Deep Water

by West, Sinden

  I swiftly took the glass from his hand, taking him by surprise. But he relaxed into a smile when he saw it was me.

  “Hey, Jessie. You got forced into coming to this thing as well?”

  I shrugged and took a sip of the champagne. “It’s a chance to dress up, and apparently drink free booze. Are they serving us under-agers now?”

  He grinned. “Give it half an hour and most the adults in this place will be completely wasted going by the amount of drinks the waiters are bringing out.”

  “Excellent.” I took another sip.

  “You look nice, by the way.”

  I curtseyed. “Thank you, sir. Like my dress? I had to spend the entire day shopping in the city with my Mom until we found one she thought was suitable.” I rolled my eyes at the memory. I’d been pissed because it was Joseph’s day off, and we had made plans to spend it together. Instead, I’d traipsed from store to store with her. Every dress that I had liked she’d pronounced as too grown up, and we finally compromised on a little black dress that was figure hugging without being too sexy. By the time we got back, it was late, and she told me that she thought I should go to bed instead of heading out to the lake to meet up with my friends.

  It was surreal that she was taking an interest in my wellbeing again. In fact, it was so shocking that I texted Joseph that I couldn’t make it, and went to bed as she had asked instead.

  “I like the dress,” Ewan said. “Very sexy.”

  I grinned, happy at his response. Sexy was what my mother had specifically not wanted.

  “Hey,” he said. “Want to steal a bottle and go sit down by the water? If I have to be polite to one more old person tonight, I’m going to scream.”

  I looked at my parents. Mom was still talking with Mr. Teller, and Dad was surrounded by a bunch of boring men. I wondered if Anna was here…

  “Sounds good,” I told Ewan. He put himself in charge of swiping a bottle of champagne from the kitchen while I waited outside for him. I stepped off the balcony and walked down the manicured lawn to the water’s edge, sitting on the bench seat that was embedded there.

  My phone signaled a text from Joseph.

  ‘I’m at the lake. Can you sneak off early?’

  ‘Maybe later,’ I replied ‘You drunk yet?’

  My phoned beeped a second later.

  ‘Getting there. Miss you.”

  ‘Miss you, too.’

  I was still smiling at my phone when Ewan joined me, a stolen bottle of something that looked expensive in hand. We didn’t bother with glasses and just drank straight from the bottle. I felt quite decadent sitting outside a mansion on the shore of the lake, in my evening clothes and drinking champagne from a bottle. I felt grown-up.

  The giggling that I couldn’t help was distinctively ungrown-up. But Ewan kept making me laugh, and I spat out more than one mouthful as he joked and teased with me. Soon I was feeling dizzy and lightheaded from the drink, so I lay down on my back on the grass, not caring about messing my dress.

  Ewan lay back down beside me, his head touching mine as we looked up at the night sky together. It was natural when his lips touched mine. I wasn’t that surprised, after all he’d been inching closer to me all evening. I didn’t return the kiss, and he got the message.

  “Ewan…” I said, sadly.

  He sat up. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  I sat up as well. “I’m with Joseph now.”

  He looked away. “I know.”

  I waited for a beat. “Are you mad?”

  He looked back at me, surprise on his face. “Of course not.”

  I reached out and took his hand, giving it a slight squeeze. “Good. Because I like being around you, and you’re the only one who knows what my Mom is like. So I’d be really pissed off if I lost you as my friend.”

  He squeezed my hand back. “You won’t. Promise.”

  I leaned in and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  It wasn’t long after that that I heard my Dad call my name. Ewan helped me to my feet and to hike down my dress that had risen up. We stumbled up the lawn together toward the balcony on which my Dad stood.

  “Jessie, it’s time to go.” He frowned as he saw me. “Are you drunk?”

  Ewan cleared his throat, and I could tell he was suppressing a laugh, but his voice came out straight. “Sir, she just had a glass of champagne. She’s so tiny that it hit her pretty hard.”

