Left Drowning

by Jessica Park

  “So do it. Breathe. Just breathe.” He turns up the volume and strokes my hair.

  I want to tell him that the pain of the last four years has taken a toll and that I’m not sure I can breathe on my own.

  “You have the here and now,” Chris says. “You have a future. Deal with the past so you can stop looking back. It’s just pain.”

  I sigh heavily and look at him again. “It’s just pain,” I repeat.

  “Yes.” He tucks my hair back, and I catch my breath as heat sears through my body. His touch is incomparable to anything that I have felt before, and this mix of my personal anguish with the intensity of his touch is messing with my head. “Yes, Blythe.”

  “Just breathe?” I manage with a laugh.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Yes. I got myself out of hell. I dealt with it and moved on. You can, too.”

  There is no way to stop myself. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him in until my lips are just before the point of touching his. I want his mouth, I want his taste, and I want to breathe him in. I feel his body tense, but he doesn’t pull away.

  Neither of us moves.

  There is heat here, of that I am sure.

  Finally, I lean in a bit closer so that my mouth is barely against his. I soften the hand I have on his chest and move my fingertips up and over his shirt, over the collar, until I’m finally touching the back of his neck. His skin is warm and perfect, just as I knew it would be. Chris starts to move his lips against mine, ever so softly, and so I ease in more. His tongue meets mine, and I shiver. The atmosphere in the room is loaded: loaded with my emotion and my fervent, raw, inescapable lust for this person.

  I never knew that slow kissing could be so passionate. His tongue isn’t halfway down my throat, nor is he clawing at me with his hands. I cannot be wrong in imagining that he’s feeling the same way I am. Can I?

  I’m not, because Chris moves his hand to mine and starts inching his fingertips across the top of my hand and up my arm. He takes out our earphones, quieting the music and leaving only us. The touch of his hand is intense, and I have to pull my mouth from his to catch my breath. My fingers begin digging into his skin as I watch him touch me, look at me, take me in. I try not to flinch as his fingers travel over the scar on my forearm. I’ve forgotten that I’m only wearing a T-shirt. This is definitely a first, because I never, ever forget. And now he is touching my arm as if he doesn’t even see it, making that visible reminder of my past and my guilt about it temporarily invisible.

  When his hand reaches my shoulder, he doesn’t stop. I close my eyes as he moves to the top of my chest. When he first grazes my breast, I audibly inhale. Chris lowers his hand and slides it under my shirt, then under my bra, until his warm hand is on me. Now his breathing becomes ragged.

  Oh God, I’m going to scream.

  The way he skims the fingers of his other hand over my lower back is making me crazy. So deliberate and steady. He is so controlled. With the hand that’s just under my breast, he pushes against me slightly until I pull back enough for him to look me in the eyes. Every part of my body is burning for him. I love the way that his eyes pierce me as his hand moves against me. His face has just the hint of a smile and … surprise? I see a touch of confusion, as though he hadn’t been expecting this. If he didn’t before, I can tell that now he feels the same connection that I felt out by the lake. An all-consuming clarity that there is a magnetic pull between us. At least, I want him to be feeling that.

  With both hands, I push his black hair from his face and run my fingers through it and then down his shoulders. I take my time because I want to take in everything that I can about him and absorb all the details of his face. How the curve of his eyebrows is so beautifully arched, how the hint of a sideburn blends into his unshaven cheek, and how he bites his lip as I study him. And more than that, I see both our kinship and our differences: how we both have pasts full of pain and how he emanates survival in the way that I want to. Right now, I embody failure and surrender, but I see in him the possibility of what I could have.

  So his touch is more than just physical touch.

  Under my bra, Chris covers my breast with his hand and strokes me slowly with his thumb. I’m not prepared for the powerful ache that surges between my legs as he tightens his fingers around my nipple, and I drop my head back slightly. I arch my back some, pushing my breast against him, wanting more. For a second more, he pinches my nipple, but then moves his hand away. I nearly whimper, but then he leans into me and kisses me again. Harder this time. He tastes like eternity, and healing, and completion.

  No one else could ever kiss me like this, of that I am positive.

