doesn’t glide down so easy.

“
And you?”
Rosa says through a mouthful of chocolate.

“
Wow,” I cry,
bursting into laughter. The feeling is strange, like my outburst
has ripped off a Band-Aid I’ve been wearing for a week, and
underneath I’m tender and spongy. I stop as quick as I
started.

“
I’d put
myself on that ski lift at Mason’s Resort instead of my parents,
I’d have got a degree or something to make my parents proud, and
I’d never have fall—”

Stopping myself before I say
what I can’t take back, I finish, “—never have given Dexter the
wrong message.”

“
You
are
dating him!” Rosa
says, following up by thrusting another hand of potato chips at me.
Seeing my look, she adds, “I won’t allow you to go anorexic on my
watch. What have you been feeding yourself? You’re skin and bone.
Now, eat.”

I nod, and take the potato
chips because that’s easier than arguing with Rosa. “We’ve been
talking and doing stuff,” I mumble down at the comforter.

“
Have you
touched his you-know-what?” Rosa peers into my eyes, staring up at
my face from under me.

Scowling, I growl, “Ro!”

“
Okay, okay.
So no,” she confirms, shrugging her shoulders. “But excuse me
saying are you
OUT
of your
MIND
?”
Then, blushing, she adds, “If I
could touch that shit, I would never let go.”

“
Am I out of
my mind?” I ask myself. “I can’t answer that honestly.”

“
He’s a bloody
murderer, Charlee. Forgive my weak moments when we talk about him.
You know I come back into Melbourne for two seconds and my mother
asked me if I stayed away from the Dexter-types when I was
overseas? And she wasn’t referring to the players with the ripped
abs and model faces. She was referring to the type that kidnap,
rape and torture you.”

“
I know,” I
mumble.

“
God, you
haven’t, have you? You’re not in love with him?”

“
Please,” I
scoff.

“
Good. I don’t
want you any more hurt than you are after everything else that’s
happened. You go public with this relationship and you’ll be all
over the papers, you’ll be out of a job, Darcy will be bullied at
school…”

Rosa crab-claws around the
food, trying not to put pressure too close and topple the open
containers and packets. It’s all balancing precariously.

“
You know I’m
all for learning from mistakes the morning after, but he’ll be the
biggest mistake you’ll ever make, Charlee.”

Too
late.
“I know.”

27. At the Heart of the
Hollingworth

Dexter

For a whole week, Charz has not
only not spoken to me, but also rejected my calls. One almost-coma,
almost-death-experience, and I’m fucking sure now. I need her like
I need air and without her I’m choking. There is no label for this
because no human on earth has experienced what I’m going through.
I’m choking while my pain is slashing open my chest, and my head is
pounding and my soul feels lifeless.

I’m aching. Shoulders, biceps,
thighs, everything. Today’s the first day I haven’t gone to the gym
in a week. Since it’s the weekend again, the garage isn’t in need
of me, so I’m closeted in my space. For the first time in ages, I
look around my bedroom and I’m horrified. I know messy, even by my
standards, but I think I’ve reached a new low. I can smell the
piles of dirty clothes in the corner near my window, on my desk
chair, which I haven’t been able to use in a month, on my desk, on
the bottom right corner of my bed that I don’t need when stretching
out at night, and smack-dab in my line of footing when I step in my
room.

I go to the kitchen and peel
away a black garbage bag from the roll. I shut the drawer, then
re-open it and peel off another three as well.

Back in my room, I chuck it all
in the bags. Belts, shirts, sweats, T-shirts, long-sleeve shirts,
shorts, socks, boxers—the word “floordrobe” doesn’t begin to
describe the state. This goes to the laundry basket and placed in
heaps around it.

Space. It’s there, although
finding it is making me break out in a massive sweat. My shirt is
soaked.

Remembering one of the promises
I made before I fell into a coma in Charz’s pool, I grab a few
sticks of candy. I put one in my pocket and the two other on my
bedside table. Despite my careless attitude to many things, it’s
taken until now, until almost losing my life and Charz from my
life, to realize I do need to look after me. I’ve finally realized
it’s okay to say that I’m a diabetic. It’s not the end of the
world.

Five hours later I drop the
vacuum handle and look at my cell clock, which says it’s only been
a bit over an hour. Still, my muscles don’t agree, sore from the
punishment of a week-straight gym workout without any off days. I
fall crosswise back on the bed, with my arms splayed above my head
and over the sides. As my heels swing under the edge, they kick
something hollow. I reach underneath and find my guitar.

When I sit on my bed, guitar
set on my thigh, I see it. The paperboard resting against my wall,
the ass of it facing me. I need to look at it again, so I flip the
board over and the sprawls of ink, notes and lyrics shock me at
first.

My usual thing is to doodle,
‘cause that’s when my ideas come. Next to the lyrics about life not
having a purpose is a flipped car, on its top, crumpled like a bit
of paper. Next to my school musings about girls, a broken bottle of
Jack Daniels lies on its side and on the other side of those lyrics
are a pair of boobs.

I spot the lyrics I wrote about
Charz weeks ago and there’s no picture. It jolts me because a
picture, for me, is like a thousand words, jogging my memory back
to how I felt at the moment I wrote the song.

But this is
Charz and I’ve nothing to remember her by. Thinking about it, I
realize we don’t have a picture, or a
remember that time we rode the swings trashed?
or anything noteworthy.

A while later I drop my pen,
rubbing non-existent dust off my palms.