Dead in the Water

by Chrystal Vaughan

  He pulled back and studied my face again, that worry line showing up between his eyebrows in the most adorable way. I glared at him, feeling my face go completely red and in true Eva Dunbar fashion, I get all demanding and go, “Why did you do that? Can’t you get any of your Barbie hoes to kiss you?”

  He sighed and let me go. That was brilliant, Eva, I thought. Way to go. He comes over with flowers and kisses you, and you gotta go ruin it. Maybe a nunnery will take me in, nah, probably not. They don’t really like people who are possessed by demons or ghosts or whatever was wrong with me.

  “Eva, why do you always have to push me away?”

  “I didn’t push you away, I was just asking. I know you have a lot of girlfriends.” This was said with bitterness, I confess.

  “No, I don’t. Those girls are just groupies that hang out with my guy friends. I’ve never gone out with any of them. They follow us around because we are on the sports teams and they think they like us or we like them.”

  “Really?” Insert my scathing sarcasm here.

  “Yes, really. If you would open your eyes, you’d see that.”

  “What about how every time we are in chemistry class, you go and sit with that stupid, cow Natasha?” HA! Point for me.

  “I only sit with her to make you jealous so you’ll start talking to me again.”

  “Oh.”

  Suddenly he looked pretty cheerful. “Does it work?”

  There were two choices here. My defensive side said to tell him hell no, you’re not jealous of that bimbo or him either for that matter. My honest side was jumping up and down saying hell yes, it makes me crazy. I choose honesty instead of defensive, for a change. Maybe there's hope for me yet.

  “Yes. It works every time. It breaks my heart to watch you walk away from me…again.” There, take some guilt with your honest answer, Jesse Williams. And it worked pretty well, too, because the confessions started pouring out of him like he'd been given a super heavy dose of truth serum.

  “I never meant to hurt you. I stopped coming over when we were younger because I started having all these feelings about you. And you started acting really weird and all secretive, like you were hiding something. I thought you didn't like me in the same way. I didn’t know what to do. Aaron (that would be Jesse’s older brother) said it was because I wanted to...sleep with...you and I should just do it and get it over with, that I’d stop thinking about you all the time if I did. But that’s not what I wanted. I was confused, and so I did anything I could to avoid you. And then you just stopped talking to me so I figured that was how you wanted it.”

  This was both startlingly good and horribly painful. He had told me I was the one who shut him out, but now he was admitting he was wrong, it was his fault. No way was I keeping quiet about this crap. “Well, Jesse, I’m so sorry to have hurt you in such a terrible manner. My god, how have you managed to survive?”

  “Goddammit, Eva. You and that smart fucking mouth!” Shocking curse words coming from the high school football god, handsomest Homecoming King ever, and all around good old American golden boy. Golden boy apparently had enough of my smart, effing mouth because he grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me again. This was way different from our last kiss though. It was more urgent, hotter, more shocking, taking but not giving. It was the most incredible thing that has happened to me in my whole life, as yet. And I can channel the spirits of the dead, so that’s saying something.

  Jess pressed me back against my covers, still kissing me, but a little more gently now, both hands buried back in my hair and holding my face captive where he wanted me. I wrapped my arms around his broad back and kissed him back with everything I had. All the missing him, all the hurt and anger and fear, I poured those emotions into lust and fed them into his waiting mouth. I could feel him lying on top of me, and I felt a hardness between us, which scared and excited me at the same time. I must have made some sound, because he broke off our kiss and just stared down into my eyes, like he was looking for my soul so he could devour that, too.

  “I’ve never been able to stop thinking about you, you know. I’ve wanted to come back and be friends if nothing else, for so long, but I was afraid of your temper, afraid you would reject me.”

  “Well, I guess you had something to fear then. I am kind of a bitch, I guess.”

  “No. You’re honest about your feelings no matter how raw they are. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

  He said love. I heard it. I’m writing it down right here so that if it never happens again, I will know that it was real, once.

  After that little confession, I closed my eyes so he couldn’t see me cry. Crying just pisses me off so much. It’s so helpless and girly and stupid. He rolled off of me and tucked me up against his front (that hard part was still there but not as much as before). He rested his chin on top of my head and we just lay there for such a long time. It was the best I’ve ever felt.

  After a while he said he had to go home in this hoarse whispery voice, but he wanted to come back tomorrow if it was ok with me. I rolled over and kissed him daringly on his perfect chin and like some sappy, romance, novel heroine, I go, “Nothing would make me happier.” Gag. Though it was/is true. He kissed me very, very softly on my lips and then rose out of my bed like Adonis with clothes. I felt sad and small already without him there. He bent over and kissed me again, and then he was gone. I heard him say goodbye to my parents (god, I hope they didn’t know what we were doing up here) and then the door shut softly behind him. And that is how it ended, the best day of my life.

