Drowning

The park, today, is peaceful and empty. Mostly because it's a school day, for the younger children who start earlier. Tom, Olivia, Marcus and Lance, being in year 12 this year, start school a week after most, thanks to the glorious institution that is Saint Bravier's college.

The swings move gently in the breeze, as if phantom hands hold the chains, invisible bodies on the seats; the ghost of me, last time, with Lance behind me.

But now I am in the sandpit, seated in Marcus's lap, because he sat and carefully pulled me down with him, and this is how we ended up. I am not exactly complaining. His hands link against my stomach, his chin resting against my shoulder, head bowed to reach. Every place he touches me is full of that strange sensation, that shock of a thrill that I love so much.

Olivia and Tom are already acting like five year olds, playing with the sand. Lance sits before me, watching with an amused half-smile on his face.

"So, why is it that we're here?" he asks, flicking his eyes to me before glancing back over at Olivia as she dumps a handful of sand in Tom's hair. Tom makes an outraged face and shakes his head like a dog, sand flying through the air in an arc. I smile.

"Three and four on the list," I remind him.

"Relating to the sandbox and castles," Marcus says, and I smile at the mimicry of Tom's words; Marc always had a good memory.

"Exactly. So, three is gone. We're in the sandbox. Now we have to make a castle." I look at the sand before me, narrowing my eyes. "One problem, though."

"What?" Marc asks. His voice, as always, is slightly panicked, his body tense beneath mine as if he thinks I am about to break in his grasp.

I roll my eyes. "I don't know how to make a sandcastle," I say gently, and he relaxes again and presses a small, relieved kiss to my shoulder. Lance's eyes are on me and Marc and the both of us, and I flush a little. I guess I never really understood the intimacy of the simple things he does, but now they seem stark in comparison to reality. I don't know why this makes me embarrassed, but it does.

I smile to cover it, and Lance looks at me, something strange and unsure in his eyes before they change back to their usual glow that speaks of smiles as much as his mouth does. "No problem. I am an expert at making sandcastles," he drawls. His voice is slow and smooth, like rich, dark chocolate.

I laugh and run my fingers through the sand. "Show me," I demand, and he grins lazily, tilting his head to the side. I catch a flash of darkness beside and beneath his eye before his hair covers it, and frown a little. But then he produces a bucket from a hole on the side of the sandpit, and I forget my unease.

"Gladly," he says. And then he shows me how to build a castle from sand. I fail miserably at it while his are perfect. When I pull the bucket away, half of the sand goes with it, tumbling down, and I put my hands at the sides to try and save it. Lance covers mine with his own, and we both laugh and grasp at the sand that trickles through our fingers, trying to save a castle like my dreams; like my life. A fragile pile of dust that is dwindling by the moment, blown away by a wind and a world that does not care.

I sigh heavily and look up at him, when my laughter has run dry. "I don't think we can save it," I say quietly. Lance's eyes are bright and alive, and close, so close. He smiles, his hair covering half of his face, as per usual. I want to push it back so I can see him properly, but my hands are beneath his. And then I notice that Marc is tense, his hands rigid against my stomach, oddly angry. But I can't seem to look away from Lance.

"Nothing's past saving," he murmurs. His voice is low and rough, and his thumb sweeps across the back of my hand. And then he leans back, his touch going with him. I take my hands from the sand and look down, flustered and oddly guilty, though I have done nothing wrong.

"The trick is," he says, his voice back to its normal, easygoing tone, "to add a little water, and to tip the bucket quickly." I look up at him for a moment, and then take the proffered bucket. I do as he says, pouring a little water from the bottle we bought into the sand, and mixing it with my fingers. It sticks to me like pale mud. I add more sand, and turn the bucket quickly. Then I leave it there, taking my wet, sand-encrusted hands back.

"Go on," Lance says, sounding amused. I look at the bucket warily, and shake my head. He rolls his eyes and pulls up the bucket. And there is my castle made of sand. It is round and tall, though not as smooth as his are. But it is mine; I made it.

Olivia whoops excitedly and kisses Tom on the lips before taking the list from his pocket and ticking off number four. She puts the pencil behind her ear, shuffles over on her knees, and drops into the sand by Lance's side, slinging an arm around his neck. "Oh, mighty sand-engineer, we praise you for your greatness-"

"Shut up, Olive," Marc says, but I can tell that he is smiling.

