Page 1 of Open Water

I have always been terrified of water, especially large outdoor pools, big lakes, and the fucking sea. I remember it all vividly. As a kid, Dad trying to get me to dip my toes in the freezing shite. All that sand, the sharp rocks, and me screaming like he was trying to axe-murder me in public on a warm summer’s day.

I hate the waves. The sounds of the water crashing against the stones. I hate the smell of salt and the screams of children playing. I hate everything.

I remember Dad pulling me close and his voice shushing against my hair, trying to calm me down. I remember it taking a long time before I stopped sobbing. Taking a lot of sobbing episodes before Dad stops taking me to the beach, until he cancels the fucking swimming lessons, and renovates the bathroom, installing a massive show-off shower instead of the dusty bathtub that has been the stuff of my worst nightmares.

It doesn’t stop the fear, though, because the waves crashing against me, is how my panic attacks always start. I can almost see them coming towards me, like a huge tsunami of anxiety and terror that I have no way of stopping. They are coming, loud and roaring and paralysing my body, turning my muscles to unusable slabs of jelly as my breath strangles me and my mouth screams in panic at what is about to happen. It’s inevitable. Nothing ever happens. It's all in my head.

My therapist is trying to teach me to visualise holding the tsunami back.

It’s not working.

How can you hold something back that is so overwhelming? So huge and all-consuming that it takes over reality? I know it’s not real. I’m not stupid. But my brain is broken, and my head believes that every single little molecule of what is making me freeze up and sob like a hungry baby is, in fact, very real.

It’s like there are a million people in my head screaming and arguing and trying to make sense of what is going on, whilst this death-inducing monster of a wave is coming towards me and I have no way to escape. It just hits me. Covers me and drowns me, and I fight it and scream and try to swim out of it, even though I know deep down it will always win.

I will never escape. I will never win. I drown every fucking time.

My name is Max. Welcome to my life. It doesn’t get any better.

LUKAS

The light is almost blinding in its intensity through the classroom windows, dancing around on the walls as the students mill out of the door amongst the slow sounds of ringtones and pings from smartphones, and the unmistakable drawls of teenage laughter. He is still in full teacher mode, throwing back lame insults at the boys as they throw a last taunt at him, trying to rail him off his constant cheery disposition that works wonders on the little shits that inhabit his classroom.

Lukas Myrtengren is a good teacher. And being a good teacher was his goal when he plonked his then skinny arse on the flip-down chair on his first day of University. He had great plans. Huge ideas of his own worth and self-importance.

Until his priorities changed. Until he studied too much, lived too fast, and fate kind of walked him into an invisible wall, smashing his life into unfixable splinters.

He didn’t plan on his life becoming what it has become. Yet he is happy. Because this, right here, is actually his life. A life that is good, healthy and manageable.

Lukas runs every morning, then has a healthy breakfast full of superfoods and vitamins and fibre. He catches the 7.14 train from the station on his suburban doorstep to the inner city where he works, his headphones blasting out pop songs that he is far too old for. Young voices and beats that he picks up from his students.

His body is lean and muscular. The designer stubble he carefully grows on his chin, hopefully fulfilling the idea that he looks older, wiser, and subtly sexier than he actually is. The clothes he wears are what he tries to describe to himself as ‘muted hipster cool’, because, unlike the teachers he remembers from his own days of being a student at Östra Real’s Senior School, and now that he teaches there himself, he refuses to be the butt of anyone’s jokes. He pays attention to fashion, updating his wardrobe with essential items to keep his style on trend. He likes the skinny jeans that hug his arse. Prefers tight T-shirts cradling his biceps. Shirts that cover his arms, but still emphasize the bulge of his forearms. His hair is longer than it probably should be, but he likes it. He looks good. He is a handsome man despite the specks of grey he frequently finds in his blond mop and the crow’s feet that have become a permanent fixture around his eyes. Lukas may have been a cocky little shit at seventeen, and a total terror at eighteen, but now somewhere lost in his late thirties, he is fine. He’s made peace with himself. He may not have become Stephen Hawking, or taken over the world, but he is making a difference every day.

His classroom finally descends into an empty quietness, the only sound heard being the faint clatter of footsteps down the stone staircase outside, distant voices and laughter seeping through the late afternoon air. Lukas gathers up the last of his paperwork, throwing it mindlessly into his bag. He needs to go down to the teachers’ lounge and log his attendance sheets before he gets too tired. Anyway, he needs to prepare his notes for tonight. Honestly though, all he really wants to do is go home and sleep.

He sleeps well at night these days, now that the dull ache of heartbreak has faded into a questionable embarrassment around how he could have been so gullible—stupid even—again falling for a man who will never leave the safety of his marriage for an uncertain future with someone like Lukas.

