Left Drowning

by Jessica Park

  James is too upset to speak, so I continue.

  “I understand. This is … part of what we have to go through. What’s happening right now. I believe that this is going to get better. I know that I’ve been out of it and useless for so long, but I’m back. And I’m not Mom. I know that. You should have a mom and dad, and you were unfairly robbed of that. It’s not easy for anyone to lose a parent, but you lost both when you were still a kid. I can’t make that shit go away, but I am going to be here to help if you’ll let me.”

  He’s rubbing his eyes and sniffling, and I get up from my seat and sit next to him. I start to put my arm around him, but he collapses into my lap.

  “I did something bad, Blythe,” he says through his crying. “You’re not going to want to be around me if I tell you.” James is like a little kid right now, bawling and clinging to me.

  I can’t imagine what he’s talking about, but he clearly needs to get something off his chest. As I rub his back, I think how foreign it is for us to touch each other, but I’m glad that he’s letting me comfort him. “There’s nothing you can say that would do that.”

  He can’t even look at me as his garbled words come out. “I could have played soccer. I wasn’t hurt the way you thought.”

  I freeze. “What … what do you mean?”

  He keeps hiding his face. “I told everyone that my leg was too damaged for me to play anymore because I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. Soccer didn’t mean shit to me after, but everyone wanted me to be this big soccer star. I just didn’t care. Except for the scar, my leg is fine.”

  My brother’s leg is fine. The ramifications of what he is telling me hit me. I have spent four years blaming myself, hating myself, for taking away a huge piece of James’s future. Soccer was something that I believed could have been a salvation for him in a horrible time, and now I find out he didn’t even want it. Yet he let me take responsibility for destroying what little he had left.

  I keep my voice level because I don’t want him to know how furious I am. “Why didn’t you tell anyone that you could play? That you were pretending?”

  “Because … because everyone expected me to want to … I don’t know … prove how tough I was in the face of such shit. What a great story, right? Local boy goes on to triumph in the face of tragedy? And I didn’t have the heart to do it.”

  “Who else knew you were fine?” I ask.

  He shrugs and wipes his nose. “Just the doctors. I mean, the coach never made me prove that I couldn’t play. I just said there was too much muscle damage and pain for me to get back to anywhere close to what I was.”

  I nod, trying to process what he’s told me. I am seething, absolutely filled with rage for what he’s done to me, and yet … I know how easy it is to go crazy when your parents burn to death one floor above you. Underneath my anger is a piece of me that can sympathize with his choice. Chris was right when said that it was easier for James to blame me for everything. If I’d had someone other than myself to blame, I might have taken advantage of it. And my brother was only fifteen; he was just a kid. Fuck, he’s still just a kid in a lot of ways.

  I say the one thing that I know to be true. “It must have been hard for you to tell me the truth.” And then I have to ask him, “Why now? Why are you telling me now?”

  “Because … because you’ve been so nice to me. I think that before, when you were so messed up, it was easier to trick myself into thinking it was true. That my lie was actually true and that you deserved all the blame because you were so awful to be around. The way you were acting made everything so hard.”

  I love James, but I fucking despise him right now. He used my grief and my depression as an excuse to perpetuate a lie that hugely contributed to my miserable state.

  “You’re going to hate me forever,” he says.

  “No, James. I don’t hate you.” I move my hand on his back again. As much as I am confused and out-of-my-mind angry, he has still done something brave by telling me this, and I know that both of us have already suffered enough. Screaming at him now will not do any good. And I could never hate him.

  “I’m really, really sorry. It was really fucking dumb of me, and I wasn’t thinking. I was just so mad about everything, and it snowballed, and I didn’t know how to get out of the lie, and …”

  I shut my eyes and continue to rub his back. In my head, I am screaming, You son of a bitch! You fucking little shit! Instead, I think about how Chris managed that Thanksgiving fiasco with Sabin, how he was able to handle his brother so coolly when he probably wanted to throttle him. No good would come from screaming, so I speak calmly. “I understand. I know what it’s like to get stuck.”