  “She shouldn’t have been drinking in the first place,” my father said in a voice that sounded strained like he was trying to hold back his irritation.

  I waved goodbye to an amused looking Ewan as my Dad led me back inside to where my mother was waiting. She looked happy.

  “She’s been drinking. Let’s get out of here,” my father said tightly to her.

  My mother just gave me a small smile, and I was relieved that she wasn’t mad like Dad was. But of course, that changed when we got in the car. Only the anger wasn’t directed at me.

  “Why weren’t you keeping an eye on her?” Dad said as he put the key in the ignition.

  Mom snorted. “Why weren’t you? Oh. Wait. I know. You were too busy with that whore, Anna.”

  Dad froze with his hand on the key. Then he slowly turned his head to face my mother.

  “And what were you doing?” he asked, coldly. “Did you really think that I didn’t know about you and Terrence?”

  I heard the breath my mother sucked in, and there was a moment of silence, and then she released it.

  “Well, you know now,” she said in a shaky voice. “But you drove me to him. You–”

  “Shut up!” Dad yelled. “I drove you to him? How exactly did I do that? By being the good, supportive husband all these years? By standing by you with your drinking and your mental problems? By continually making excuses for you? Even when you turned up pregnant with some other guy’s bastard, I looked after you.” He hit the steering wheel with his fist, and the horn went off. I flinched when he called me a bastard and my eyes started to well with tears, but they didn’t notice me. My father hadn’t finished. “And how do you repay me? By screwing around on me constantly the whole time we’ve been married. And the one time, the one time, I go to someone else for a little bit of happiness, you continually throw her in my face and make me out to be the bad guy. Well, I’m not putting up with it anymore–”

  He caught sight of my face in the rearview mirror, and he stopped.

  My mother twisted around to look at me before turning back to Dad. “Happy now?” she spat.

  “Jessie–” Dad began.

  “Can you drop me off on the other side of the lake,” I managed to breathe out as I controlled the urge to sob. “My friends are there. Eve will give me a ride home.”

  “Honey–”

  “Drop her off,” my mother commanded. “I can’t blame her for not wanting to be around us right now. After all, you did call her a bastard.”

  Dad started the car without another word. We drove around the lake in silence. He pulled the car up to a stop where all my classmates’ cars were parked.

  “I might stay the night at Eve’s house if that’s okay with you,” I said tightly.

  “Of course. Honey, I’m so–” I got out and slammed the door, so I didn’t have to listen to anything else.

  The first person I saw was Eve. She ran to me and pulled me into a suffocating hug. “I didn’t think you were coming! Here, drink this.” A beer was pushed into my hand before she let out a squeal, and some guy came chasing after her. She took off, and he followed suit. Her giggling disappeared into the night further up the beach.

  I drank the beer as my eyes searched for Joseph. I couldn’t see him, and I didn’t really want to talk to anyone else, so I sat back a bit from the fire, drinking my beer. Someone sat down beside me, and I looked to see who it was.

  The smoke from Katrin’s cigarette was somehow more offensive that the smoke from the fire.

  “Hi, Katrin,” I said,
before looking back at the fire.

  “Hey.”

  I shifted uncomfortably, conscious of her eyes on me. Finally, I turned to her. “What?”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?” I saw her hand that held the cigarette shake slightly.

  “What?”

  She lifted her hand to her mouth and sucked on her cigarette. She exhaled a puff of smoke that seemed to float right over me. “That he was sleeping with me while he was going after you? The whole time you were playing little-miss-hard-to-get, I was taking care of his hard on…”

  I was glad it was dark because anger must have made my face red. I took a breath, and amazingly my voice came out calm. “Everyone knows that you were his go-to-girl for whenever he was horny, Katrin. That’s news to no one.”

  There seemed to be no emotion on her face as she raised her cigarette to her mouth again to take another drag. Then she said it, the words that I knew were waiting somewhere to be spoken out loud. “Don’t you want to know if I’m still his go-to-girl?”

