Page 98 of Hold Me Under (Water, Air, Earth, Fire 1)

Victor

I think it’s been five hours. It’s so dark, the water blacker than black, and the stars go from horizon to horizon. I don’t know where Alek is, and I’m exhausted. I stop, treading water, even though I know it will only make the trip take longer.

I can’t feel my body any more, and I keep fucking up my breathing and taking in mouthfuls of salt water. Rolling onto my back, I go into a dead float, water teasing around my ears. I should be panicking, I guess, but there isn’t anything to worry about.

I can clearly remember my father’s words. Ethan sees the world in black and white. He won’t be able to wrap his head around it. He’ll pity me, because he’s a nice person, and the day he pities me is the day I die. And I’m pretty sure that’s today.

All I get to choose is whether I let the water have me or end up curled in the bottom of an airless closet where I can’t smell the sea.

Experimentally, I close my eyes and let myself sink until my head is under. The water is so heavy here, forceful, the pressure of billions of gallons, and the deeper I go the heavier it will get. It cradles me, waiting for me to make up my mind.

The only time Coach couldn’t touch me was when I was swimming. And now, if I stay, it will protect me from all the ways Coach and Dad will twist the truth and re-bury the secrets. I already went through that once; I can’t do it again.

My head breaks the surface and I gasp, toss my hair back. I start swimming again, aimlessly, like I’m trolling for the best place to let go.

Ethan comes to me slowly, like I’m starting to drift off and dream, first in pieces and then all at once, his hands and his shoulders, his face and his smile.

I never thought I could be saved, but you came so fucking close.

I don’t hate you.

And I don’t love you.

The Ethan in my head looks at me with his whiskey eyes hazy and his brows furrowed, his full lips sullen. For the first time in my life, I don’t have to struggle to remember. He grabs the back of my head, pulls me close. “If you wanna fucking die,” he whispers, “then come back and let me do it myself.”

I laugh stupidly, bobbing around in the sea, and for some reason, I keep swimming. In the end, I can’t deny that man anything he asks for.

I genuinely don’t think it’s up to me. I don’t think I can make it. But I’ll try.

At seven hours, I start blacking out in the water. My body keeps swimming, the training of a champion, but I’m barely there anymore. I fucking tried, and honestly, I got further than I expected. That’s going to have to be good enough for Ethan, the demanding, needy asshole.

When something grabs me I lash out instinctively, trying to remember if there are sharks in the Mediterranean and wondering why this shark has such soft teeth.

“Hold still, for fuck’s sake,” Alek gasps in my ear, wedging his shoulder under my arm and treading water for both of us. I rest my head against his, shaking and trying to breathe as his powerful arm locks around my waist.

“Look at you,” I pant. “You’ve been practicing while I was gone.”

He shoves me away from him in the water, then swims up behind me and wraps his arm around my chest. “Stop moving.” I can feel how hard his heart is pounding, as he drags us both through the water. “Tell me when you feel like you can take a turn.”

After thirty minutes, I tap his shoulder. “Be honest with me,” he says as we switch places. I feel him sigh as I stroke out, the quiver of his exhausted muscles. “No one else will tell me straight. Am I good enough, or not?”

I’ve followed his career. A bronze in Rio, middle of the pack in Pyongyang. He tries so hard, but you can’t learn talent. “You’re a good swimmer, but you’ll never be great. And now the one time you could have beaten me, you came back for me.”

He’s silent for a long time, until we switch places again. We circle in the water, fumbling to feel each other in the dark. “I don’t want to do this anymore. The fucking guilt every time I think about you, and for what? To come in fourth or fifth my whole life. Dad was bullshitting me when he said I could become you.” His arm slides under mine, keeping me afloat. “Do you think we could ever be free of him?”

“You, maybe.” I hesitate. “I don’t know about me.” Everything that made me want to be free has slipped through my hands today.

Neither of us speaks until we’ve switched places four or five times and the sluggish sun has climbed high enough to show us Capri, startlingly close, like it was sneaking up on us. We break apart and swim separately for the last hour, hitting the shore at almost the exact same time.

I collapse face-first in the sand, and he sits next to me with his head between his knees, dripping.

Out of nowhere, he says, “You do know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

I sit up and stare at him as he runs his hands through his wet hair, over and over, until it’s standing straight up.

When I don't answer, he glances at me. “Is it my fault my dad touched you?”

“No.”

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