Page 38 of Drown Like Heaven
“February. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to someone else?” Mason asked without pause, twisting his old question slightly, his gaze dark and intense. Like he was daring me to give him my answer, to say the words, or tell him off for asking.
Like he wanted to test my limits.
Maybe I should tell him to stop.
My palms started to sweat and I wiped them on my black jeans. Funny how quickly he’d shifted our conversation from birthdays to secrets I’d never share.
“Pass,” I said, trying to push the torrent of memories in my mind to the side, to shove them where they belonged: buried deep in the back of my brain. “How often do you go in the ocean to hold your breath?”
“Often. Do you like your major?”
Weird question.“I like it enough to push through. Do you ever hold your breath anywhere other than the ocean? Like a pool or bathtub?”
“Yes. How’s your relationship with your dad?”
“It’s fine,” I replied. We could both play this game, if he wanted that. The mommy-issues-or-daddy-issues game. He was asking about the wrong man, anyhow. “How’s your relationship with your mom?”
“Nonexistent. Have you ever hurt yourself?”
“Define hurt.”
I’d never taken a razor blade to my wrist, if that’s what he was asking. I’d hurt myself in other ways, though. With little shark teeth, with other people, with my own mind. Mason’s fingers flexed on my thigh, sending a pulse of heat through my core, feeding the hungry ache inside of me.
I wished I hadn’t been missing how his body felt on mine. I wished I didn’t crave it again now.
“That answers my question,” he said, not giving me a clue as to what he meant. Maybe he could figure out everything about me by my short response.
“Okay.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “How long was I unconscious on that day?”
“A few seconds.” The same answer as before.
We sat together in silence for a little while, thoughts crashing like waves in my head. I could almost taste the salt in my mouth as they swept me under. Brutal, volatile, cycling. He was easy enough to talk to, but I didn’t trust him.
Do you think about me like I think about you?
Do you hate it the way I do, too?
Do you want to hurt me again?
Did you mean it when you said I could hurt you back?
Why did you say that?
What is so different about you, and why does it draw me in so badly? Are we too similar? Am I safe? Do I even want to be safe?
Each thought in my mind mirrored the water creeping up the beach, mirrored the rolling and turning, the way the ocean could never hold still, would never let go. I curled my fingers around the spine of my journal and squeezed, just waiting for the wave that would finally race all the way up to the rock I sat on, the one what would finally suck me under.
The sun wasn’t visible behind the clouds, but I could tell that it was setting now.
“You’re in my head, Dakota,” Mason said, his voice low as he cut through our silence.Are you lying to me? Using me?I couldn’t help but to wonder. He had everything to gain, and I had everything to lose. “Nobody gets in my head. But you did.”
You’re in my head too, I wanted to say, but I swallowed the words, keeping my mouth shut tight. It was stupid. It wasway too fast. There was no logical reason for him to be such a significant fixture in my skull already.
“I’ve been going to this beach, waiting for you to come back. I knew you would, I just didn’t know when.”
“So youarestalking me.”
“I can do a whole lot worse than this,” he said with a dry laugh. His grip tightened on my thigh, almost painfully. I could feel him looking at me now. “I’m serious.”