  Chapter Twelve

  My face was stone. The urge to become my mother and throw a mind blowing, soul wrenching tantrum was strong. But I didn’t.

  Instead, I counted to ten.

  One to ten to keep myself under control.

  To not become my mother.

  For the first time in my life, I think I understood her anguish enough to comprehend where she was coming from.

  Katrin watched me, her cigarette now forgotten and burning between her fingers. Soon, without her sucking on it like oxygen, it would die out. I felt like that cigarette. I felt like I would die out soon because of what she’d just said.

  Don’t you want to know if I’m still his go-to-girl?

  No! I didn’t want to fucking know! Because if it were true then everything special that had developed would become null and void. Emptiness would overcome me, and I would spiral with nothing left but a poor excuse for a family. There would be nothing left but a hole where my heart was, and I couldn’t have that. I wouldn’t.

  The silence stretched on as I was caught in her gaze like a deer in headlights. The effort of keeping all emotion from my face was making me feel faint. I had to say something. I had to do something.

  But I was saved from that by the appearance of Joseph. He was drunk; his eyes glazed and mouth held in a drunken smile. I could smell the alcohol coming off of him in waves as he enveloped me in a hug.

  “Heyyy, Jessica. My sexy, sexy girl.” He nearly tumbled, making us both lose our balance almost. But I held strong. I could not show any kind of weakness with Katrin’s bitter eyes glued to me. I knew what she wanted. She wanted me to cause a scene; to become a bitch; to storm away in tears perhaps. But I did none of those things.

  Instead, I gave her a sickly, sweet smile from beyond Joseph’s shoulder. It was the kind of smile that my beauty queen mother would have been proud of. It was so fake it would make you sick.

  “Hey, baby,” I said, in a voice that was not mine. The seduction in that voice was more suited to someone used to scheming, like my Mom, but it served my purpose. It made Joseph meet my eyes and then land his mouth on mine in a kiss that was still graceful despite his drunken state. I kissed him back, hard.

  I kissed him back in a way I believed people called fucking his mouth. My tongue stole in rapidly between his lips as my hand pressed the back of his head, forcing his face onto mine. Whatever we were doing felt almost pornographic. It wasn’t right doing this in public, maybe to others it just looked like we were kissing. But to me, it felt so raw that we may as well been fucking.

  The swirl in my head was confusion. Want was mixed with bitterness over the doubt Katrin’s words had caused. But she was just a bitch, wasn’t she? Just because both my parents were cheaters, didn’t mean that he was. Did it?

  Mentally, I shook my head to get these thoughts out of my head. All I needed to think about was Katrin.

  Revenge on Katrin.

  I pulled away from Joseph; he stared at me with dopey eyes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was a man in love.

  “Come with me,” I whispered, taking his hand and leading him away from Katrin’s bitter eyes. I didn’t have to look at her to know that she was watching us. I led him away‒away from the fire, away from the people and the noise. I just wanted him alone.

  Into the thick of trees, I led him. Feeling like some fairytale character leading an innocent into a dark and evil wood, we walked into the darkness. Weaving between trees and tripping on roots, we went deeper until finally I pushed him up against a tree. My hand gripped his chin to make his mouth come down on mine. He kissed me the way I wanted him to. With an urgency that made me feel like he was desperate for me.

  He wore jeans and I tugged at his belt until it was free, before undoing his fly. I was blind in everything I did as my mouth was glued to his, but it felt like my bitterness led me on in my actions. Suddenly I felt like an expert seductress as my fingers effortlessly began to pull down his jeans, and then his underwear until his hard cock sprang free to greet me.

  “Jessica,” he said, his voice a low moan.

  He kissed me harder, his fingers digging into my back through my clothes almost painfully. The pain was good. It drove me on. I moved my hands to the bottom of my dress and hiked it up, and then I gripped my panties and tugged them down with such ferocity that they should have ripped. I pushed my naked groin against him and let my fingers wrap around his hardness.

