by Thomas Grave
A little voice in her mind said to kick her feet and she forced her leg muscles to move in spite of the needle pricks driving deep into her. All she managed was a tiny swirl in the dark blue void beneath her. She sank farther, the cold burrowing organ-deep, the needle pricks reaching her heart, which slowed. A beat seemed to take an hour to complete, the silence between even longer. She paid no attention to it all: her heart and the frigid water and Ethan so close and yet so far away. She could only wonder why she had not told him that she couldn’t swim either.
Ethan’s worst nightmare was coming true. He was going to drown. He wanted to flail his arms and legs but they hurt, like sword-sharp icicles were shoved through them, and he barely managed to fan the water. His fear deepened and his mind went as blank as the water below. But then he saw Makayla barely moving. He snapped back into the moment. She was sinking. Oh, God, she’s drowning!
With every ounce of energy he had, he clawed at the water until he reached her and pulled her to him. His sweet, amazing girl who had filled his dark world with light, who’d taught him that a stupid little kid like him could also find happiness.
He pressed his lips to hers and kissed her, and then he exhaled into her. He loved her and was going to give her his dying breath even as they sank farther from the light of the surface of the lake.
Makayla didn’t understand what he was doing, kissing her at a moment like this, and then his breath rushed into her mouth a few seconds later. She knew Ethan was fading fast; his body started to still, and her heart ached all the more. The stabbing pain nearly overwhelmed her.
Sunlight rippled on the water above her, shining down on his face. He was so beautiful. Almost in slow motion, his body began drifting away from her, sinking faster than hers. His hair floated around him calmly, and his hand raised as if waving goodbye.
Her hand shot down into the weakening light and grabbed his. If she was going to die, at least she was going to die with the love of her life, her soul mate. She pulled herself to him, away from the light. She smiled to be with him. Her heart no longer ached with cold but was filled with a warmth she’d never experienced before.
They sank as a single being to the bottom of the lake.
Present Day
Tuesday, 9:17 pm
The mist-shrouded moon lit up the night sky of the Baltimore Cemetery. The sun had gone down a little less than an hour before with the night creeping in quickly. The stars were out, sharing the sky with some small dark clouds. It was early December. The winter had just started, the worst of it yet to come.
Sebastian had gotten used to the freezing cold over the years. Snowflakes laced his messy black hair and rested upon the shoulders of his black jacket. His blood-red t-shirt, dark blue jeans, and black boots reflected the darkness he felt inside.
He wasn’t ready to let go. He couldn’t. But staring at the tombstone made her death feel so real. His dark brown eyes were hard and unfocused from staring at the gravestone for so long. There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, or ask God. Anyone really. Etched onto the stone were the words: This is only the beginning, be prepared for the end. He wondered at the meaning. Why would anyone put something so morbid on a tombstone?
It had been only three days since she’d died.
Three days ago
Saturday, 9:12 am
Armed with a pair of earphones, his iPhone, and Detective Comics issue 39, Sebastian relaxed on his bed to listen to some light jazz and find out whether or not Batman would, once again, save the world.
Next to his bed was a large window he could open and close without ever having to raise his head from his pillow. A variety of pens and pencils and an opened but barely used sketchpad were spread randomly across his desk nearby. A cold breeze blew in from the window and rustled the sketchpad’s pages, turning them from half-drawn ideas to nothing but blank pages.
Half of his clean clothes were hung up in his closet and the other half lay crumpled in piles on the floor. Some clothes were neatly folded inside his brown straw hamper, still not put away though they’d been there for almost a week.
On his bookshelf were The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Ender’s Game, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Book Thief, to name a few.
Hidden behind the other books was a romance novel, Lovestorm. He had once forgotten to put it away, a mistake he would never repeat. When his two best friends had seen it sitting on his desk, he insisted he had read it to better understand women.
Jared had laughed and laughed and then laughed some more. And when the hysterical fits of laughter finally subsided, Jared proceeded to call him a liar.
Hope, Jared’s twin sister and Sebastian’s other best friend, had said she thought his choice of reading materials was “sweet,” but that comment had killed his confidence more than Jared’s laughter. Anything in the teenage world a female considered sweet had to be regarded as a bad omen. He might even have preferred if she had laughed at him too.
Sebastian had read the romance novel to see if it was something he’d like. In the end, he decided he probably wouldn’t read another one like it. Even still, he’d been amused at how insanely over the top it was. Every time he thought about the couple making love on a shooting star it still gave him the giggles till this day. The ending was just too serious and he realized love stories were not his thing. What he enjoyed were good old fashioned Superman and Batman. Nothing wrong with heroes, he always thought.
As he was reading about “special guest” Superman punching the “Emperor of America” through a building, a book, a beast of a book, landed on his chest and almost knocked the wind out of him.
Sliding the book off his chest and onto his bed, he sat up and removed his earbuds. A moment later Sara, the most beautiful creature in the world, Sebastian was sure, waved at him from outside his window.
“Sara? What the . . .?” He leaned out the window and saw that she was perched on a flimsy looking trellis, clinging to his windowsill. “What are you doing! You’re gonna fall!”
