Deep Water (7 page)

My
face was stone. The urge to become my mother and throw a mind blowing, soul
wrenching tantrum was strong. But I didn’t.

Instead, I counted to ten.

One to ten to keep myself under control.

To
not
become my mother.

For the first time in my life, I think I
understood her anguish enough to comprehend where she was coming from.

Katrin watched me, her cigarette now
forgotten and burning between her fingers. Soon, without her sucking on it like
oxygen, it would die out. I felt like that cigarette. I felt like I would die
out soon because of what she’d just said.

Don’t you want to know if I’m still his
go-to-girl?

No! I didn’t want to fucking know!
Because if it were true then everything special that had developed would become
null and void. Emptiness would overcome me, and I would spiral with nothing
left but a poor excuse for a family. There would be nothing left but a hole
where my heart was, and I couldn’t have that. I
wouldn’t.

The silence stretched on as I was caught
in her gaze like a deer in headlights. The effort of keeping all emotion from
my face was making me feel faint. I had to say something. I had to
do
something.

But I was saved from that by the
appearance of Joseph. He was drunk; his eyes glazed and mouth held in a drunken
smile. I could smell the alcohol coming off of him in waves as he enveloped me
in a hug.

“Heyyy, Jessica. My sexy, sexy girl.” He
nearly tumbled, making us both lose our balance almost. But I held strong. I
could not show any kind of weakness with Katrin’s bitter eyes glued to me. I
knew what she wanted. She wanted me to cause a scene; to become a bitch; to
storm away in tears perhaps. But I did none of those things.

Instead, I gave her a sickly, sweet
smile from beyond Joseph’s shoulder. It was the kind of smile that my beauty
queen mother would have been proud of. It was so fake it would make you sick.

“Hey, baby,” I said, in a voice that was
not mine. The seduction in that voice was more suited to someone used to
scheming, like my Mom, but it served my purpose. It made Joseph meet my eyes
and then land his mouth on mine in a kiss that was still graceful despite his
drunken state. I kissed him back,
hard
.

I kissed him back in a way I believed
people called
fucking his mouth.
My tongue stole in rapidly between his
lips as my hand pressed the back of his head, forcing his face onto mine.
Whatever we were doing felt almost pornographic. It wasn’t right doing this in
public, maybe to others it just looked like we were kissing. But to me, it felt
so raw that we may as well been fucking.

The swirl in my head was confusion. Want
was mixed with bitterness over the doubt Katrin’s words had caused. But she was
just a bitch, wasn’t she? Just because both my parents were cheaters, didn’t
mean that he was.
Did it?

Mentally, I shook my head to get these
thoughts out of my head. All I needed to think about was Katrin.

Revenge on Katrin.

I pulled away from Joseph; he stared at
me with dopey eyes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was a man in love.

“Come with me,” I whispered, taking his
hand and leading him away from Katrin’s bitter eyes. I didn’t have to look at
her to know that she was watching us. I led him away‒away from the fire,
away from the people and the noise. I just wanted him alone.

Into the thick of trees, I led him.
Feeling like some fairytale character leading an innocent into a dark and evil
wood, we walked into the darkness. Weaving between trees and tripping on roots,
we went deeper until finally I pushed him up against a tree. My hand gripped
his chin to make his mouth come down on mine. He kissed me the way I wanted him
to. With an urgency that made me feel like he was desperate for me.

He wore jeans and I tugged at his belt
until it was free, before undoing his fly. I was blind in everything I did as
my mouth was glued to his, but it felt like my bitterness led me on in my
actions. Suddenly I felt like an expert seductress as my fingers effortlessly
began to pull down his jeans, and then his underwear until his hard cock sprang
free to greet me.

“
Jessica
,” he said, his voice a
low moan.

He kissed me harder, his fingers digging
into my back through my clothes almost painfully. The pain was good. It drove
me on. I moved my hands to the bottom of my dress and hiked it up, and then I
gripped my panties and tugged them down with such ferocity that they should
have ripped. I pushed my naked groin against him and let my fingers wrap around
his hardness.

