The Vicious Deep

  I don’t have that. At least I hope I don’t start getting radio signals in my head. Then again, that might make sitting through class more entertaining. But what if I only ever get one station?

  My headache gets worse. The computer screen bothers my eyes. I finish my glass of water and go back to bed. My room spins around me like after riding roller coasters all day and then trying to lie down. I pull my covers tightly around me. I’m so tired, but I’m afraid to close my eyes.

  The minute I do, I’m back in that water.

  The first thing they tell you is not to panic.

  Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

  I wasn’t panicking when my gut told me to ignore how the clouds turned from white to black, how the waves got higher with each crash, the fleeing screams around me. I didn’t panic, and I dove into the middle of the water to save her.

  But every time I surface, she isn’t there, and I keep getting farther from land. I’m pulled under with so much pressure I can barely move my arms and legs. The one gulp before I’m truly under escapes in tiny bubbles. The suction of the undulating waves tosses me like a bit of driftwood. I can’t tell which way is up or down, but as the water stills, I swim to where it lightens. The moon makes a streak of weak light through the water, like my personal lighthouse beam leading me home.

  Something ice-cold touches my spine. When I turn around, nothing is there. There’s a trail of foam in its place, and I pray to every god that has ever or will ever exist that it’s not a shark.

  In the lighter water, blood clouds around me. I don’t think anything bit me, but my throat and ribs burn like nothing I’ve ever felt before, like the skin there is burned to a crisp. My feet ache the way they do when I run barefoot on hot sand for too long. The still water churns faster and faster and faster, and I don’t know what to worry about first—the cuts on my neck, the burning in my muscles, or the whirlpool that’s starting with me at its center.

  When I try to kick, I keep sinking. The whirlpool pulls me farther and farther away from the surface. I can’t see the bottom, just pitch-black and more pitch-black. The pressure around me feels as though my bones will turn to foam. I scream because that’s what my mind tells me to do. A muffled sound and some bubbles is all I get, even though I know if I were on land, all of New York would be able to hear me.

  Then, as fast as the whirlpool started, it stops spinning. The current changes to a gentle bob, and I swear—I swear on every trophy I’ve ever won—that the water is taking me somewhere.

  I float over a cluster of giant black rocks that seem to be the beginning of an even bigger precipice. Bits of light start blooming. They’re pinpricks around the rock at first, then blooms of seaweed that glow like the buzzing neon sign of a bodega. Starfish with beads of glowing lights. Fish in colors that live in between other colors. A long red fish with the longest golden fins spins around my head. It presses its face against my cheek.

  Somewhere in the distance there’s a deep wail—an angry guttural sound that echoes on the rocks until it becomes the tail end of a sigh. The fish scatter, and everything stops glowing.

  I’m alone again.

  I fight the numbness in my legs and use all my strength to push myself up. I’ve spent every day of my life swimming, but doing laps around a pool is different from pushing yourself up to the surface when you’re in the middle of the ocean. The pressure down here is like a vise grip around my limbs, but I swim, harder than I ever thought I could, until the water looks lighter and I can see my hand in front of my face again.

  A white shape comes into focus in the distance. The echo is back. This time it’s a song-cry, a lullaby that feels like it’s slithering into my heart and finding pieces to break. I let it calm me, pull me back down. I stop fighting to get to the surface and think about my mom and her shining red hair, her sad turquoise eyes when they find me. She always told me I was born to swim, but I don’t think this is what she meant. I think of my dad fixing computers alone in his office. I think of Layla, despite myself, and wish I’d chosen her every time.

  The song-cry is closer still. My leg muscles get that familiar twinge when I’m in the water too long, like muscle bending the wrong way. My eyes are getting blurry. I keep stroking, but there isn’t any strength behind it. I’m sinking, and there’s a shark coming at me. Its nose points upward, like it’s always smelling. The unmistakable rows of jagged teeth, the red gums that always look bloody.