She smiled cheerfully. “Then you’d better invite me in,” she said.
Sebastian exhaled. “You’re invited. Please come in.”
She climbed into the room, landed with a delicate thump on his floor, and turned to smile at him. Her dark brown hair, as always, looked like it had been professionally styled that morning. He loved her dark hair, loved its richness. He’d always had a thing for brunettes.
Her eyes were a very intimidating midnight blue, his favorite color, and so piercing that he couldn’t help but stare into them, amazed by their beauty. Even the most confident guys at school, the ones who made it a point to make eye contact with beautiful girls, were often too shy to look Sara directly in the eyes.
She had on tight blue jeans and a forest green jacket that Sebastian always admired. It brought out the blue in her eyes, and it seemed to fit her body as though it were made for her. Sebastian found himself wondering, as he often did when gazing at her, how a seventeen-year-old girl could be this stunning. Sebastian had tried suggesting she try some sort of modeling, but she always politely declined.
Sebastian always considered himself average looking, not Peter Parker dorky but definitely no Bruce Wayne, and he was still not exactly sure how he had managed to get Sara. But, still, her being here was bad.
“Sara, what are you doing here? If my mom catches you in my room, she’s going to kill me.” The words flew out of Sebastian’s mouth a little louder than he intended.
Unlike other moms, she owned a gun and practiced with it at the shooting range regularly. He’d heard from his mom’s previous partner that she was one of the best shots he’d ever seen. As cool as it would be to see that in action one day, he’d rather it not be today.
“Shhhhh!” she whispered, putting her finger to his lips. “You’re going to get us caught.”
His immediate thought was, ‘us?’
“Besides, I got you something,” she said with a smile and pointed to the book.
Sebast
ian looked down at the old book that had almost shattered his sternum. It must have contained over five thousand pages. How on earth had she been able to lift this thing up, let alone throw it through the window?
The worn leather cover was a dark brown, almost a deep blood red and was etched with odd symbols. And there was a lock. Something about the lock’s metal struck him as strange, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. For a second he wondered if he had seen it before.
Mesmerized, he stared at the lock, his eyes drawn to the keyhole. As he stared, the lights in the room dimmed. A dark, low voice whispered something he could not understand and a small light began to shine from the keyhole.
He turned to face her. “Where did you get this?”
Her midnight eyes stared back at him, her expression giving nothing away. Sebastian turned his focus back to the book. It was normal, no dark whisper, no eerie light coming from the lock. Obviously, it was just his imagination.
“Your attic,” she finally replied with a small smile.
“What were you doing in my attic?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but was immediately interrupted by someone yelling outside the window.
He relaxed and let out a sigh of relief when he recognized the voice was male. Definitely not mom.
“NICK, IS THERE A PARADE ON TV? GET YOUR BUTT IN MOTION, MAN!”
Sebastian made his way to the window and saw Jared standing in the driveway making exaggerated facial expressions of annoyance and gesturing for him to speed things up.
For as long as Sebastian could remember, Jared had been there. They’d been friends since pre-K. Sebastian had brought a toy—a plush toy Yoda—on the first day of school. During recess, a couple of bullies-in-the-making had pushed him down, scraping his leg, and taken it away from him. They were calling it a doll when it was obviously an action figure. Off in the distance, he could hear all the other kids playing. No one was watching.
No one would help.
This was Sebastian’s first life lesson: bullies suck. Blood had trickled down from the scrape on his leg. He’d taken a stuttering breath and tried to hold back the tears. His mother had once told him that boys don’t cry. It’s okay to sniff here and there, she’d told him, but crying itself was off limits. So that’s what he told himself as he nursed his scraped leg.
He remembered the smell of rain in the air, thunder rolling along the clouds. The teachers would probably be calling them back in soon. As he glared down at the blood dripping from his scrape, his bottom lip jutted out and quivered, his toy popped in front of his face. He turned back to see this kid standing tall, his head blocking out the sun, giving him a halo-like effect. This boy had blond hair and lime-green eyes. Blood dripped from his nose and his face was filthy. Sebastian shifted his gaze past the boy and saw that one of the bullies was knocked out. He was sprawled across the playground while the other was sitting on his bottom crying.
“This belong to you?!” the boy with the bleeding nose asked.
Sebastian’s eyes went wide and he smiled from ear to ear as he saw his future best friend.
The image of the boy with the bleeding nose faded to the teenager standing outside his window in his khaki pants and burnt orange long-sleeve shirt. Jared had a wonderful smile on his face.
Sebastian smiled to himself. God, that was so long ago.
Sara peered out the window at Jared with an annoyed scowl on her face. She glared at him and exhaled slowly.
Jared threw up his hands. “NICK! LET’S GO! I SAW SOME MORONS BULLYING SOME FRESHMEN. I WANT TO MAKE THEM SISSIES CRRRRRRRRRRRRY! YOU CAN WATCH AND LAUGH!”
“Why does he call you Nick? That’s not even your name,” Sara asked.
“You know, I honestly have no idea.” Sebastian felt her cold stare. “Sara, you just don’t know him well enough. He’s a good guy, honestly.”