“Jessica…” he said.

 I pushed myself up on my toes and
pulled on his dick to maneuver it down so I could mount him–

“Jessica!” A push sent me stepping back
clumsily. My hands formed fists as I looked at him, anger spiking.

“What are you
doing
?” I
practically spat.

“What are
you
doing?” His hands
were pulling up his jeans, putting everything back in place. The sting of
humiliation and rejection washed over me. I took another step back to put
distance between us.

“What is your fucking problem? How could
you push me away?” I felt white with anger as I pulled up my panties and tugged
down my skirt.

“I–I was just doing the right thing.
What were you thinking? You really want to lose your virginity out here? Up
against a tree?” He seemed to be panting as he took a step closer to me.

I scowled at him. “I thought this was
what you wanted?”

His hand reached up to cup my face. “You
wanted it to be special. This isn’t special.”

For a moment, I felt complete shame at
having doubted him. But the memory of Katrin’s words flooded back to me. “Let’s
go back to the party,” I mumbled, turning and walking away. 

“Hey!” He caught up to me, touching my
wrist. “You can’t be mad at me for doing the right thing.”

I pulled my arm away from his touch like
he burned me. “Are you still screwing Katrin? Have you been screwing her while
we’ve been doing…whatever we’re doing?”

The words blurted out. My voice
encompassed all the rawness that I felt.

He stopped and stared at me. “Why would
you ask me that?”

Tears pricked at my eyes. “Because she
said that you were.” It was hard to speak with that constant sob that was
waiting in my throat. The sentence came out cracked and weak.

He looked at the ground. That was all I
needed.

“Oh, shit. You
are.”
I
backed
up a step, hugging myself.

He didn’t look back up at me, and I
waited for a moment, but no words came from him. I walked away. Away from the
party and up onto the road. I called my Dad. He answered on the first ring and
said he’d come and get me.

We
didn’t speak in the car. Dad just gave me a brief smile as I got in, but I
turned my face to the window and watched the night go past us. I was sober now.
My mother must have gone to bed already because the house was dark. Dad just
gave me a quick kiss on the forehead and murmured “Good night.” I felt his eyes
on me as I walked up the stairs.

I sat on my bed in a state of numbness.
No tears were coming. Would it have been better just to have remained ignorant?
Probably. I watched the seconds on my clock tick past, and I knew that I should
go to bed. I needed to sleep. But I didn’t move. Instead I just sat there as
the minutes passed, and then those minutes turned into an hour, and I knew I
had to move.

I reached for my phone in case I had
missed something. But there were no messages from Joseph. I wanted something
from him. Some excuse or reason or an apology.
Anything
. But the stupid
phone stayed silent, so I threw it against the wall. Later it was joined by my
dress. I bundled the fabric up in my hands and tossed it into the corner as
well. I wanted to hurt something, but there was no satisfaction in hurting
these inanimate objects.

I wanted a real live person to dig my
nails into and to make bleed. I had a house filled with two who deserved it,
but I didn’t need to destroy them, they were doing a good enough job
themselves. Only Katrin and Joseph would satisfy my wrath. I dug my own nails
into my palm; the pain was good, and I made myself bleed.

Only then did I go to bed. I curled up
in the dark and finally calmed down.

I awoke late the next morning to an
empty house. For the first few seconds of waking, everything that had happened
the night before escaped me. Then it came back, and it took a while to be able
to get out of bed. I didn’t go to the lake; instead I went to the public
swimming pools. I exhausted myself by swimming long lengths, and when I went to
pull myself out of the pool, I felt dizzy and had to close my eyes for a moment
as I hung from the ladder.

“Are you okay?” My eyes opened to see a
lifeguard standing over me.

“Yeah.” I started to climb. “I just overdid
it.” And I hadn’t eaten anything this morning.

I sat down in the changing room for a
bit before stripping off my swimsuit.”

“I can see that lady’s bones!” A kid
cried out.

