Taryn

For a moment, I’m flying. I’m heading straight for the night sky. My target is the moon. It is smeared with storm clouds that black out the stars, but its nocturnal glow lights my way. And then I crash through the surface. The sky, the moon, the clouds—it all runs past my bare chest. My entry echoes across the sky, and there is darkness beneath. It is cold and quiet. I’m in space now, weightless. There is nothing around me, until I look back. Again, I see the moon floating above me. It pulls at me now, dragging me back. But I don’t want to go back. Not yet. I fight it, but the moon is winning. I’m running out of breath and strength. It keeps pulling me up until…

            I break the surface of the water, gasp for air, and shake the water out of my hair. I take a look at my familiar surroundings. The dock behind me creaks. I can hear the lapping sound of the small waves smacking against the dockside. It’s dark out here, too. Across the way I can see the few speckled lights of the homes belonging to the late-night dwellers, like myself, who find themselves restless until the earliest morning hours. Granny Lynn’s house is dark behind me. It had been a long day, and she had gone to bed shortly after we left the reception at Taryn’s house. There is a soft glowing light coming from one of the upstairs windows next door. Taryn’s mother wouldn’t be able to sleep well, but that’s understandable.

            The wind began to pick up, chilling the wet skin on my face. Some would say I’m crazy for swimming at night like this, but I find it soothing. Everything is so much more peaceful at night, when no one else is around. My cousin Kyle and his gang aren’t around at night to harass me about being an out-of-towner and all the other things they hate about me. There aren’t summer tourists everywhere, asking for directions or making messes. It’s just me and the lake. Just me, floating in space. And besides, there are better reasons than this to call me crazy.

            The water is real. It’s always felt more real to me than the land. In the water I’m weightless. I’m not burdened by the weights of the world around me. In the water I can fly. I can glide across the surface, and leave all my troubles behind. Under the water is a whole different world. It’s mine. It’s a place that no one can take away from me. But it’s also a place I can’t share.

            I go back underwater and I’m with Taryn. She’s sitting on the bench, clothes drenched. Taryn’s got my jacket wrapped around her, and I’m standing there shirtless. Girls walk by on the boardwalk, checking me out, but then move away when they see her—this girl, Taryn—blubbering beside me. I saw it happen from the beach.

It was my first day back that summer, and I was in town, looking out at the water. Behind me I heard a scream and saw Kyle and his gang. They were blasting Taryn with super-soakers, and she was screaming like it burned her. I ran over and told them to cut it out. They sprayed me, too, but quickly ran off.

“You okay?” I had asked her. She had collapsed into tears, right there in the middle of the path. People were standing around staring. She was wearing baggy clothes to cover herself. She was dead weight, but I managed to help her up and walk her over to the bench.

I resurface with a gasp. The storm clouds are really rolling in now. The moon is obscured, and the only light I can see is coming from the window in Taryn’s house. There is a light drizzle falling. Over the sound of my own breathing, I can hear the raindrops tap tap tap on the dock. They plunk against the canoe, and drip on the surface beside me.

Underwater again, and I’ve taken Taryn home.

 She had moved into the vacant house next door last winter. Taryn’s mother greeted me warmly and offered me a shirt to wear, since Taryn still had my jacket. I accepted her offer, and she sent me downstairs with Taryn to get a shirt. I remember the look in Taryn’s eyes when she held it out to me. There was sadness and admiration. There was also recognition. I tried to take the shirt, but she was gripping it pretty hard.

“Are you okay?” She looked down at the shirt, and quickly let go.

“I’m sorry. That was my brother’s shirt.” She was quiet and I could already see the tears forming. I asked her about her brother, and she told me about Michael. He had drowned the year before in a flood that forced Taryn’s family to move. The shirt and some of Michael’s other belongings were in the room.

“You can have it though,” she told me. “You remind me of—”

I take a deep breath when my head breaks the surface again. The rain is falling hard now. I can’t see the glow from the window in Taryn’s house. I’m as wet above the water as below it now. The rain pelts my face and stings my arms. All I can hear is the rain hitting the lake and the rapid fire of it on the bottom of the overturned canoe. It is too dark to swim now, but I’m not leaving. I go back under.

I was only at Granny Lynn’s during summers. I was away at school the rest of the year. I always looked forward to returning, though. I loved swimming, and everything about the water. I knew it was dangerous, of course, but I taught myself not to fear it.