“Sebastian, the guy retweets himself. Who does that?”
“What can I say? He’s . . . the Rembrandt of Twitter.”
Sara glared at him. Even with that glare, those eyes sparkled.
Sebastian smiled. “He only does that because.”
“NICK! HURRY UP, MAN! I SEE YOU! YOU’RE LIKE GARBAGE JUICE. THAT STUFF THAT’S AT THE BOTTOM OF A DUMPSTER. NO GARBAGE, JUST JUICE!” Jared yelled.
Sebastian snorted so loudly, it could have been a double. He had no idea what that meant, but it was funny. However, Jared wasn’t helping the situation with Sara.
He turned to face her to see if she thought the comment was amusing as well, but his smile faltered when he saw her expression.
Having only transferred to their school a few months ago, Sara didn’t really know Jared or Hope. On top of that, Sebastian wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to Jared’s verbal assault. Ha, ha! Garbage juice. Where does he come up with these things?
Sara shook her head slightly, taking a moment to clear her mind and shake out the frustration. She grabbed Sebastian by the chin and turned his head to face her and stared intently into his eyes.
Her voice softened. “Sebastian, listen to me. This Book is important. You are important.”
Her expression was as serious as he’d ever seen. “Sara, what does it matter?” he said. “It’s just a stupid old book.”
“I have to go. We need to talk though. I’ll call you tonight.”
Saturday, 5:07 pm
“Dude,” Jared said, a huge grin plastered to his face, “you’re completely covered in pink.”
Sebastian glanced down at his shirt, streaked liberally with pale pink paint. “Yeah, you think?”
He bent down and smeared his roller in more paint. “This is totally your fault. I don’t know why I let myself get roped into your mess.”
They’d found the bullies all right, and Jared had even landed one good punch to the biggest guy’s nose when Mr. Johnson, who happened to be on Saturday detention duty, had emerged from the school and ordered them all inside.
The punishment had consisted of helping with the construction of the sets for the drama program. Neither Jared nor Sebastian had any interest in drama, but if it got them out of trouble, they were down for it. They’d spent the last several hours cutting wood, rewiring and adjusting the lighting, and painting backdrops.
“Ah, come on, admit it,” Jared said. “You’re enjoying this.”
Sebastian shrugged and then smiled. Although he wasn’t going to admit it, he actually was. He didn’t get many opportunities to really get into physical work. There was something pretty relaxing about losing yourself in a simple yet challenging task, and he even relished the slight ache in his shoulders from all the lifting they’d done earlier.
“So, I’m sitting on my bed in my sweater and underwear, right?” Jared blurted. He was standing up on a step ladder working on the top portion of the backdrop with a brush. There was only one roller and Sebastian had claimed it.
“Lovely visual,” Sebastian said. “Thank you for that.”
“As I was saying,” Jared continued, “I was eating my grilled cheese, when Hope comes into my room.” He let his painting arm fall and sat down on the top step of the ladder. His face turned serious. “She wants to have a conversation about our mom.”
Sebastian’s roller paused on the now almost totally pink wall. “Your mom? Okay. Kind of out of nowhere. Why, after all these years, did she decide to bring that subject up?”
Jared shrugged. “I don’t know, Nick. You know, I’m just not there. I just don’t feel like dredging that all up. It’s like, she died a long time ago. Who cares, right?”
“Hope does, obviously,” said Sebastian softly. He replaced his roller in the holder and sat down cross-legged on the stage. “Maybe she’s going through something and she wants, well, I don’t know. But really, who else can she talk to, if not you? Maybe she wants to see if you’re going through the same thing.”
“But I’m not, that’s the point,” Jared said. “I mean, I love my sister, even though she’s going through some sort of girl phase or someth
ing. Either way, I’m not going to have that conversation with her.”
“Well, maybe if you have reservations about talking about it, then there’s a part of you that wants to talk about it.”
“That absolutely makes no sense. Because I don’t want to talk about it means I want to talk about it?”
“Exactly. You know, maybe you and Hope should both go and talk to a psychiatrist or something.”
“A who? No.”
“Why not?”
“Dude. As good looking as I am? The therapist would probably flirt with me the whole time making the session meaningless. I can see it now. The therapist being hot. Sexy. Wanting to take me home. It’s happened before you know.”
Sebastian snorted. “Whatever.”
Jared smiled. “Happens all the time actually.”
“Sure,” Sebastian replied. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He rushed to wipe the excess paint off his hands before taking it out. He grinned slightly when he saw it was a text from Sara.
Hey you. Sorry I ran out earlier. Something came up.
Instantly, he swiped his finger and started thumbing his reply.
Jared asked, “Dude, come on. Why would I make something like that up?”
“Because, you’re an idiot, that’s why,” Sebastian said playfully as his fingers continued to race across the display.
Everything ok?
Peering down from the top of the ladder, Jared asked, “Is that Saaarrraaaa?”
“Yeah, she gave me some odd book earlier, then took off. I texted her earlier, asking her about it and she’s only now getting back to me.”
“Dude. She’s hot. Like, super-hot.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Sebastian replied dismissively. He hit send.