  “Jessica…” he said.

  I pushed myself up on my toes and pulled on his dick to maneuver it down so I could mount him–

  “Jessica!” A push sent me stepping back clumsily. My hands formed fists as I looked at him, anger spiking.

  “What are you doing?” I practically spat.

  “What are you doing?” His hands were pulling up his jeans, putting everything back in place. The sting of humiliation and rejection washed over me. I took another step back to put distance between us.

  “What is your fucking problem? How could you push me away?” I felt white with anger as I pulled up my panties and tugged down my skirt.

  “I–I was just doing the right thing. What were you thinking? You really want to lose your virginity out here? Up against a tree?” He seemed to be panting as he took a step closer to me.

  I scowled at him. “I thought this was what you wanted?”

  His hand reached up to cup my face. “You wanted it to be special. This isn’t special.”

  For a moment, I felt complete shame at having doubted him. But the memory of Katrin’s words flooded back to me. “Let’s go back to the party,” I mumbled, turning and walking away.

  “Hey!” He caught up to me, touching my wrist. “You can’t be mad at me for doing the right thing.”

  I pulled my arm away from his touch like he burned me. “Are you still screwing Katrin? Have you been screwing her while we’ve been doing…whatever we’re doing?”

  The words blurted out. My voice encompassed all the rawness that I felt.

  He stopped and stared at me. “Why would you ask me that?”

  Tears pricked at my eyes. “Because she said that you were.” It was hard to speak with that constant sob that was waiting in my throat. The sentence came out cracked and weak.

  He looked at the ground. That was all I needed.

  “Oh, shit. You are.” I backed up a step, hugging myself.

  He didn’t look back up at me, and I waited for a moment, but no words came from him. I walked away. Away from the party and up onto the road. I called my Dad. He answered on the first ring and said he’d come and get me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We didn’t speak in the car. Dad just gave me a brief smile as I got in, but I turned my face to the window and watched the night go past us. I was sober now. My mother must have gone to bed already because the house was dark. Dad just gave me a quick kiss on the forehead and murmured “Good night.” I felt his eyes on me as I walked up the stairs.

  I sat on m
y bed in a state of numbness. No tears were coming. Would it have been better just to have remained ignorant? Probably. I watched the seconds on my clock tick past, and I knew that I should go to bed. I needed to sleep. But I didn’t move. Instead I just sat there as the minutes passed, and then those minutes turned into an hour, and I knew I had to move.

  I reached for my phone in case I had missed something. But there were no messages from Joseph. I wanted something from him. Some excuse or reason or an apology. Anything. But the stupid phone stayed silent, so I threw it against the wall. Later it was joined by my dress. I bundled the fabric up in my hands and tossed it into the corner as well. I wanted to hurt something, but there was no satisfaction in hurting these inanimate objects.

  I wanted a real live person to dig my nails into and to make bleed. I had a house filled with two who deserved it, but I didn’t need to destroy them, they were doing a good enough job themselves. Only Katrin and Joseph would satisfy my wrath. I dug my own nails into my palm; the pain was good, and I made myself bleed.

  Only then did I go to bed. I curled up in the dark and finally calmed down.

  I awoke late the next morning to an empty house. For the first few seconds of waking, everything that had happened the night before escaped me. Then it came back, and it took a while to be able to get out of bed. I didn’t go to the lake; instead I went to the public swimming pools. I exhausted myself by swimming long lengths, and when I went to pull myself out of the pool, I felt dizzy and had to close my eyes for a moment as I hung from the ladder.

  “Are you okay?” My eyes opened to see a lifeguard standing over me.

  “Yeah.” I started to climb. “I just overdid it.” And I hadn’t eaten anything this morning.

  I sat down in the changing room for a bit before stripping off my swimsuit.”

  “I can see that lady’s bones!” A kid cried out.

  “Shush, don’t be rude,” her mother admonished. “Sorry, you know what kids are like.” It took me a second to realize that she was speaking to me.