I grin, and it doesn't hurt so I grin wider. "Get me up, please, Marcus," I say, because my cast has been removed after two weeks of bed rest, but my leg is still painful to stand on, and I might break and I don't want that, not now.

He levers me up and then stands, his hands on my elbows before he shifts them to my waist and picks me up. He sets me on my feet, and I relish the feel of sand between my toes before I step out of the sand pit and into my sandals. Tom buckles them from his place on the ground before standing, and I take another slow step, turn around. I have gotten used to the almost parental care that my friends bestow on me: Tom has become one of those as easily as Olivia and Marc. He is a good friend. Lance seems distant, sometimes, but his smiles and the perfect control with which he does everything makes up for it, contributing to his strangeness.

"Thank you, Thomas," I say, and he grins and pretends to doff an imaginary hat at me.

"At your service, miss," he says.

Olivia rolls her eyes and follows us out. She helps to lower me into my chair, and Marc grips the handles. Before we move, I glance over at the sandpit: Lance is crouching, gazing closely at my castle with a speculative look on his face that speaks of deep thought; close concentration. I do not think it has anything to do with my castle, because they do not require that sort of absorption from anyone here but me. I watch him for a moment, loath to disturb him, because there is a strange sort of loveliness about people when they are thinking about something, that utter unselfconsciousness that brings out this other in their faces, that shines through brightly like nothing else does. I like to think that this is their true self, who people really are. And, as I look at Lance, at the other that shines through, I think I like it, though I don't quite understand it.

But then Marcus turns my chair, and when I try to turn my head to look back, my neck jars with pain. The weight of the day settles on me, a true exhaustion that threads its way through my bones, a melancholy illness. Every so often, at times like these, I truly hate what I am, what the world has made me. And it is driven into me because I am too tired to even turn my head, and the thing I want most in the world at this moment is to do so, because it isn't often that you see who someone truly is.

Marc starts to push the chair towards home, and he leans down a little, his words stirring my hair when he speaks. "You alright, Syl?" he asks. And there it is. The omnipresent concern. Anxiety. Pity. I will always be grateful for Marcus, and I love him more than anything, but I am very sick of the pity and stress in his voice. For once, when he is with me, I want him not to be worried. To just be happy, to enjoy the time we have left. But that's a little much to ask from the people who love me. After all, I won't be here for long. I have the easy way, getting to leave before them. I would not know how it feels to have someone I love die, because no one I love will die before me. I'll never have to say goodbye like they do.

This makes me sad and infinitely tired, and so I close my eyes. "Just drained," I tell him.

His fingers skim the top of my head before he continues walking. And I drift into sleep to the sound of the voices of my friends, wondering how long I have left; if there will be enough time to finish my list; if Lance is still in the sandpit, watching my castle be slowly destroyed by a wind and a world that find us inconsequential.

I shiver, even though the building is humid. The air stinks of chlorine so strongly that I can taste it on my lips, a cloying sensation inside of my mouth that almost chokes me. I've never been swimming before, but the idea of being in the water terrifies me like nothing else. My body sinking, frail and broken. My limbs too weak to keep me above the surface. Air leaking from between my lips as my head sinks below the surface, my hair a silvery halo around my head.

"Again, Syl?" Lance asks. His voice is soft and careful.

I shake my head slightly and wrap my arms around myself, but he knows me too well, now. A month, in retrospect, is a long time. And this isn't the first time he has tried to coax me into the water.

"Sit down for a sec," he says. I carefully get out of my chair and sit down at the edge of the pool, crossing my legs. "Feet in the water," he says, and there is the sound of a command in those words. I do as he says. This is not so bad; I can deal with this.

"What are you afraid of?" Lance asks me.

"Drowning," I say immediately, closing my eyes.

I hear his sigh in the emptiness of the building, feel the gentle brush of water against my legs as he moves through it. "Open your eyes," he says, and I do what he has told me to.