  I am holding back tears, for him and for me. James is in horrible pain, again, and now so am I, and I’m stuck parenting my brother when I could really use a little fucking comforting myself. Life is not fair, but it is what we have to deal with. And we are going to deal with it so that we can live. No, so that we can thrive.

  “Why does it still hurt so much?” he asks. “Why can’t we just move on and deal?”

  “I know. We’ve been grieving for more than four years, but not grieving well. And now, it seems, it’s time.”

  There is no set pattern to grief, despite what every stupid psych text has told me. There is no time frame that dictates when and how you’ll feel what you feel. You just get to deal with hell however, and whenever, it hits you.

  “We’re going to get through this,” I tell him.

  “It’s so hard to be home,” he says. “It’s too hard.”

  I picture Chris helping me to breathe.

  I stroke my brother’s hair and think for a few minutes. Finally I ask, “Do you want to go back to school a little early? Do you have someone you could stay with?”

  He nods and wipes his eyes again.

  “I’ll change your plane ticket. It’s not a problem.”

  “Are you mad that I want to leave?”

  “Of course not. School is where you’re probably the most comfortable, and you should be wherever will help. I know this house doesn’t feel like home. But it will, and it will be here when you’re ready.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he tells me again. “I’m going to make this up to you. I don’t deserve how nice you’ve been or now nice you are being now. I ruined everything.”

  “It’s all right.” In disbelief over what has just transpired between us, I drop my head back on the couch. “We’re going to be okay, you and me. One day, we’re going to be okay.”

  But we are not okay now.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Him and Everything about Him

  The flight back to school feels interminable. I wish the Boston-to-Madison trip could happen in an instant because I just want to be back in my dorm. The weather does miraculously cooperate, though, so at least I am not made to suffer through countless delays that end in a cancellation. By the time I land, I am nearly desperate to get to Matthews. Because I have no one to pick me up, I accept that I’ll have to pay a small fortune for a cab to deposit me back at school.

  James left Boston yesterday, the day after our talk, and I took one day to shut down the house before I caught my flight. I didn’t bolt, though. Returning to school is not about running away. Being home in my parents’ house for that long was hard, especially coupled with James’s revelation. It’s going to take time to deal with my brother’s lie and what it did to me. There’s no way to fix things between us overnight, or even in the next few months. I’m going with the assumption that I’ll forgive him when I’m ready. I feel good because I made major progress in more ways than one over break, but it was time to go. Had I stayed any longer, I could have undone the good things, the “successes” that I can add to my mental list. They are hard won and I am not giving them up.

  Only when the cab is a few miles from the dorm do I realize something. Something crucial. I cannot fucking get into the dorm. It won’t reopen for another week. How could I be so dumb? Last year I heard som
eone in one of my classes bitching about getting locked out when he came back early because Matthews temporarily changes the locks or something, so I know that my key won’t work.

  I direct the cabdriver back to downtown Madison while I do a fast search on my phone for a hotel. Fuck it. I’m going to stay in the nicest, most expensive hotel I can find for the next week. No homework or trekking across a frozen campus—instead, lots of bubble baths and room service. After filtering my search results by price, highest to lowest, I call the first one, the Madison Grand Hotel and Suites, and book a room. Technically, I book a suite.

  Despite the rather generic name, the Madison Grand is indeed grand, and the staff is extremely gracious and professional as they check me into my room, asking about my day of travel, whether I’m hungry, whether there is anything else they can get me. Something to eat? Extra pillows? Towels? Dry-cleaning service? I’m sure they are thrilled to have a six-day suite booking at this dull time of year, and I laugh as I acknowledge to myself that I enjoy how they fuss over me. Hotel staff are not supposed to be substitutes for parental love, but I’ll take what I can get. I need pampering, and if I want to imagine their concern for my needs is the equivalent of parental caretaking, I will.