  Jesse

  Eva didn't show up to school for several days, and Jesse was worried. Had she finally cracked? His mom wasn't saying. Eva had been gone for only one day when the bloody writing was written on her locker. Some idiot thought it would be funny to use fake blood to write "witch" across her locker from top to bottom. After school that day, Jesse saw Dave, the school janitor, trying to scrape it off with a plastic putty knife while keeping some of the blue paint on the metal, if possible. He grabbed a spare putty knife from Dave's cleaning cart and helped him scrape the mess off. It had congealed to a hard mass and they took the better part of an hour to finally remove the last bit of it.

  "It's such a shame, all these kids picking on that nice girl," Dave said ruefully, as he packed away his cleaning gear. "Bullying is a real problem these days. You see it all over the Internet, kids committing suicide and stuff over this kind of thing. I've told Mr. Herron several times that something's gotta get done about this but he can't seem to catch them. Hey thanks for your help, Jesse, you have a good one." Whistling, he pushed his cart down the hall to stow it back in a closet before heading off to the cafeteria.

  Jesse experienced a moment of panic. Surely...Eva wouldn't kill herself because of some dumb kids, would she? He knew she was under a lot of pressure from whatever her illness was. His mom had always been real vague and the teachers would never say. He never saw anything happen because he knew the warning signs too. His mom always told him, "If Eva's eyes roll back in her head, or her hands clench and unclench really fast, you come get me or her mom right away and then you get lost. Ok kiddo?" and he'd always listened. But with this mental problem she was going through, maybe these rotten kids at school finally set her off.

  He whipped out his cell phone and called her house. Her mom answered the phone, and he hung up, not knowing what to say. He'd just have to go by there and see for himself. But surely there would be rumors if she were dead. Wouldn't there? The thought filled his veins with ice.

  After a couple of days, Jesse couldn't take it anymore. He called over to her house, staying on the line this time. Eva's mother told him she was sick with some kind of a virus, but he was welcome to visit if he felt like taking his chances. He sighed in relief. He did feel like taking his chances. Definitely.

  He told his mom after school the next day that he was headed over there. "No work today, Jess?" she asked.

  "No, I'm on later tonight. Don't w
orry, I'll be back in plenty of time to do my homework."

  "I'm not worried. You're a grown boy. You know how to handle your workload. How is Eva? You two haven't been friends in a long time. Why the sudden interest?"

  "I just missed her, I guess."

  "She's not feeling well, right?"

  "How did...oh right, you and her mom are BFF's still. I keep forgetting." He'd never forgotten.

  Jesse's mom studied him a moment. Then she said, "Well I'm glad you two kids are talking again. And Jesse...be gentle with Eva, ok? Her life is hard."

  Now it was Jesse's turn to stare. "What do you mean? Her parents are great, like you and dad. She's not from a broken home or anything. And if you mean her seizures or whatever, she never said anything about them."

  "No, I don't mean the seizures in the way you think. Eva's not like you, Jesse. She's...sensitive...to things. She's different from other girls. Isn't that one of the reasons you like her?" She cocked her head, conveying her meaning without speaking aloud.

  Suddenly Jesse felt like a real jerk. What if everything Eva had said to him about that notebook was true? "Thanks Mom," he said in a rush, kissing her cheek and sprinting out to his Jeep.

  Jesse drove to the florist and grabbed the biggest bouquet of stargazers he could find. He knew they were Eva's favorite, because it was on her bio for the yearbook. He headed over to her house and parked out by the front lawn, since both her parents were home and their cars took up the driveway. He knocked very politely, and Eva's mom answered with a surprised and pleased smile.

  "Jesse! How lovely to see you, and your flowers too!"

  "Thanks Mrs. D. Is Eva home?"

  "She certainly is. I'll just run up there and make sure she's, you know, up for company." She beamed at him and hustled up the stairs. Jesse made small talk with Eva's dad, who seemed happy to see him. Mr. D grilled Jesse about the football team, and what he thought their chances of a state championship would be this year. Finally, Mrs. D came down the stairs and sent him on up.

  He didn't exactly receive a warm welcome. Although she did apologize for what she had said to him last time, he was there. He felt ashamed of how he'd doubted her sanity, so he didn't say anything about her behavior.

  Instead, he picked a fight with her about how she acted around him when they were kids, and how confused he'd been about his own feelings toward her, because, obviously, that was her fault. God, he didn't know how to talk to this girl. She made him curse; she made him lose his damn mind. She was maddening! She filled his every waking thought, even when he had supposed she might be crazy. She confused and confounded him. He did the only thing he could think of to stop them from fighting.

  He kissed her.

  And what a kiss! He wanted it to last forever but he felt her struggling to breathe and finally had to let her up for air. He was kind of guilty about kissing her, knowing she was sick, but he'd never take it back. With that kiss, he'd laid claim to her forever. He was never letting this girl get away from him again.

  They cuddled for a while, and he felt powerful, holding her there, and he felt like he belonged. No, more like they belonged to each other. He was apparently a romantic at heart, because he felt like he could lay there with her forever.

  She wasn't so bad herself. When he had to leave, very reluctantly, he peeled himself away from her, but not before asking if he could come back tomorrow. Her mercurial moods still made him a little wary. He wasn't fool enough to believe one kiss could tame her. She'd kissed him on the chin and told him nothing would make her happier. His heart swelled so that he thought it might burst out of his chest. Instead he kissed her softly once, twice, and then left. He barely remembered saying goodbye to her parents or driving home. His bed felt pretty cold and lonely that night, but he wrapped himself in the memory of her soft body against his and slept peacefully.

