Page 50 of Hold Me Under (Water, Air, Earth, Fire 1)

Victor

In the hotel lobby, Gray pulls Ethan aside to talk to him. He stands and listens, one hand on either end of the towel guarding his neck and shoulders from his still-wet hair, his eyes tired. Gray points at me. “Come here.”

“I’m good, thanks.” I grab a fistful of foil-wrapped biscotti from the coffee station and head for the elevator.

It’s quiet in our room except for rustling and chewing as I inhale one packet of cookies after another. I’m so fucking hungry. Outside the protection of my house, no one cares if there’s food I feel safe eating.

I need to go home, which means finishing the commercial and swimming to Capri without dying. If I’m going to be strong enough to do either of those things, I need to eat and sleep. And if I’m going to sleep, I need a way to get rid of the nightmares that have been tearing me apart since Katrina first called my name on the street outside.

Turning my bags inside out, one by one, I hunt for the Ambien I stuffed into one of my socks. When I get to the end of the last suitcase, I sit on the end of the bed and bury my head in my hands.

After I get my breathing under control, I grab Ethan’s duffel and start hunting through his thrift store t-shirts and the stack of travel brochures he’s been collecting for his mom. An orange bottle falls out of his spare pair of sneakers. Fumbling the lid off, I check the label. Xanax. The first good thing to happen to me today.

I dump six into my palm, then hesitate. Pushing one under my tongue, I put the others in my pocket and drink from the bathroom tap. When I hear the elevator reach our floor, I go onto the balcony and scoot into the far corner, where I can’t be seen from the window. The chilly stone turns the bottoms of my feet numb.

Ethan shuts the door behind him and sighs. “Victor?” He sounds completely drained. “Are you in here?”

Biting my lip, I watch the lights flicker to life in the castle by the harbor. I try to imagine him dead in the sea, how it would have felt to leave him there. Whether it would have hurt less to watch him die than it did to listen to him agree with Dad. I don’t have names for feelings, justgoodandbad,painandnot pain, and none of those describes the way my chest cracks apart whenever he looks at me.

When I hear him open the closet door, I close my eyes. The boy has been paying attention, watching everything I do. “Victor?” Whether he’s angry or worried or pleased, he always says my name carefully, like it matters.

Finally, the bed creaks. My plan is to wait until he starts snoring and sleep in the closet again, but the Xanax takes over and drops me right into that deep, deep water.

Tonight,hefinds me there. Hands holding me down, a voice in my ear, fingers in my mouth. I gasp awake, aching and cold. According to my phone, it’s only two o’clock in the morning.

Nights are too long, but I hate the days, too. There’s no good time to be alive.

Trying to bring feeling back to my legs, I hobble inside. He’s sprawled all over the place, mouth open, chest rising and falling so steadily it’s hypnotic to watch.

I step up onto the bed and walk across the mattress, settling cross-legged right next to him. My dream still has me by the throat; I’m afraid he’ll feel the pounding of my heart through the bed.

I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound of footsteps in the hall. It’s not him. It’s not. I scoot closer to Ethan, until my knee bumps his side, and reach up to brush a lock of hair off his forehead.I’m sorry I scared you. Are you having good dreams? Can you let me in?

A nearby door opens and my adrenaline skyrockets. My hand hovers above his shoulder, about to wake him up, but instead I reach over and pick up his phone.

I enter the passcode I’ve watched him use. There’s that photo, his friend and his mother in front of a baseball diamond. I chew my knuckle, smiling a little as I flip through his photo reel. Every third picture is an accidental shot of the idiot’s shoe or the crotch of his jeans. I text myself the best view of his bulge and one other, just him sitting in his truck with his arm out the window, unaware of whoever took the photo.

His texts are just about boring enough to put me to sleep sober—endless messages to his mother, his friend, asking what’s up, what he’s going to make for dinner. He found a puzzle at the thrift store; he’s running late to trivia night; he dropped a ceramic planter on his foot and needs to buy frozen peas to ice it. He has one of those match-three jewel games at level 2321, probably from working some boring night shift. Sighing, I press the phone to my forehead. I can’t wake him up.

You can’t belong to someone like me. I’m an infection in your world.

Desperate to stop looking at him, I crawl around in the dark until I find my speedo and a towel. The door creaks, but he doesn’t stir. It’s time to start practicing for the last race of my life.

Ethan

An uneasy feeling wakes me up just after two. When I stretch my arm across the bed, it’s empty and cold. “Shit.” Sitting up, I switch on the bedside lamp. Bed, closet, bathroom, all deserted. That’s when I notice my Xanax bottle thrown haphazardly in the top of my bag.

I get up and dump them on the table; there should be thirty, since I’ve only had a fraction of one. When I only count twenty-four, it feels like someone threw ice water on my face. He was already on the edge, and we pushed him too far today.

He could be anywhere, but I have to pick one place to look. It’s not hard. Without changing out of my pajamas or putting on shoes, I forgo the elevator and take the stairs, struggling not to slip on narrow steps that are definitely not OSHA compliant.

Sure enough, when I reach the outdoor pool surrounded by colorfully-lit beds of tropical plants, there’s a dark body disturbing the water, all alone under the wide stars.

I can still taste salt water raw in my throat from this afternoon, so I stop a safe distance from the pool’s edge. Victor’s head comes up and he tosses back his hair, running his hands through it. He blinks when he sees me.

“Get out of there,” I demand.

“Why?” I think he actually means it. He wipes his nose like a kid, squinting at me.

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