  I could breathe him in forever.

  I could fall in love forever.

  It is impossible to deny that I am clearly starved for physical contact, for sexual contact, but that still doesn’t entirely explain how desperately I want to tear off this boy’s clothes after I’ve shied away from everyone else. Never have I been so turned on. I move to the very edge of the bed and drop my hands to Chris’s lower back, bringing him against me. He wraps his arms around me and holds me tightly as he presses his waist between my legs. His lips are sealed against mine, his tongue perfect. I cannot get close enough to him, and I want more. I want everything. It doesn’t make sense. I barely know him, and it isn’t as though I’ve been whoring around campus for the past three years. This is the most intimate that I have ever been with anyone, physically or emotionally.

  Right now, I know that this is right, even though it’s baffling. Chris has tapped into the small part of me that still seeks hope. And pleasure.

  His mouth moves to my neck, his lips grazing against my skin and his breath heated. The only downside to lifting the back of his shirt is that he has to take his lips from my skin so that I can pull it over his head.

  Holy hell, he’s gorgeous.

  I touch his chest. As I’d seen when we were by the lake, he is all muscle. Lean, and defined, and utterly incomparable. And now I get to have my hands on him. Mesmerized by his body, I follow the lines of his chest muscles with my hand, tracing my fingers across his nipples, down to his abs, and still to the faint trail of hair that leads into his jeans. Then I work my way back up again, aware that I could do this for hours. Chris groans softly. There is no insecurity about what I am doing nagging at me, no doubt about how to touch him. Feeling his body, exploring him, is intuitive. Just having my hands on this boy seems like it could fulfill any lustful craving I have. He is absolutely captivating.

  As he kneels in front of me, I lean in and sweep my lips over his chest, kissing and touching my tongue to him every now and then. His hands are in my hair, cradling me while I taste his body. Later, when my mouth knows every inch of his muscled chest, I lift my mouth to his. He does not hesitate and kisses me again. I lean back onto the bed, and he crawls into me, resting his weight against me. My hips press up into him as he kisses his way from my mouth to my breasts, over my shirt and down my stomach.

  “Christopher.” I can’t help murmuring his name, and I have to stop myself from saying it over and over. I feel such relief to have found him.

  Then his weight is on me again, and he kisses me deeply as he presses his body between my legs. I feel how hard he is, how much he wants me.

  But then, without warning, he pushes up on his arms, panting a bit. He touches his cheek to mine, and I can feel that I’ve lost him. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but he is clearly stopping this before it goes any further. The sudden distance between us, the wall, threatens to wreck me. Whatever was there a few seconds ago is gone.

  Chris kisses me lightly on the cheek and whispers, “I don’t … I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I have no idea what to say or what has happened. And I don’t know why he hasn’t moved away from me or why he is trembling. So I ask. “Chris. Why are you shaking?”

  “I’m not,” he says. Bu
t he totally is.

  I brush my hands up and down his arms, wanting to touch him for as long he’ll let me. He drops his head into the crook of my neck as his breathing eases. I am so confused.

  He lifts up on his arms. “I’m really supposed to be studying. Whopper geology test on Monday.”

  I turn to the side and face away from him. “Of course. I’ve got tons to do, also.”

  The next few minutes are awful. A horribly awkward scene while we extricate ourselves from each other’s hold; me, muttering an idiotic “thank you” for the help with my playlist, and Chris looking apologetic as he yanks on his shirt, only making me feel worse.

  After a stupidly casual good-bye, I rush from his room before he can say anything else. The walk from his room up to mine is unforgivingly long. Talk about a walk of shame. I slam the door to my room and fling myself onto the bed.

  I sniff. Well, fuck, I certainly don’t smell great. That’s one problem. Perhaps my stench drove him away? It’s not like I planned on stripping off his shirt when I went to his room. I roll over and drop one hand to the floor. A few flights down, Christopher is probably now studying the boring layers of the earth or something, and here I am, all sorts of bewildered.

  But, damn, that was hot. Even though I don’t know why Chris pulled away or what I did wrong, that was still been hot.

  And that is enough to make me smile.