It's a quirk of his, a stupid thing wired into his brain, just the challenge of figuring out the subtle vibes he picks up on. The married men questioning their life choices. The older men with their fucking reckless midlife crises where they figure a little experimentation with cock will do them good. Where Lukas once again has been helplessly drawn into the thrill of the chase. The games and flirts. The shameful release of taking that precious moment from someone, where they would finally see it. Finally letting themselves realise that loving and lusting over another man could be just as mind-blowingly real and overwhelming as in their shame-filled closeted nightmares.

He should have known better, especially since Rickard had been a colleague, a married father of three with a delicious arse, and a twinkle in his eyes. Lukas had broken him, from the very first innocent smile and a friendly hand on his shoulder. A series of innocent touches. A friendly beer after work. Standing just close enough to feel his breath hitch, to see the creep of a blush under the collar. The faint waft of sweat, pearls of fluid gathering at the temples as eyes close and Lukas goes in for the kill. He has it all down to a fine art, seducing the straight dude. It never ends well and makes Lukas an arsehole. He deserves everything he gets. He deserves the tears, the fear and the heartbreak. He should have stepped away the moment those words left Rickard’s lips. My wife. My kids. My life.

Rickard now lives alone in a sublet one-bedroom apartment in the bad part of the worst suburb, having fucked up everything he has held dear for a few weeks of mind-blowing sex with a man like Lukas. A man with no shame, no sense, and no clue of how to make things right. And whilst Lukas has slowly rebuilt his broken heart and tried to forget the fact that he has behaved like an imbecilic love-sick twat, Rickard is still desperately trying to get regular access to his children and make his estranged wife speak to him without crying.

It is a mess and it ended over a year ago. Lukas hasn’t had any contact with Rickard, having been blocked on every platform in a fit of rage, the two of them having been lost in the death-throes of the lingering shred of what had been. Both just shells of the people they had once fallen in love with, broken shadows of the men they have now become. Rickard has transferred to a different school and Lukas hasn’t seen him in months. He’s heard the snippets of rumours from the gossip in the teachers’ lounge. The glances of worry and fear from a few colleagues who still remember that it is all Lukas’s fault. That he is the one. The one who has caused the avalanche of destruction of an innocent family.

But it won’t happen again. Lukas has learned his lesson. From now on, it will be a single man’s life for him. He is too old for clubbing and picking up strangers for a quick fuck. And Grindr scares the living daylights out of him. He has a fully functioning hand to get himself off when he needs it, and the rest of the time he will try to make amends. He will be the best teacher he can be—kind and understanding. Also, hip and cool enough to make his students trust his judgement (which has been questionable at the best of times), yet still adult enough to ensure the kids who need him will confide in him.

And, to be very honest, his work week has him in an over-social tailspin most of the time, spending eight hours a day constantly interacting with people, talking and teaching, staying on top of his game to keep his classroom in a state of manageable calm with all eyes on him. When he kicks off his trainers at the end of the day, all he wants is silence. He will sit on his threadbare sofa, a relic from his university days, and just stare into the darkness until his mind becomes too heavy to care.

Especially now that it is evaluation-talk season for the students he is assigned to mentor. The week when the students who are failing are brought in with their parents, so the school can offer some misguided illusion of support. When in reality, it is more often a shit-fest of familiar tragedies playing out in the empty classroom, giving an insight into levels of dysfunctionality and fear that make Lukas shiver. He tries to meet the students’ gazes, tries to speak with his eyes. Say,hey kid, I see this. I see you. We can’t fix this, but I see you. Please know that I do.

That is why he is here. That is why he has fallen head first into a teaching degree, because along the way he has had teachers who have seen him. Who have looked at him that way and said just that. “I see you. I know. I get it kid. You are not alonein all this. You may think life is unbearable right now, but trust me, there is light, and when you find it, you will be fine. Life will get better. It always does.”

He has to deal with the Magnusson kid today. He can’t wait for summer when the last of the Magnusson clan will get out of his hair, with their spoiled, over-achieving kids. Parents with illusions of grandeur over their perfect little darlings, who have made his life a living hell for the last three years. The youngest one has almost driven Lukas to write out his email of resignation and consider pushing the damn send button. Then he wakes up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, thinking he might have just made another clusterfuck of his life.

The other kid he is dealing with today is a completely different story. He’s retaking Year 2 after being asked to leave the neighbouring senior school, something that is so buried and twisted in bad practice and cover ups that the headteacher can’t even begin to make it up.

Max Andersson. He’s a weird kid. Works hard, but is obviously troubled way beyond Lukas’s experience. Spends most of his time in class so lost in his head that Lukas sometimes struggles to get him to stand up at the end of the lesson. On top of that, he has a filthy mouth on him, and a completely erratic temper. According to the teachers’ lounge gossip, the kid has frequent panic attacks in between lessons. He has also failed to turn in any of the assignments in Lukas’s class, which is quite a problem since failing Biology means the kid won’t graduate. And that is something Lukas Myrtengren just doesn’t do. He still has a flawless record of never having failed a kid. His kids pass his classes, however hard he has to push them.

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