  This guy has chains, like he just busted out of shark prison and he’s happy to see me. He speeds up, fin flicking whippet fast. I push myself backward, as if that’s going to do any good. I hit something cold, a wall. Something grabs me. The singing is right at my ear. I try to pull myself out of the grip. They’re hands. Cold, slender hands with nails like crushed glass.

  It still sings, whatever it is. No words, just a sad wail, the low notes of a violin being plucked with a tire iron. It’s the only thing I want to listen to. I want to wrap myself in those notes and sleep forever. A hand moves from my chest to my neck. I’ve stopped struggling. I want to close my eyes. The shark charges at me like a silver bullet.

  I shut my eyes and wait for the bite that never comes.

  The nails cut into my chest as the arms let go. The shark flips around, magnificent, and slaps the creature with his great white fin. It pushes back a few yards, but it doesn’t stop. It wails, screeches into the expanse of sea, stretching out so I can finally see her true form. I can see her. From head to fins. A mass of silvery-white hair spreads out around her face, so pale she’s almost see-through. Her eyes radiate in the water, white as lightning with needle pinpricks in the center.

  Her cheekbones are sharp and slope down to full blue lips that smirk at me. She’s long and slender, so skinny her bones look like they’re trying to poke out of her skin. Her breasts are covered with slick silver scales that fade out at the slopes of her waist and bloom out to form her tail. There’s an impression of legs, like they’re under there right up to the kneecaps and disappear down to long silvery fins.

  She swims in circles, a figure eight, her silver silhouette like a flash of light dancing in the water. Like she’s dancing for me. She stops inches away from me with that smirk still on her lips, telling me she knows everything I don’t. She grabs my wrists softly, like she’s going to pull me to her and kiss me. And I want her to. I’ve never wanted anything this badly before.

  The silver mermaid smiles, and when she smiles there is nothing more terrifying than the rows of her razor-sharp teeth.

  She’s holding my wrists when I wake up.

  “You almost took my head off.” Layla is staring at me with her giant hazel eyes. When we were little, I used to call her Bambi because her eyes were too big for her face and she was so skinny, almost frail-looking. It’s just looks, though. Layla can swim almost as fast as I can. Almost.

  Her hair is loose around her shoulders, thick and brown like fresh earth. She’s wearing a purple dress that ties around her neck and reaches all the way down to cover her toes. I am suddenly aware of my morning erection.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What kind of a ‘good afternoon’ is that?”

  I look at the clock on my nightstand. It’s 2:43 p.m. “How long have you been sitting there, creeper?” I take an extra pillow and use it as a buffer between my erection and the world.

  “You wish.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “I only just got here,” Layla says. “I told your mom I’d pick up some chips and salsa on the way. My mom was still making her fancy Greek dip when I left, and my dad was sneaking a cigarette downstairs.”

  “Doesn’t your dad know by now that he can’t keep anything from your mom ’cause she’s got that all-seeing third eye in the back of her head?” I ask.

  “I actually think she gets a kick out of watching him squirm,” she laughs, “when she finds the butts hidden around the backyard.”

  “Just like a woman.”

  S
he punches me on the shoulder.

  “I’m going to start charging you every time you hit me,” I tell her.

  “That would negate your purpose as my personal punching bag. And speaking of people who’d like to use you as one, Maddy called me. She’s not coming because she’s at her friend’s house.”

  “See! And she got all mad at me when I said friends.”

  “Yeah, but you say friends in a mean way. I say friends because I don’t like her new friends.”

  “Whatever. I don’t need her crying all over the place, feeling guilty ’cause I’m not dead.” I suck my teeth. I need a toothbrush ASAP.

  We fall into silence. She tilts her head and combs her hair all to one side. She twirls a strand around her index finger and stares at my face. I wonder what she sees. If she sees something different from what everyone else does. I wonder if she’s thinking I’m a piece-of-shit friend and an even worse boyfriend. I wonder if she’s thought about our CPR kiss the way I have.

  Instead she whispers, “What were you dreaming about?” She hesitates. “You were really tossing.”