  Eva

  November 20, 2013

  November 21, 2013

  Jesse is here right now. He’s lying on my bed reading some of my earlier notebooks. We had a good laugh over the one that says “BALLS” over and over. I swear to god if he’s not serious about whatever this is that we’re doing, I’m going to kill him. God, I'm so freaking stupid. This is going to end BADLY. How can I trust him so quickly after he just left me because he actually liked me of all the stupid reasons? Typical guy thinking. OMG. I’ve never let anyone read these things in my notebooks. They’re like proof of my craziness. Why do I even keep them in the first place? I guess because I want to make sure that I don’t forget. It’s like these things need me to be a witness or something, and I want to remember everything that’s happened to me, everything that’s tried to contact me or make itself heard through me. Jesse says that makes a lot of sense and if he had the same ability (he calls it a “gift” because he doesn’t know any better) that he’d keep a journal and save the notebooks too.

  He came over yesterday like he promised. My parents were both at work; they are both high school teachers; at my school even. It’s awful but at least when I was sick they were able to make arrangements for me. Jesse brought me a chocolate croissant because he said it looked like I hadn’t eaten in weeks and I couldn’t afford to lose any more weight. The jerk. Gosh, I’m really liking his attention though. He got one for himself, too, and he brought us Dutch Brothers. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have lots of coffee places. Especially in coastal towns like ours, where the wind can feel like it’s slicing right through you, coming in off the ocean. We ate and drank our treats in silence cuz I was feeling kind of shy. He didn’t kiss me hello or anything so I wondered if he wanted to dial it back and maybe just be friends or something. God, I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never even had a boyfriend for crying out loud. I have no idea how to act. So I just sat there like a lump and not making eye contact.

  He finished first and asked if he could read more of my notebook. I said, yeah, thinking he is just hanging out with me because I’m weird, like in an interesting way; like a germ in a petri dish or something. So I muttered, yeah, all intelligently and I said I’d let him read the new one with the parts from when I was sick. I handed it to him and started typing on my laptop, confused and hurt. He was sitting on my bed reading the last time I looked up and then he startled me by saying in my ear, “I’m not here because I think you’re interestingly weird, though you are.” I jumped in surprise and then swatted him on the arm for scaring me. He laughed and snagged my laptop with one hand and fended me off with the other. The big jerk.

  He sat my laptop down gently on the floor and grabbed me, quick and unexpected. I shrieked a little and giggled like a moron. He laid me down on my bed and hovered above me, supporting himself on one elbow. He got all serious, and he said, “Eva Dunbar, will you be my girlfriend?” like he was proposing or something. I didn’t have a clue what to say. Did I want to be his girlfriend? Do I like breathing? Is my heart beating? My stupid mouth utters, “Why? So you can dump me and break my heart again?”

  He sighed and let me up. I’m cursing at myself silently, wishing I could crawl under my bed and never come out. He goes, “Eva, what do I have to do to make you trust me?”

  And I’m all, “I don’t know Jess. I’m sorry. Things just pop out of my mouth.”

  “I am in love you with Eva. Does that spell it out enough?”

  “How do you know you’re in love with me? And why after all this time is this just coming out now? You could have come to me and told me all this stuff two, even three, years ago. You just left, without considering how I felt. It's been five years since we really hung out together. You have no idea who I am, anymore."

  “Jeez, I was only like twelve years old, Eva. Cut me some slack.”

  “Well I was only eleven, and you were my best friend, and then you just left! You didn't even talk to me at school. And I saw you walking around with all those perfect blonde hoes and I have never felt like I measured up to them, thanks to you!”

  He was pretty quiet for a while. Then he said, “Do you want
me to go away?”

  I felt my heart race at the idea. I was getting used to having him around again, pretty quickly. In fact I think I've fallen faster than any girl in the history of the world. Did I want him to leave? Not only no, but hell no. But what I said was, “Do you want to go away?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t.”

  We didn’t say anything else for a while. He handed me back my laptop, and then asked if he could read some of my older notebooks since he finished the one I'm on, and I said, “Yeah.” I slid the box that I keep them in out from underneath my bed and left them there for him to look at. After a while, he started asking me questions. What did I think the things writing them meant? Did I ever have premonitions, or any other kind of “gifts”?

  Finally he put them back in the box and slid it back under my bed. I was at my computer desk typing. He was reading over my shoulder but I didn’t mind, especially because I was quick enough to minimize this journal and pretend to be working on makeup assignments. This was a few minutes ago. He said he had to go, but he’d come back after school. Seniors are so lucky. He only has a few classes a day. I said that would be ok, playing it cool, but he didn’t let me be cool. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. He wrapped those strong arms of his around me and pulled me in close, tucking me under his chin and just holding me. I slid my arms around his waist, being unable to help but notice the six-pack under his t-shirt and wishing I had the guts to caress him with my fingertips to feel the contrast of soft skin and hard muscle.