  JULY

  TWENTY-FIRST

  “I’m going down to the water,” Blythe calls into the house and then leans forward on the deck’s wooden railing. Even with all the trees, there is still an amazing view of the ocean cove, the water sparkling in the mid-afternoon light. And she loves that briny smell, especially strong now, at low tide. The stink always makes her younger brother, James, wrinkle his nose, but she breathes it in with pleasure.

  “Have fun at the clam graveyard hour!” James shouts. That’s what he calls low tide. Blythe’s repeated explanations that the smell has nothing to do with dying clams, and, that in fact, the clams are just fine and perfectly alive, does nothing to make him like it any better. Or understand her love for it.

  The truth for his sour attitude, she thinks, is that James is still pissed that she was the one to choose their vacation house from the list of possible rentals her parents printed out.

  It didn’t seem worth being pissy about. It was only for two weeks, after all. Once the fourteen days were up, Blythe’s family would finally be able to move into their new summerhouse in Bar Harbor, a house called The Stone’s Throw, where the current owners were taking longer than expected to pack up their things. The delay was a surprise and put Blythe’s parents in an awkward spot; by mid-July, it was virtually impossible to find any place to rent near popular Bar Harbor. That’s how they ended up in Chilford, a couple of hours south, in an old house.

  Luckily, it turned out to be a fine substitute vacation home for the place in Bar Harbor, and they settled in right away.

  Blythe knows that fun, easy vacations aren’t easy to come by for most families, but hers pulls them off every time. She knows that’s mostly because her parents walk that magic line between being involved in her life and giving her space to grow up on her own. Plus, her brother is pretty damn great, too. It seems like she and James should fight more, given that she is seventeen and he is fifteen, but they don’t. He is levelheaded, disciplined, and reasonable—many things that she is not. But under that cool exterior, he is kind. Truly, incredibly, deeply kind. And miraculously modest, considering that he is the top-ranked soccer player in Massachusetts. She is definitely the more carefree and sillier of the two, but James seems to appreciate that about her. They are a good pair.

  “Hey, James! Jamie!” she hollers. “The dying clams want to say hello to you! Come down to the beach with me!”

  “What? My God, quit yelling, you nut.” Her brother slides open the screen door and puts his hands on his hips. “We’re on a relaxing vacation. Soft voices, calm attitudes.” He half smiles, and the spark in his eye tells her that he is most definitely in a good mood.

  “Come swimming! It’s a perfect blue-sky afternoon. There’s a dock not too far out that we can swim to.”

  “I just scarfed down a massive sandwich. Later, okay? I’ll have to work off the six pounds of food I ate.” He pats his muscled stomach. He is a good-looking kid, Blythe knows, yet so far he has resisted the nearly incessant phone calls and overall interest from swooning girls. Soccer is his priority. “You shouldn’t swim that far alone, though,” he continues. “Take the boat, and I’ll watch you from up here.”

  “Okay, Mr. Responsible. You can rescue me if I start to drown. I’m no hotshot soccer star, but I can swim well enough.” It’s true. She is a good swimmer. Her strokes and form might not be pretty by swim team standards, but she is capable of handling herself in even rough ocean water. All of her general athletic failings don’t seem to matter in the water. She feels strong in the water and, more than that, she just loves the feeling of buoyancy. Nothing compares to being cradled and moved by the force of the ocean. You just have to be aware of its power. “Never forget,” her father had once said, “the current, the tides, the waves … they are all smarter than you are. They are in charge. It’s your job to listen. Don’t ever stop listening.”

  Her father was right. And so Blythe always listens to what the water tells her. “Fine, fine, stay here. I’ll be back in a bit. Wanna do steamers and lobsters for dinner? I saw a guy on the side of the road with a seafood shack. We can cook for Mom and Dad!”

  “You got it,” he says, smiling. “Have fun.”

