“You can do it,” I assured him. “All you have to do is hang on to my hand.”
“Please,” he begged, “there has to be another way.”
“It’s a straight shot. One path. And you’re a better swimmer than me. All we have to do is stick together.”
“No! No!”
I grabbed both sides of his face, forcing his darting, nervous eyes to lock onto mine. He wasn’t a person at that moment; he was some kind of animal that had just realized it was locked in a cage.
“You can do this,” I told him. “Just hold on to me.”
I felt him easing a bit under my touch as some of that wild animal energy drained away. He was nodding, but he never said a word when I grabbed his hand and plunged into the rising water. We half walked, half swam toward the exit, which appeared to us as a narrow line of daylight just ahead. With each step we passed deeper into the murk, the water hitting our chests, necks, and then faces. Soon, we lost the floor entirely, and so we swam toward that narrow line, which seemed to be dimming by the moment. I wasn’t sure how deep it was, probably seven or eight feet, but in my fight to stay above water, our hands drifted apart.
“Jack,” he said pitifully as the water carried us back and forth in gentle waves.
“I’m here. Just keep swimming.”
He did, and I did, and the rainwater filled our mouths, eyes, and noses. I became aware that the ceiling, once a good twelve feet above, was close enough to touch. The line of daylight was close now, less than ten feet away, but it had narrowed to a sliver that blinked in and out of existence as the water lapped against the ceiling.
“We’re almost there,” I was able to blurt out before I heard the hiss just behind me. The Thief was climbing on the ceiling, his eyes a sickly pink, his mouth an open pit lined with jagged rocks.
“Mine!” he shrieked as he grabbed at Andy’s back, twisting his long fingers around his t-shirt. “You took mine. I’ll take yours.”
Andy pushed off the roof with his hands and dove under the water. The grim hand followed him as the Thief continued hissing and spitting, but he soon pulled his hand back, clutching only a swatch of dark cloth he had ripped away. I stared, dazed, desperately treading water. There was a moment, just a few seconds, where I saw that insane anger melt into something else – a look of misery, of fear, of outright terror.
“Ohhh… he won’t be happy…” the Thief whispered, his pink eyes pleading with me.
Then I felt Andy’s hand on my leg, and I shot underwater as well. We swam, eyes open, but blind to all but the hazy blue light that beckoned us toward the exit. The pair of us beat our hands, kicked our legs, driving farther and farther away from the mouth of darkness, lungs burning, but refusing to surface until we were absolutely sure we were free. When we finally did come up for air, we arose into a torrential downpour under a dark blue sky, but none of that mattered. We were out. Andy looked at me, confused as to just where in the world we were, and I pointed toward the ramp. Moments later, we were on dry land, clambering up toward the flat field that had carried us both, so long ago, to that nightmarish place.
That was when he hugged me, for the first time I could ever remember. He was crying again, and I think I understood. That place had broken him, changed him, made him walk into a corner of despair and hopelessness that a thirteen-year-old shouldn’t have to. He had been, for the first time in his life, certain he was going to die. And now here he was, in the open air, standing on grass, safe in the knowledge that a dark cave wouldn’t be his tomb.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
He wasn’t one to say thank you very often, and I wasn’t one to make a big fuss about it, so I just stepped back, looked him in the eye, and nodded. We could see the smoke now, a dark cloud that might have been lost in the storm if we hadn’t been standing so close to it. It rose from small places here and there across the field, tiny holes that only smoke could find a way through. We walked most of the way back holding hands, not because he was weak or tired – just because he wanted to.
Chapter Eleven
Dad only dated one girl that I can remember. Not remember exactly. I can picture her face. Scraggly red hair. Dark blue eyes. Always wore sandals. And though I have no evidence to back it up, she just seemed like the kind of woman who would smell like incense. I have nothing against incense, but I did have something against her. She was, after all, moving into an open space that had always been there, a vacant parking spot with the words MY MOM written in yellow paint. How could I like her?
Her name was Carla, or Carol, or who gives a shit?
I was fourteen at the time, an especially prickly age, and she hit just about every prickly button that I had. She always wanted to talk, always asked how things were going, and one time she even called me girlfriend. Can you imagine?
In hindsight, she probably wasn’t so bad. If I had given her a chance, maybe she would have been my girlfriend. But she would never have been my mom. I’m not sure if that’s what she wanted or not, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was Dad’s face whenever he saw the two of us talking. He would get this quiet little grin, and his eyes would get all misty. I knew, even at my most prickly, what he was seeing. The potential. What it could have been. She might just be a cardboard stand-in, but even that was more than he had ever seen face to face.
There we were. His girls.
It only made me hate her even more.
The whole thing lasted about a year before everything started to fade out, little by little. There were never any big blowouts, no screaming matches, not even an honest heart-to-heart between the two of us. Without me saying a word, he just knew, which made sense. He always was the one who knew me best. So, one day, she was just gone. Dad and I were both in the kitchen, making separate, unrelated lunches, when he told me. I nodded.
“Why?”
He sighed, the tone of his breath telling me how close he was to letting it out.
“Just… wasn’t working,” was all he said.
I’ve never stopped wondering about that moment, and to this day I feel horribly ashamed of myself. He had that chance at happiness, but I was too damned petty to see it. After that, he never, as far as I knew, even tried to find another mate. So, just like that, Carla/Carol slid quietly into the history books, more or less forgotten. Except for one thing. She raised koi.
Dad took me to see them one day while he was still with her. At the time, I didn’t even know what koi were, but I recognized them from the zoo. There were several huge pools in Carla/Carol’s backyard, like above-ground swimming pools with blue liners all hooked up with pumps and filters. The orange-and-white and black-spotted fish, which were as long as my forearm, swirled and danced beneath the surface.
“Aren’t they like goldfish?” I asked.
She laughed, and I found room in my heart to hate her just a bit more.
“Sort of. They’re a different breed of fish. These are a breed of carp.”
Dad was smiling at the two of us. “I always heard they can’t grow any bigger unless they get into bigger tanks. Like, if you put a goldfish in a swimming pool, it would get to be as big as a shark.”
She laughed, that silly, schoolyard giggle, as she slapped at his chest. “That’s not true either.”
They kept talking, Dad making silly jokes, her bubbling stupid little chortles at every opportunity, but I ignored them and stared into the blue water. I didn’t care if it was true or not, because in that moment, what Dad had said was all I could think about. Imagine it, growing along with the tank you were put into. Never getting a bit bigger than whatever cage held you. I thought of it the rest of that night, as I ate dinner, watched TV, and finally slid under my covers. At any moment, I could venture out. Down the hallway. Out the back door. Into the yard to stare up at the starlit sky.