I look down at him in the water, his hair slicked down against his head, half-covering his face so I wonder at the fact that he can see. I catch the flash of his amber eyes through his hair, and he pushes it back, so that one eye is visible to me. My eyes catch the curve of his skin, wet and well-muscled. He is beautiful and strong, and I am thin and weak. This is only made more apparent by the bathing suit I am wearing: a black one-piece that hugs every inadequate part of me, with a large circle on the back that shows a patch of pale, unblemished skin.

"Sylva, I don't know how many times I can promise you this, but you will not be drowning in this pool." His feet touch the bottom at this end of the pool, so he does not have to tread water to stay above the surface, but his hands fan through the water in languid half-circles. I stare at his fingers, distorted beneath the water, because it is easier than looking him in the eyes and admitting my cowardice.

His fingers brush my ankle, and then he grips the edge of the pool on either side of me, looking up at me with a determined set to his face. "Trust me," he says. And I do.

"Ok," I say, and my voice trembles. He smiles unsurely and then grips my waist and lifts me gently into the water. My feet touch the bottom, and I barely reach his shoulder; he towers over me, muscled and dripping. His hands remain on my waist, holding me steady.

"Not so bad, is it?" he asks, and when I shake my head he grins.

"You can let me go," I tell him, and he raises an eyebrow. "Do it," I say, and my voice is more confident than I am inside. But he does, leaving his hands stretched out towards me, floating on the surface of the water. I stand still for a moment, unsure, and then I shift my feet, push up on my toes. I float a little, as if I have jumped when I have not. And I feel weightless. I feel like a balloon must as it floats up into the sky.

And then I start to fall, to drift down, and I grab at his arm. He laughs and pulls me closer. "That's a good start, at least. Can you do more?"

"I don't know." I shrug and let him hold me up. "Should I?"

"You're in the water. Might as well conquer your unnecessary fear." The water laps at my neck, and I frown.

"A fear of drowning is not unnecessary," I tell him, clinging to his arm. "It's a perfectly plausible fear."

"It's unnecessary because I'm here," he says, smiling. "And I won't let you drown. If it isn't going to happen, why be scared of it?"

He's making too much sense. I frown and stare over his shoulder, at the tinted windows on the side of the building. "You can't tell me not to be scared of dying."

"But that's a reasonable fear. Death comes for everyone. Besides," his free hand grips one of mine and gently eases it from his arm. "I don't think you're scared of death," he continues.

"I'm not," I agree hesitantly.

He smiles wider. "Which means that you shouldn't be scared of something like the water." He holds my hands and walks backwards. Deeper. Deeper.

"Lance," I gasp. I cannot breathe. I cannot think. The water gets higher and higher til it laps at my chin and his chest, and then my feet leave the ground and his hands are all that are holding me up. I think I say his name again, but I am not sure.

And then his voice filters through the fetid air, thick with chlorine. "You're alright, Syl," he says. "I won't let go." I feel dizzy, as if I am falling, but that is impossible because I am still. But I am not still. I am hovering in the water, held up by him. I am not touching the ground. I am drowning in air.

"Breathe," he commands. And I do. Deep breaths til I cannot tell that there is chlorine in the air, in my mouth, til I am used to the smell of it. I look at him: he has sunk into the water so that he is level with me, his hands now on my waist, though I don't remember him moving them. "Better?" he asks.

I nod. "Ok," he says. "You should probably do some kicking, to strengthen your legs. You'll need to go on your stomach." I think about putting my face in the water. My thoughts must show, because he rolls his eyes and sighs. "Ok, we'll try something else."

Slowly, he pulls me through the water, towards the shallower end. When my feet touch the bottom, relief fills me, but I let him pull me along til he reaches a ladder on the side of the pool. He guides my hands to the rungs, and I transfer my grip to them.

Then he puts a hand against my stomach, and my body goes tense. "Relax," he says. I look into his visible eye, the other peeking out from between sodden strands of black. His eyelashes are wet and thick, brushing his cheekbones when he blinks. "You trust me, don't you?"

I nod. I cannot speak. He smiles reassuringly, and then slips his other arm beneath my legs, and lifts me. I hold onto the rungs of the ladder, spluttering a little when my lips touch the water. "Head up," he says gently, and I pull a little with my arms, hold my face out of the water. His arm is a solid rest for my legs, his fingers splayed on my stomach, holding me up. "Kick," he says. "Slowly, that's it." My legs glide smoothly through the water, slowed by it so that I feel as if I am moving in slow motion. "Do you want me to let you go?" he asks.