“Shush, don’t be rude,” her mother
admonished. “Sorry, you know what kids are like.” It took me a second to
realize that she was speaking to me.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, even
managing to make my lips form a smile.

The mother matched my smile. “The only
person she ever sees naked is me, and, well, let’s just say that you certainly
can’t see my ribs anymore.” Then she frowned. “If you ever could for that
matter.”

I turned away from them and vowed never
to have kids.

I didn’t know why I went to the
Hargreaves Street house, or what I had planned. But when I saw Joseph’s car
parked outside, I pulled my car over to the side of the road. I just sat there,
and he finally came out. He was shirtless, and he was holding a piece of wood
which he went and tossed into a pile of rubbish. He looked good, and I gritted
my teeth, pissed at myself for admiring him. 

I put my hand on the key and got ready
to drive off, but he spotted me, his body straightened and he waved hesitantly.
I swallowed and got out of the car. I walked into the front yard where he
waited, not even knowing why I was there.

He spoke first. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You’ve been swimming? Did you go to the
lake?”

I tucked a strand of still wet hair
behind my ear. “No. The pools.”

There was a moment of silence before he
took a deep breath. “I’d kinda hoped that you’d turn up at the lake this
morning.”

My lips twisted a little. “I’m kind of
over the lake,” I said, my raspy voice betraying my hurt.

He tilted his head as he studied me, he
looked pained. “Listen, Jessica. About last night–”

“Did you fuck her last night as well?”
My heart was beating fast.

He looked me straight in the eye. “No.”

I exhaled, relieved. Why, I didn’t know,
because it didn’t really make a difference. I nodded and turned to go.

“Wait.” He took my hand. “You came all
the way here. At least sit down and talk to me. Please?”

I let him lead me to the porch, and we
sat side by side, not touching.
“It’s not what you think with Katrin and me.”

My hopes rose. “You didn’t sleep with
her?” My mouth half-formed a smile as I waited for him to answer.

He grimaced. “No, I–I did sleep with
her.”

“Oh.” I hugged my knees close to my
chest, not sure why I wasn’t just getting up and going.

He took a breath and released it.
“Listen. I’ve known Katrin a long time. She lives in my street, and her home
life is…similar to mine. I guess we’ve always connected through that. We
started having sex when we were both thirteen. It’s always been like a comfort
thing, you know?” I didn’t know, but I stayed silent. “It’s never been
romantic, or a relationship. Nothing like that. It’s just something that we do
together and it’s fun. No one gets hurt. It’s like a release.”

I watched him, and his eyes flicked to
mine quickly before looking away. “We were still screwing when I first started
to go after you. And even when we were hooking up at first, yeah, I kept at it
with her.”

I struggled to take a breath and lowered
my face down, so I didn’t have to look at him anymore. He cleared his throat
and continued.

“I didn’t think of it really as cheating
because it was just such a physical thing…and it was a habit. I honestly didn’t
even think about it like I was doing anything wrong. But then I could tell that
you were starting to get more into me. I thought you were really starting to
like me as much as I liked you. That’s when I called it off, a few weeks ago. I
didn’t want to do anything to screw up what we were doing while it lasted.”

“A few weeks ago? So when we were making
out all that time, you’d get all horny with me and then go and finish with her?
I thought I was your
girlfriend.
” Actually, I’d thought I was more than
even that. I’d thought what we had was deeper than the superficiality of
everyone else’s relationships.

His eyes widened at my outburst. “Did
you? Really?” He looked away from me for a moment and sucked in a breath like
he was trying to keep his composure. “I always thought what we were doing was
just like a summer fling or something for you. That it would end as soon as
your parents found out.”

I dug my nails into my knees. “It
wasn’t,” I said tightly.

His lips flickered up into a smile.
“Then, uh, maybe we could start over. You know, clean slate. I really like you,
Jessica. And I know you feel the same way about me.  I mean you would have let
me have sex with you last night. That speaks for itself.” He reached for me,
but I shoved him away, getting to my feet. “Jessica…”

“
No.”

I strode off toward my car without a
backward glance.