Page 2 of Open Water

Failure is not an option. Not as long as Lukas is here.

TOM

Tom should never have been allowed to parent. It’s not that he doesn’t love the strange boy that he shares his life with. He absolutely adores his son, loves every little molecule in his far too skinny body. He will get off this bloody train right now and lay himself down on the tracks in front of the slightly smelly carriage he is on, if it will make Max’s life easier to bear.

He doesn’t understand how a seventeen-year-old kid can be so hard to deal with. And to be truthful, Max is almost an adult. A grown up. A responsible young man with a bright future. He hopes.Fuck, he will do anything to just make it better. To make Max see what an amazing kid he is. What an amazing life he can have,ifhe can just try a tiny little bit. Just for him.

Not that he blames Max. He has had a tough upbringing at times, when Tom hasn’t been alert enough to understand, and his parenting skills have sometimes lacked. When he hasn’t seen all the signs or the subtle hints. Tom is a fully qualified Doctor of Medicine. He has a surgical degree and has spent the last fifteen years putting the fine population of Stockholm back together at the Sergel Hospital’s emergency room, saving lives, one suture at a time. Yet, he hasn’t even seen it coming. He hasn’t spotted his own son becoming more and more unwell. His son is amazing, but he’s also a fucking twat. He loves him so much he sometimes thinks his heart is going to burst. The next minute he wants to smash his fist into the kid’s frankly filthy mouth.

They are so alike. Like they have been steeped in the same mould. Sometimes it scares him. The same tall, lanky bodies, impossibly long unruly hair that refuses to be defined as anything but mousy blond, despite the many highlighting disasters the two of them have been roped into by their longstanding mess of a hairdresser. Both of them always looking like they have dressed in the dark, and then been dragged through a hedge backwards most mornings.

On top of it all, they went out and bought a house that neither of them has ever figured out how to live in and spend most of their time slamming doors and screaming at each other. Their vocabulary seems to consist of a few set phrases, including:

“Did you take your medicine?”

“Shut up.”

“I need money.”

“Fuck off.”

And his favourite, “Mind your own fucking business.”

It's not healthy. It’s not the relationship he’d envisioned when he became a single father at the tender age of twenty-something, in the middle of his studies with his whole life planned out in front of him.

It would have been fine if it had been Linnea. He could have co-parented with Linnea, the girlfriend who had kept him more than busy during high school. They would have worked it out. He could have loved Linnea, even though they had broken up and got back together too many times for him to remember. But no, he had to go and knock up some random chick on a night out, too drunk out of his head to realise he never put a condom on. It had been stupid. Reckless. Idiotic. The final nail in the coffin of his long-doomed relationship with Linnea.

Max’s mother had been great about it, honestly. She could have kept her mouth shut and given the kid away. Put him up for adoption. Let her parents raise him. She had several options, but instead she was frank and direct and told him to man up and get ready. Because she would birth this baby, and because she was nowhere near ready to be a parent, he had to be.

Apparently, the universe had decided he was ready. And a few months later, he collected his tiny mess of a son from the hospital, signing the paperwork for sole custody right next to where she had signed her parental rights away.

To be honest, the first years were easy. He had done well. Their lives were idyllic. Innocent and happy. Until things became hard. Tom doesn’t remember when it started, the subtle changes. Well, he did not even notice until it was too late. Until the relationship with his beloved amazing child had crumbled to the point where they would sit quietly and stare into the walls, not knowing where on earth to even start unravelling the mountains of unspoken words that had built a wall between the two of them.

He misses Max. Misses the relationship they once had, now lost to the innocence of childhood. Max even used to climb into bed next to him almost every night, until just after his sixteenth birthday. Until right before his first major episode that has catapulted the two of them into the abyss of adulthood. Where words have become weapons and affection is something in the past.

He can’t remember the last time he hugged his son. The last time he woke up with the mess of soft hair against his back. Because Max used to be just as tactile as Tom is, full of hugs and hands and laughter. Tom can’t even remember the last time he heard Max laugh. The last time he saw him smile.

This is not the way he’s envisioned growing old, alone. He is frightened of even bringing up the fact that the way they are living their lives is becoming unsustainable.

He still loves him, to the point of insanity. He screams and shouts and calls him names, regretting it immediately, and throws himself at the locked door between them, apologising profusely, as Max retreats even further into the silence he seems to prefer these days.

Still, Tom is doing the little bits. He’s doing the only thing he can do right now, which is just being there. Swishing another stash of guilt money into his son's account. Buying fancy convenience food that seem to mysteriously disappear from

their mess of a fridge, leaving dirty dishes and cups growing bacteria in the sink.

TOM: Do you want to go to IKEA after the meeting tonight? I was thinking we could just throw everything that is festering in the damn sink into the bin. Just replace it with new stuff. I can’t be bothered to clean it up - Dad.

There probably won’t be an answer to the text. He knows Max too well, he will just dismiss Tom’s pathetic attempt at communicating. His complete failure at humouring the kid.

MAX: Pathetic Dad.

MAX: A) you don’t need to sign every text with Dad. I know it’s you texting me.

MAX: B) Just stating the obvious, you will be hopping mad when you find out how many subjects I am failing. Just giving you a fair warning. We won’t be going anywhere together soon, since you will probably kill me before we even get to the train. I am not sleeping at home tonight. Tough.

Tom just smiles. At least it’s something.

TOM: Yes, you are. I am still your father and as such, I can demand your presence. For fuck’s sake Max, just hang out with me for a change.

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