Taryn couldn’t recover from tragedy like I could, though. Since her brother’s death, she had locked herself inside, and eaten. She threw herself into fantasy and science fiction novels; anything to escape reality. She was happiest when she didn’t have to think about the real world.

I could relate to Taryn’s sadness, and I think that’s why we became friends. The locals, like my sadistic cousin Kyle, didn’t like me because—among other reasons—I was a “seasonal,” and they always picked on Taryn because of her weight and shyness, so she was the only person I thought I could be friends with. Every day for two summers, I would go over, and we would play games, or dream up safer, happier worlds—worlds where none of our troubles existed.

Some rare nights, we would talk about her brother, and all the things he had dreamed of.  I would talk about my mother, or what I could remember of her. It took me a while to tell her about the boat accident. I told Taryn that, since I survived, I felt it was my duty to keep surviving, for her—for my mother.

It doesn’t feel like I’ve broken the surface when I have. The rain is a constant flow, so I duck under the dock. Rainwater is pouring in vertical sheets through the cracks between the dock boards, but at least I can breathe. I hope that this storm doesn’t wake Granny Lynn. Hurricanes have made her nervous, too, since the accident.

My mother—Granny’s youngest daughter—owned a boat on the lake; one they left at Granny Lynn’s. We had gone out in it one day in June, but we weren’t able to make it back to the dock before the hurricane struck. Mom plowed through the waves as best as she could, but when we finally made it back to Granny’s, a freak wave tossed the small boat against a rock. I was flung up on the bank, but my mother’s head slammed against the rock, and she fell back into the water with the broken up boat.

The lake has killed my mother. Water has taken Taryn’s brother. But I can’t let it take me. I swim to grow stronger because of my mother’s death. When the lake comes for me, I’ll be able to make the choice that my mother couldn’t. Despite the torrential downpour, I go under again, and swim away from the dock.

It was the end of last summer when Taryn told me she loved me. We were down in her basement, like usual. I thought she meant that she loved me like a brother. I was touched, and I said as much.

“No. I mean it. I really think I love you, Trey.”
            “What?” I grew hot around my ears. I mean, I loved her too, but not in the way she was talking about. She was my best friend. She was the one I could confide in, and talk to.

“I really want to be your girlfriend…I mean, I know you wouldn’t feel the same about me… I mean, look at us. I’m just a fat whale—”

“You’re not fat…” I tried to comfort her, but she was on a roll now with all of her unhappiness pouring out.

“Yes I am! And you—you’re like some sort of supermodel.” She rolled her eyes when I scoffed at her remark. “Don’t be modest, Trey. I see you out there on the lake every day. You walk around the town half naked ninety percent of the time. You’re thin and muscular. Your hair’s always perfect. You’re friendly and likeable. You’re—you’re more than just my best friend—you’re my soul mate.” She turned away from me and tried to stop crying.

“I—I had no idea you felt that way, Taryn.” I was in dangerous waters now. I didn’t know how to break it to her that I didn’t feel the same without crushing her heart and ruining our friendship. My father still paid for my private school, but it was several states away. I decided to use that as an excuse. “But you know we can’t date…right?” She sniffled and shifted around while I said what needed to be said. “I’m only here during summer…only about three months in the year. And I’m almost done at school too. I’ll be going to college, and trying to start a new life. I can’t stay around the lake forever… It just won’t work between us. I wanna stay friends, of course. I’ll call and write you when I can…But…”

“Just stop.” Taryn stood up, but kept her back toward me. “I understand. It’s getting late. You should go.”

“But Taryn—”

“Seriously. Go.” She got quiet and still, and I knew she needed to be alone. So I left. I went home and packed my bags. The next day, Granny drove me to the airport so I could go back to school.

Today was Taryn’s funeral service.

I can’t tell if I’m crying or if the rain is on my face. I can see nothing around me. I cannot feel the lake’s bottom. I can’t hear the canoe or the dock. I am freezing and in darkness.

“It had been a bad holiday for Taryn.”

“No, she was lonely because no one liked her.”

“No, she hated being fat.”

 No one understood why it had happened. They found her in the lake on New Year’s morning. It must’ve been an accident. It had to have been.

But Taryn wouldn’t have gone near the water unless she had planned something like this. I, at least, know that. She can see her brother now. But where was I now?

It was strange to see the lake in winter. It was strange to be here alone with no one around. But here I am in my own space and time. I’m under now, the universe is around me. I’m with Taryn again. My mother has her hand on my shoulder, and Taryn holds hands with her brother Michael. As I fall deeper into space, I smile and close my eyes, loving the warmth.