  After my bags are delivered to my suite, I unpack almost everything. I hate living out of suitcases, and this suite is going to be my home for six days. The dark espresso furniture is modern and sleek, and the massive window overlooks the sparkling lights of the city.

  In the bathroom there’s a whirlpool tub with shutters that unfold to overlook the bedroom, allowing for a view through the suite’s windows of the night sky. After a raid on the vanity basket of high-end products that will surely cost me plenty, I run a warm bath and soak for twenty minutes, trying not to think of anything but the sensation of the water. I shave everything that should be shaved, plus a little more, and wrap my hair in some weird mud product that is supposed to enhance the shine. Later, I rinse off and refill the bath with clean water and turn on the jets. Holy crap, this is awesome.

  The swirling water dances over my skin, dances everywhere, and before I know it, my hand is between my legs. The chaos and emotion of my trip home weren’t exactly conducive to arousal, but clearly my body is needing to compensate for that down time. This tub could hold another five people, but I’d settle for just one more. I’m aroused enough, and I could probably make myself come, but I take away my hand after a few minutes. There is nothing particularly interesting about this for me right now.

  It is not my touch that I want.

  I know I shouldn’t fantasize about Chris, but I can’t help it. Giving in to my ache, my fingers move between my legs once again. My brain starts running a movie reel of what Chris and I could do together, how I would touch him, how he would sound and move. I brace my foot against the side of the tub as I shove a finger inside myself. Flashbacks of Chris doing this to me heighten the feeling, and I move faster. It’s easy to conjure up exactly what he did to me against the door to my room, exactly how he affected me. I remember his sound, his touch, and every graphic, perfect word that he said to me. I think about his touch between my legs, how he got me so totally wet, how I could feel his cock press against me when he held me tight …

  I stop my hand. God, what is wrong with me? I’m momentarily surprised that I’m thinking in such raw, graphic terms, but have to admit that even though I’ve never said the word out loud, it suddenly seems exactly right. I remember the way Chris dirty talked his way through making me come so hard in my room and realize that side of him seems to have rubbed off on me. Maybe it’s no surprise I’m thinking with such X-rated abandon now.

  Fuck. Fuck!

  I take my hand away in irritation. I don’t want to come by myself. It’s not enough anymore. The fact is that I am a senior in college, and I want to have sex. To be more accurate, I want to get fucked until I can’t see straight. Classy, I think. But that’s what I want. Unfortunately for me, that is not going to happen right now.

  I stand up and check the vanity basket again to see what other products I can smear on myself. The foot scrub could be appealing, except that I hate the smell of fake raspberries, so I investigate further. There is, of all things, a vibrator in a discreet sealed box nestled in with the bath salts. I don’t pick it up—I’m not after that kind of touch, either. The pack of condoms and lube in there seem to be laughing at me. I scowl at them, hurl both through the open shutters, and watch them land them on the bed. Then I grab a nice innocent jar of salt scrub. This is not going anywhere erotic.

  Later, after I’ve dried my hair and thrown on comfy black leggings and a snug camisole tank top, I order a huge dinner. There is no point in getting dressed up, and I’m happy to be wearing clothes I can stretch in. My muscles still feel limber because I was able to get a temporary membership to a gym back home, so all of my hard work wasn’t undone over break. As I reach for my toes, I am happy to notice that my flexibility continues to get better every week. By the time my food arrives, I am limber for no good reason.

  I dim the lights, take the first of my dishes, fettuccine Alfredo, to the big armchair and stare out at Madison while I pick at my food. Now that I have three extraordinarily fattening entrees in the room, I’m not hungry. What I am is worked up and cranky and sexually frustrated. I sigh at the picturesque view out the window. The downtown city lights shine brightly, particularly the capitol building, which is encased in a luminescent white glow.