  I shake my head. I know how this would make me sound. If there is anyone I let myself tell anything to, it’s Layla. Well, almost anything. “Just some crazy stuff. You know, I still can’t remember anything that happened to me out there. I see this blur. Then last night I was going through the apartment, reading, Googling, pacing, trying to make myself remember, like maybe it’s memory loss. But nothing.

  “I mean, I wasn’t expecting an instant replay. But when I fell asleep, my dream was so impossible and it still felt so real. More real than this—” I pinch her and she squeals. “What if something happened to me down there? It would explain how I got this—” I pull my T-shirt at the collar so she can see the red scratches on my chest.

  “Yes, Tristan, you have pecs of steel. The guys are outside. You really don’t have to do that with me—”

  “No, dumbass. I mean, I do, but look—” I really don’t want to get up for fear of the pillow shifting. “Scratches.”

  “There’s nothing there, Tristan.” There’s a sort of pity in her eyes.

  She’s right. I rub my hands on my chest and can’t feel anything. Not even the impression of scabs.

  “Is he awake yet?” My mom is standing at the door.

  “Just now,” I say, as Layla stands and pulls at where her dress clings to her thighs.

  Mom lingers at the doorway. She stands half in and half out. There’s something about the way she’s looking at me. It’s not exactly wonder, but similar to it. I mean, I can’t even imagine what it must’ve been like to think I was dead.

  “Hurry up and get dressed, honey. People are on their way.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be ready in just a minute.” Though I don’t feel ready for anything at all.

  •••

  While my mom spared me a Welcome Home sign, my friends—if I’d even call them that after what they’re holding up—have made a crude sign on white cardboard. It reads: “IT'S ALIVE!” With thunderbolts on the side.

  Jerry, Angelo, Bertie, Ryan, and some other lifeguards and members of the swim team hang around the living room. They pat me on the back and tell me they’ve never seen anything like this. They can’t believe it. I’m a miracle. I’m the coolest dude that ever lived on Planet Cool. They show me my mug on three newspapers, an awkward picture that I recognize from Mike’s camera phone at the pizzeria, and one that looks like a girl was edited out of the left half. I’m halfway between a smile and a grimace, and my eyes don’t really come out right in black-and-white. They almost look colorless.

  Jerry polishes off his can of root beer and burps. From somewhere in the kitchen, Layla’s mother scolds him, and he sinks into the chair, which makes him look like a grasshopper retracting his limbs. He’s so tall that watching him swim reminds me of a log with branches flailing down a stream. “My mom was going to send flowers from her flower shop, you know? But half the girls in school were already buying them and sending them to your hospital room.”

  “Tell her thanks anyway.”

  Angelo sits up on the ottoman. “Bro, that nurse.” He makes the symbol of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, then kisses his fingertips. I’ve seen his father do the exact same thing when they’re sitting on their front porch drinking beer and a girl in short shorts walks in front of them. “You’re the luckiest bastard who ever lived.”

  Now I’m a lucky-cool bastard. Hey, I’ve been called worse.

  Layla walks over with a refilled bowl of tortilla chips, and the guys are all over her. I don’t like the way Angelo’s eyes linger on her. It’s not like she’s got giant boobs. I mean, they’re a nice size for her height, but she’s also not wearing a bra, just a bikini top under her dress. What’s with these guys anyway? She’s on our team. They see her in a suit all the time.

  Layla takes a seat on the couch between Bertie and me. She’s used to being one of the guys, so she doesn’t notice how different they’re acting, all shifty and nervous because she’s sucked their breaths out just by being here. Maybe she doesn’t realize how she’s changed. How practically overnight her Bambi eyes and full lips have grown into a face that all you want to do is stare at it. How she’s set the bar pretty damn high for every other girl.

  Of course, none of the guys would try to get with her. She’s still one of us.

  I reach over the coffee table and eat chip after chip. My stomach lurches, and I can taste bile creeping up. I gulp down water, and I feel a little better.

  “My mom actually wants me to quit my post,” Angelo says. “She says the apocalypse is coming, so she’s got these garlic wreaths all over the windows—”

  “I knew I smelled something,” Ryan goes, shrinking back from the threat of Angelo’s fist.