  The path from the house to the shore runs under tall evergreens and is lined with feathery ferns. Blythe likes the way the leaves tickle her legs and how the rocky terrain makes her take her time getting to the water. She wants to slow down in general while here. This Maine vacation will be the calm before the storm. College applications are ahead of her in the fall, her senior year of high school: SATs and then forms, interviews, and freak-outs. Matthews is her top choice, obviously. Her parents met there, and aside from that cool aspect is the plain truth that it is an excellent college. She doesn’t want to go to an overpopulated university where she’d get lost in a sea of students. Frat parties and campus chaos are not her thing. Matthews is going to be her school. It has to. She even has on a frayed Matthews T-shirt right now. The pale blue lettering is chipped in more places than she can count and the red background is now closer to pink, but she doesn’t care how ragged the shirt is. It is her favorite. The Wisconsin winters would suck, obviously, but the beautiful campus and dynamic professors would make up for that. Blythe sort of hates that she will have to put down on her application that both her parents went there, because she wants to get in on her own merit, but she also isn’t entirely above using that connection if it can guarantee her an acceptance. If that’s what gets her in, then she will just have to validate the shit out of their decision to admit her once she’s there.

  The thought of all the work that lies ahead of her makes her even more determined to enjoy every minute of the summer. Which is pretty easy to do, considering the house has its own section of private beach. Blythe much prefers this shell-covered shoreline and cold, rough water to the perfectly smooth white sand and warm aqua water at tropical resorts. Maine feels real to her and much less showy. The boulders that are covered in seaweed, the barnacle-encrusted tide pools, and the salty air that invades every pore of her body: they are what make Maine special.

  She walks to the end of the narrow dock and tosses her things into the old rowboat that is tied up. She throws on the still-damp orange life vest and easily starts rowing out to the square floating dock that rocks with the waves, her boat bouncing playfully in the water. Blythe loves being around people, but she likes her privacy almost as much and adores how this dock is like a private island in the middle of the cove. She reaches it a few minutes later and clambers on top of it, situating herself on her towel. At three thirty in the afternoon, the sun is st
ill strong, but a slight chill from the cold water blows over her. She has her bathing suit on under her clothes, but she will try to warm up in the sun before she dives into the Atlantic. She kicks off her sneakers and removes her shorts, but keeps on her shirt.

  Blythe lies down on her stomach and rests her head on her crossed arms. The sound. Oh, the sound of small waves lapping against the dock is hypnotic, and the sun burning on the back of her legs is nicely tempered by the ocean air. Bliss. The dock rocks under her, and she gives herself up to the will of the ocean, succumbing to the unpredictable rhythm of the water and her daydreams.

  After what could be hours or minutes, Blythe isn’t sure which, she lifts her head, her content mood broken, but by what, she doesn’t know. She looks around. The rowboat is still tied to the dock. Nothing is amiss. She shakes her head. Blythe scans the shore to her right and studies the houses. Some are too far back or too shielded by foliage to see, while others are clearly visible. It’s funny, she thinks, the mix of tiny, somewhat rundown houses set next to clearly more expensive, nearly palatial properties.

  Movement on the opposite shore makes her look straight ahead. Someone is walking slowly where the water hits the land. She props her chin on her hands. From this distance it is hard to see the figure clearly, but she guesses that it’s a boy about her age. He’s tall, with dark hair peeking out from under a red baseball hat. He has on tan cargo shorts, and no shirt or shoes. And he is carrying two buckets, one in each hand. She watches as he plods slowly through the sand, wades a few feet through the heavy low-tide mud into the ocean, and then empties the water-filled buckets. He pauses a moment, tips his head back, and stands still. Maybe taking in the spectacular day? Or maybe something else.

  The boy leans over and refills each metal bucket with water. Slowly he stands and brings the pails to his side and begins walking, obviously weary, back down the shoreline where he’d come from. He keeps his arms slightly bent at the elbows, flexing his muscles to keep the buckets from hitting his legs. When he reaches what is probably the end of his property line, he plods back into the water and dumps his buckets again. For ten minutes, Blythe stares entranced as he repeats this ritual over and over. What on earth is he doing? Does he have some sort of compulsive disorder that required him to repeat mundane acts over and over until his brain is satisfied? Although she would hardly call this activity mundane. Buckets of water are heavy, even for someone with his strong build, and the repetition had to be tiring him out. Perhaps it was some kind of physical conditioning exercise? He could be a sports nut like her brother. She continues staring.