"No," I say, and terror seizes me at the idea, but I keep on kicking.

"You alright?" he asks.

"Distract me." If he speaks, I can think about something, anything other than the fact that I am centimetres from drowning. That if he takes away his arms, the water will swallow me.

"How?" he asks, sounding perplexed.

I search my mind for something, anything of interest, and settle on: "Who was the girl you were with at the formal? When you were dancing?" I ask. I remember him sweeping her into his arms, her laughter, his easy smile. Something hurts inside of me. I keep on kicking.

"My cousin, Elle," he says, sounding a little embarrassed. "I wouldn't have gone, but she didn't want to go by herself."

I feel an odd sense of relief, an end to the strange pain, but push it away. "That was nice of you," I say, and he laughs. I can feel the echo of it through his fingertips.

"Well, it isn't like I would have asked anyone else."

"Really? There was no one?" I ask, intrigued.

He shakes his head when I look up at him, tilting my head to the side slightly to do so. "Well, there was one person, but she hadn't been at school for a while. And I didn't think she'd remember me, or want to go with me." He looks at me seriously, and my heart flutters in my chest. "Also, Mrs Gren's retirement means she lives pretty far away, now. And it isn't like she could dance with her walker."

I let out a startled laugh, and he grins. I imagine him dancing with old Mrs Gren, a history teacher we shared at school, and it makes me laugh a little more. My neck starts to hurt, and I turn my head back, close my eyes so I don't see the water beneath me.

My arms start to ache, and I am about to ask if I can stop when he does it for me. "I think that's enough, for today," he says. I sigh as I stop kicking, and he lowers my feet back to the bottom of the pool.

"How do you know when I've done enough?" I ask, looking at the hand he offers me and switching my grip from the ladder to his fingers.

He shrugs, and drifts through the water aimlessly, pulling me with him. "I did a course on the weekend."

I look at him for a moment, touched to silence, before I remember that responding is what a normal person would do. "You didn't have to do that."

He smiles a little and pulls me over to a ladder closer to my chair, leads my hands to the rungs and grips my waist, lifting me gently as I shakily climb. "It was the least I could do," he says.

He lets me go and pushes himself out of the water after me, opting to use muscle instead of the ladder: his arms tense with the motion, and I stand, shivering, and watch him easily pull himself from the water. He stands in front of me, dripping, and then walks past me to my chair, takes the towel from the back, and drapes it over my shoulders. He wraps it around me, and leaves his arms there for a moment, squeezing me in a gentle hug. "You did well today, Syl," he says, his breath warm against my neck. And then the door slams open at the end of the building, and Olivia strides in, swinging Tom's tennis racket in her hand and exclaiming over what an amazing player she is.

And then his arms leave me, and I stand there, shivering, as she sees me. She squeals and runs towards me, and then stops, her free hand fluttering anxiously over my hair before she smiles widely. "You actually got her in the water?" she asks Lance, her voice high.

I wince slightly, holding the towel tighter around my body. I listen to their chatter for a while, and then she must see me shivering, because she leads me into the changing room and helps me to put on clean, dry clothes after a warm shower. There are no special seats for me to sit on, here, so I hold onto the bar by the wall and let the water cleanse me as Olive chatters at me through the curtain. It is the longest I have ever been standing in years, and it feels good despite the fact that I am bone-tired.

When we leave, Tom pushes my chair, telling me how proud he is. And I look back, watch as Lance dives into the pool, sleek and quick as a seal as he cuts through the water, all muscle and speed. He is strangely beautiful.

And then I notice that Marcus is not here, and that is as strange and confusing as my feelings at this moment. "Where's Marc?" I ask Olivia, walking beside me.

She stops talking and looks strangely guilty and uneasy. "I'm not sure," she says, and then continues talking.

Tom pushes my chair home, and I listen to them with the odd comment on my part, not really listening. Because I am thinking. And I am wondering why Olivia would lie to me.

And that is when I remember that Marc never met that ten day deadline. I never learned what he was meant to tell me.