  “—and crosses all over the place. She asked Father Thomas to rebaptize me. He told her you’re only supposed to do it once.”

  “Did you tell your mom that the apocalypse is coming, and not an army of vampires?” Layla jokes.

  “Whatever. All I care is that she was so happy I woke up too late to go to work that day that she even let me sleep through school yesterday.”

  Angelo is a guy with no conscience and no worries. I almost envy him. He’s the kind of guy who takes your lunch money at the beginning of the day and then asks to borrow another dollar after school so you can split a pizza. He smacks girls on their asses, and they actually turn around and giggle, because other than being macho and using more hair spray than the drama class, he’s a pretty good-looking guy.

  Mom walks in with a gallon of root beer. “I heard you boys were thirsty.”

  “And girls,” Layla chimes in. Sandy, who’s been looking through my mom’s collection of books, looks up and smiles.

  “Yes, please, Mrs. Hart,” the boys say in unison, all smiles and politeness. She doesn’t know them like I do.

  The minute she walks out, Layla looks up at Ryan and says, “Ryan, you’ve got a little drool right here.”

  He wipes at his mouth with the sleeve of his hoodie. “It’s kind of impossible not to. No offense.”

  “None taken.” I shrug. I’m used to the guys all coming over just so they can be doted on by my mom. Even when we have school trips, the guys try to bribe me to get her to be the chaperone. Suddenly my living room, which has always seemed like a cave when I’m alone, feels too hot, too tight. The AC is on, and I’m still sweating. I want to tell everyone to get out so that I can jump in the shower, but that would be rude.

  Ryan combs his fingers through his slick blond hair, a telltale sign that he’s getting ready for a speech. Aside from being on the archery team, he writes for the Thorne Hill High School Press and is treasurer of the senior class. He has parents who are still married, don’t hate each other, and work in the city. They live in the Sea Breeze gated community not a five-minute drive from here.

  Sometimes it annoys me how perfect he is. It’s like he can do no wrong. When we took a school-required tes
t that’s supposed to tell you what you should be when you grow up, he got “President of the United States.” I got back an empty piece of paper, because they’d lost my results. And it bothers me even more because he always says he was born to be something great. He just knows it in his heart, and so does everyone who’s ever met him.

  Everyone who meets me likes me, sure, but I’ll never be suave like Angelo, and I’ll never be as smart as Ryan. I don’t even know what I’m going to do tomorrow, didn’t even know before my near-drowning. So I’ve got that going for me.

  “So,” Ryan starts. “I was thinking of getting a group together and heading down to the Wreck. They’re having some end-of-the-world party all week long. Who’s down?” He looks at me eagerly.

  I’m not, but I say, “I’ll think about it. They gave me this prescription that makes me want to sleep.”

  Layla gives me a sideways glance, because she knows we weren’t at the hospital long enough for them to give me a prescription. “I just got a text from Maddy. She just invited me to the same thing.”

  “Dude, I’m surprised she’s not here,” Jerry says. “She was pacing in front of your hospital room for like days. I only went the one time. It was so crowded. But she was definitely there a while.”

  “Yeah, she was there when I went too,” Ryan adds.

  Layla’s quiet, arms crossed over her chest. She looks small, like she’s sinking into the couch. I get up from the floor and sit next to her. So does Jerry.

  “Why’d you guys break up anyway?” Bertie asks. The whole room turns to look at me.

  “When I broke up with Rebecca—” Ryan starts, but Bertie has his hand up. “Hold up. No, man. We’ve already heard the Rebecca story a bajillion times.”

  I asked Maddy out three months ago. I think the pigtail braids did it for me. Plus, we were already friends. I don’t want to talk about me and Maddy. I don’t want to talk about it ever. I want to jump in some cold water. But they’re not going to let it drop until I at least say something.

  “She’s nice and all, don’t get me wrong. But she wanted to be with me every single minute. She wanted to call me as soon as we got home from school and watch TV together over the phone. She waited by my locker. She waited in my lobby downstairs before school.”