All the news channels are playing the same thing.
Water drips from me, creating a puddle on the floor of Coach Russell’s office floor.
“We don’t know anything yet, Evi. Try not to panic, okay?”
I’d been doing laps all afternoon. My time had been slower today than most days because I was distracted knowing I was picking up my parents from the station and they were going to spend an entire week here.
Our relationship isn’t a typical one. I’ve never really been a loving person, and although there’s a fondness and gratefulness towards them, I’m not like most girls I came to know here at school, but my mother knows this and accepts what I do have to offer.
Being disjointed in the world isn’t easy.
I didn’t make friends at first and still only have one who is more an acquaintance than a real friend, and only that because she’s on the swim team.
A towel is placed over my shoulders and one of the other girls from the team tells me to come sit down.
I don’t want to sit down. I want to get changed and go about my day.
Mom will call and I will know that they’re okay and they still need me to come pick them up.
Leaving the room without a word uttered, I sense the heat of Coach’s gaze on me as I make my way to the changing room.
I need to speak with Garret.
Days pass. I was given a hotline number to call for hospitals but Garret has offered to take care of things for me.
The world has become misty, overcast, and I’m wading through, trying to be normal.
What am I if I don’t have them?
A rap of knuckles on the wooden door of my room thunders and startles me. I already know doom stands on the other side.
“We’re so sorry, Evi. Both your parents were amongst the dead.”
Dead.
Gone like everyone else in my life, my past.
A stabbing pierces into me and I’m taken aback by the sorrow that knocks the wind from me.
How do people cope through such pain? I know it’s not a new ache because with their death comes a sting so sharp it’s like I’m being reincarnated over and over just to be punished with this heartbreak.
I vanish inside myself, I stop going to class, I stop going to training. I just stop.
Days creep into weeks and everything becomes less vivid, like I’m seeing the world through smudged lenses.
Sleep evades me and hunger is meaningless, thirst a trick of the mind because eating and fueling your body is only for the living, and I’m not living.
I’m an apparition of someone who longs to be whole.
Despair is so exhausting.
I long for someone to take it all away for me so I can breathe again.
My appointments with Garret are the only things I keep going to.
The brown carpet reminds me of mud.
He doesn’t have a receptionist, just a waiting area I know I have to wait in until he opens his office door and summons me inside.
His demeanor is always strict and professional and coming here is the only time I feel something other than the crushing despair.
Crossing my legs to add some pressure to the pooling between my thighs, I cross my arms so my nipples scrape against them.
Licking my lips, I take a seat in the chair opposite him, where I always sit.
When he takes his seat, I uncross my legs and let them part so, if he wanted to, he could see straight up my skirt.
I forwent panties today so the ruby slit hiding at the end of the tunnel of my thighs is there for him to see.
“Are you sleeping?”
Boring.
“Eating?”
Boring.
“You look like you’ve lost some weight since you were here last.”
“Checking me out, Doc?” I toy with him but he doesn’t play my games. His face remains stoic and not once have his eyes dropped to the prize I have for him.
“I would like to suggest you spend some time at a facility not too far from here so you can return to school after break.”
Break is here?
“Dr. Edward Holst is a specialist in the field of…”
His words fall flat and that garnishes my attention from his cock area. Draping my stare up his body, I pause when I see he’s looking where he shouldn’t be.
An explosion of lust bursts into me, dripping out from my needy hole. Can he see the glistening on my thighs?
He stands abruptly and goes over to his desk that sits along the back wall.
He picks up something from there and comes back over, gesturing with his hand, a card between his finger and thumb.
“We can continue our sessions via Skype while you’re there.”
Taking the card from him, I sigh, disappointed that he didn’t take the bait.
I’ve been trying to get him to fuck me on his desk for the last three years.
He’s the only man never to cave to my approach.
I wondered if he’s gay many times, but he never shares personal things about himself with me.
“I’ve made arrangements already for you.”
The rumble of the engine easing to a stop arouses me from slumber.
Dribble coats my bottom lip and I swipe it away and stretch out the kink in my neck.
“Hey, sleepyhead.”
My eyes adjust to see we’re at a drive thru.
“I ordered you a burger and fries,” Max says.
