Page 47 of Just Between Us

Adam.

His face flashed before my eyes, and I cringed. I didn’t want to think about him anymore.

Swimming.

Right.

I dove in, swimming the length of the pool. The cool water felt good against my skin, not too icy to seize my muscles but cold enough to make me alert. It was like I could hear my heartbeat, could feel my muscles tensing and relaxing as I moved my arms in a rhythmic freestyle.

When you’re a child, you always dunk your head in the water to see how long you can hold your breath. You make a competition out of it with your friends and when you win, you’re all blue and breathless. I never won but I hadn’t tried in a while.

So, I tried.

I counted the seconds, one by one, letting time tick around me. My muscles relaxed, bubbles of air escaping me and rising to the blurry surface above me. I was on ten seconds now. Slowly, my mind was quietening.

Twenty seconds.

I could barely remember the night at Adam’s.

Thirty seconds.

I saw my mother’s face, the first time I passed a test that was meant for someone in seventh grade when I was six.

Forty seconds.

My father taking me to my first cricket game—Three Lions vs The Springboks.

Fifty seconds.

Having Nathaniel Feldstein, sixth form cricket captain, on his knees for me in my dorm room after sneaking edibles.

Sixty seconds.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The seconds passed by until it all became black. The thoughts inside my mind stopped, I felt no guilt, just silence—for the first time in a while everything felt still.

I woke up the next morning in a hospital bed, my parents in tears beside me. When I looked at them, their eyes were so sad I felt my heart break.

“Do we need to get you some help, sweetheart?” Mum asked.

I knew if they sent me to one of those fancy rehab places people call ‘retreats’, all their friends would gossip and mock them. So, I smiled and shook my head. “Mum, I think I was tired and fell asleep. I promise I’m fine.”

Both of them had smiled, relief all over their faces. Relief that I was alive and relief that they wouldn’t have to deal with the all-too-common scandal of a fuckup son.

***

It’s Friday evening, and the days have gotten longer. Outside, the sun still lingers past 5 p.m. and the trees in the garden have begun to grow new leaves, readying themselves for spring. It has been seven weeks almost since Cole and I began this thing with Kai, and I can’t find it in me to want to stop.

He laughs at something Aleeta says and I watch the corners of his eyes crinkle, his nose wrinkling slightly. My mind flashes back to earlier in the week when I kissed him—twice. Both times I did it because I needed to. It was like my mind wouldn’t stop begging me to pull him close at every given opportunity.

I don’t know why that is yet, and I don’t know when exactly I moved away from just getting him out of my system to kissing him in the middle of an art exhibition but it’s not scaring me as much as it should.

Being with Kai is like being caught in some kind of dizzying spell. Everything about him is different from Cole and whilst sleeping with him should probably drive some wedge between us, it seems I’m more desperate for him than before. When I’m not fucking Kai, Cole is fucking me and I’m both exhausted and content. It’s unfamiliar, but I don’t let myself overthink it. This is good. It’s something easy.

I keep watching him now as he talks to Aleeta about something I’m barely paying attention to. He smiles, eyes fluttering and his Adam's apple bobbing ever so slightly.

“I’ll be right back,” he announces, sliding off the kitchen stool, and leaving me with Aleeta.

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