Page 40 of Hold Me Under (Water, Air, Earth, Fire 1)

Victor

I want to swim in the sea, but the streets aren’t safe anymore. Ethan needs to go with me; if I run into my team again, his hate is the only force strong enough to keep me from going home with them.

Unfortunately, Ethan has disappeared in one of his self-righteous fits. I hunt for him upstairs and in the dining room, the lobby, the garden. I want to ask him which part of yesterday he’s angry about and how long he’s going to stay that way before we can go. But I guess he grew enough of a spine to explore town without me. Fuck him.

In the kitchen, I ask the chef to scramble me some eggs while I watch. By the time I get the bowl to my room and lock the door, they’ve gone cold. I sit on the floor next to the tub and shovel them in, thinking about all the bad things that are going to happen at the party this evening because Ethan wasn’t here to take me to the sea.

I put on my speedo and swim laps in the pool for hours. It’s not the same as the ocean; I want the dangerous invitation of the waves to give up and let go, to find out once and for all if there’s a warm, welcoming place deep below all that weight of water.

Fat men with hairy bellies and newspapers doze on deck chairs as I execute length after length of perfect butterfly stroke. People don’t recognize me often now, not after six years and most of the muscle gone, but sometimes when I’m swimming someone notices the rhythm of my stroke, the one that belongs only to me. Not today.

My body’s numb when I climb out and wrap myself in a towel. I check all the hiding places again, my bare feet leaving wet trails through the hotel. No Ethan. I check my phone. Nothing from him, nothing from Dad, nothing from Gray.

I’m not needed.

Just as I’m about to put it away, a text from Katrina pops up.We’ve already started. Hurry up.

Just like it used to be. When no one needed me—my coach, my family, the press—no one wanted me, and when no one wanted me, I lost my mind. Until the team made me a home where I was always needed.

Get the drugs for Friday night.

Blow the guy who can get us in the club.

Pay for the week in Majorca.

Because I need to be needed. I need to be told what to do and hear how good I am when I do it. And after a while, I became so needed that I broke myself in unspeakable ways just to hear that praise, and now I have nothing but an empty shell and the knowledge that I should probably gather my courage and end myself.

No one notices or calls after me as I walk to the street and hail a white cab.Do I actually want to get high?I wonder as I tell the driver the address in Katrina’s text. I don’t think so. But that choice was made for me the minute I got into this car. I’m needed, and I don’t have it in me to say no.

As the taxi starts to move, I look around one more time for Ethan. He’ll glare at me in loathing and tell me I’m not allowed to go. But he’s too late.

The cab drops me off at an apartment building halfway up the hillside, crammed tight along a winding street where the breeze has a hard time reaching. The strip of sky over my head is turning yellow. There’s a thin, dirty black dog on the street, staring at me. I hold out my hand, but he growls and runs away.

A sagging metal staircase takes me to the second floor, where one of the doors throbs with the sound of bass.

Katrina opens the door on my knock and smiles slowly. Whatever she’s smoking already has her eyes glazed. She pulls me inside by my wrist. I can’t see properly in the dark, and the room is full of people I don’t know. It smells like their sweat. My heart batters at my ribs like a panicked bird about to get its neck snapped.

She presses a cold beer into my palm and leads me to a corner where the rest of the team is lounging, empty bottles everywhere, white powder on a mirror on the table.

A tall man with the body of a god and eyes as black as his hair sits up, eyebrows raised incredulously. I’m the only one who notices the shock, the cold and creeping fear of seeing a ghost he promised himself had been exorcised forever, along with its unspeakable secrets.

Surprise.

As his face darkens, I know he’s about to take it all out on me.

He was the closest thing I ever had to a brother. Our hair and eye colors made people call us all sorts of stupid things—the yin and yang of swimming, the angel and the demon. Until everyone lost interest in Alek because he just couldn’t keep up with me. My downfall gave him what he needed: an open playing field where he could write his own legacy as a great athlete. I don’t blame him for what he did to get there. But even with all the training in the world and all his father’s hopes on him, he never rose past the middle of the pack.

Katrina pushes me onto the couch next to Alek, and he throws an arm around my neck, using his thumb to turn my face toward him, studying me. “I can’t believe it.”

“The gang’s back together!” Rachel enthuses, propping her feet in her sister’s lap. Katrina just watches, waiting for the train wreck we all know is coming.

I study my beer, then pull out of Alek’s grip to set it on the table. “It’s the greatest day of my life.”

“I forgot how uptight you are before you get going.” Alek smirks.

I rest my head against the back of the couch, tugging down the shorts that keep riding up my thighs. “Your dealers wanted to fuck me?”

He laughs. “Not yet. We’ve got time.” Up close, I can see the turmoil behind his eyes. He thought our story had been closed for good and put on a shelf to rot. “Tell us what you’ve been doing all these years,” he demands.

---