It’s night time now and I wonder how long I must have been out.
Taking his order from a thin teenage girl at the window, he thanks her and places the bags in my lap.
“I thought we should stay overnight in a hotel and go to the lake house tomorrow morning.”
I don’t want to wait but he’s probably right so I nod my head in agreement.
Offering a tight smile, he drives us a few miles before pulling in to a motel.
“I can take you somewhere nicer if you want. I found this one on Google. It has a pool.”
I’m already getting out of the truck.
Could he get any more perfect?
The sting of remembering my parents’ death weighs heavy in my heart and getting to swim to tire me back out is exactly what I need.
Max goes to book a room and I venture over to where a stoop overlooks the communal pool.
Taking a seat, the smell from the fast food bags reminds me how starving I am.
Pulling a burger from the bag, I unwrap it and bite off a mouthful.
My stomach cramps when it hits the acid in the pit of my gut.
I keep eating until the entire burger is gone and a burp pops out just as Max makes his way over to me.
“Excuse me,” I mutter, placing a hand to my mouth.
His lips quiver and then he’s chuckling.
“Even your burps are cute,” he teases, taking the bag from me and ushering me towards a room.
The room is basic.
A queen bed, small table, two chairs, and a bathroom.
Testing the bed, I bounce my butt up and down and try to avoid Max’s eyes.
I know he must have questions for me, but how can I give him answers when I’m not sure what they are myself?
“I’m sorry about your parents,” he says, and a shadow darkens the room as if grief is an entity and it’s just entered.
“They were good people. Couldn’t have children of their own and instead of adopting a newborn, they took me in. My father worked at the hospital. He was there when I was brought in and he said he knew I was sent to them.” I shrug.
“That’s why the adoption happened so fast, I guess.” He moves to sit next to me, handing me a carton of fries.
“Were you happy with them, growing up?”
Abandoning the fries, I lie back on the bed and look up at the ceiling. There’s a stain right above me and I’m curious as to what could have caused it. It’s dirty brown.
“I’ve never been like everyone else. There was always something missing for me and I longed for something I could never sate. Hope and love have always eluded me. I feel different since finding you.”
And that’s the truth. He makes me feel like I’m capable of normalcy, love, a life.
“What are you hoping to get from going to this Greenfield place?” he asks.
I don’t know.
“I need to see it, to believe it. The lake house, the lake… it’s all so vivid it’s hard to believe that I could have fabricated something so detailed.”
Sitting up, I crawl into his lap, my arms wrapping around his neck.
“Thank you for coming with me. For not leaving me when you learned how crazy I am.”
I sense his smile and the shift in his body. His arms encircle me and he holds me to him.
“I knew from the first moment I met you that you were mine and I was yours. It’s hard to explain how I knew being so young and naïve, but I won’t let you go ever again. As long as you want me, I’m yours and you’re mine, in all your crazy colors.”
A laugh trickles out of me and my hands fist in the fabric of his clothes.
Thank God I have him.
Don’t let me go, Max. Ever.
“Do you want to go for a swim?” he asks against the skin below my ear.
Yes.
“I want to make love to you first.”
Only in the ecstasy of sex when the throb of your pussy pounds to the exact beat of your heart do you know you’re with the one.
I was no longer lost at sea.
Max was anchoring me, floating with me, teaching me that through tragedy and disarray, unique bonds form and when the tide gets too rough and the waves too high, your soulmate will guide you back to the shore.
Everything Garret divulged took its toll on me, but here I am in Max’s arms and I’m breathing.
Coming out on the other side of my own madness seems possible in his embrace.
I don’t want to swim the bedlam away in my head, because in his arms… it doesn’t exist.
The shower pounds against my body and the patter of its drops massage my scalp.
There’s been a constant thud inside my skull since I opened my eyes this morning.
Small cuts scattered all over my body from various falls and runs through the brush sting as I wash soap over my body.
My hand stills when the tiny half moon dents on my wrist touch the pads of my finger.
“I know what you did with her, Evi. I know what you did.”
The shower curtain pulls back and startles me.
Max’s naked, impressive form climbs inside, cocooning my body with his.
“I thought we could save water?” He smirks.
Sure you did.