  After a few more bites, and a good gulp of the room-temperature gin and tonic that I mixed for myself, I roll the cart into the hallway, catching someone from room service as he leaves another room. I take a silver bucket from the table and head for the ice machine near the elevator. Might as well continue raiding the minibar.

  Just as I turn the corner back to my room, I see him coming out of a room at the far end of the hall.

  Chris is walking toward me, strolling casually down the hall with his hands in his jeans pockets. I’m unable to move until he finally looks up and sees me.

  “Well, hey, you,” he says with a smile. He is tanned and excruciatingly gorgeous, and I nearly faint. “What are you doing here?”

  My chest is probably visibly heaving. I drop the bucket and walk quickly toward him. He’s got to see how I am looking at him, how I am essentially in heat. Chris meets me halfway, and I grab a fistful of his T-shirt in my hand and pull him in tight. I lift my mouth up close to his. “I need you,” I say, each word deliberate and loaded. I’m not sure, but I may have actually growled.

  I keep him close as I back up and lead him to my door.

  “Blythe, what are you doing? I thought we agreed that we weren’t …” But his hands are on my waist, then under the top of my leggings, and he is following my steps without any protest.

  I smile. “Shut up.” I reach behind me and wave my key card. The second I hear the door unlock, I slam down on the handle and take us into my room.

  Now it’s his turn up against a wall.

  His mouth tastes like orange soda, which I find spectacularly adorable, and I kiss him long and hard. And not because I like orange soda. My hands are practically clawing through his hair and over his chest.

  I can tell that Chris is surprised by how aggressive I am, but I don’t really care. And he gets over it quickly, because as I continue to kiss him, his hands move over me. He’s digging his fingers under my ass and lifting me up and against him. Already we are moving together in a way that we haven’t before, even that night in my room. Despite our height difference, we fit perfectly, and feeling him press his hips into me makes my ache for him climb. Even through his jeans, I can feel how hard he is.

  As I continue to kiss him, I find his waistband and yank his shirt out until I can touch his abs, and stroke his lower back and ass. Then I come back to the front of his jeans, stroking him with one hand and undoing his belt with the other. He gasps and leans his head against the wall. “Blythe,” he whispers into my mouth.

  I breathe in my na
me from his lips. “Yeah?” I say back, unable to hold back a smile.

  “I don’t know if this is smart,” he says, yet his hands are now over my breasts, getting my nipples hard.

  “I think it’s brilliantly smart,” I manage.

  “But we can’t … get involved. I told you, I’m not boyfriend material.“

  “I know.” I rub my hand against the front of his jeans a little harder.

  “We’re friends. I don’t want to screw this up.”

  “Me neither. We won’t.”

  “You’re just saying that now, but later it could feel different.”

  “I’m a big girl, and I know what I want.” And I do. I don’t know where my confidence with him has come from, but I’ve got it.

  “You know how much I care about you, it’s just more than I—”

  “Christopher.” I interrupt him and pull back until I am looking him directly in the eyes. While I appreciate his checking to make sure that I’m cognizant of what I’m doing, I also know that he is as ready for this as I am. “I don’t want you to be my boyfriend.” I unzip his pants. “I want you to fuck me.”

  He is breathing hard, and it takes him a moment to speak. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He looks at me with heat in his eyes now. “I can do that.”

  “Good.”

  He moves fluidly to help me get him out of his unzipped jeans, and I place my hand over the front of his blue boxer briefs. He groans and touches his hands lightly to the side of my head as I kneel in front of him and graze my lips against the fabric. I slide a hand between his legs and move it far back until I have his ass in my hand. I pull him against my mouth. I always thought maybe I’d feel tentative during my first blow job because it would be new to me, but instead, I want him and everything about him immediately. I know that he can feel the heat from my breath. With the other hand, I pull down the front of his boxers and immediately touch my tongue to him. My need for him is powerful, urgent, and I feel delirious that I am finally getting to touch Chris in the way that I want. I lick his entire length.