Jeremy

Chapter 1

My eyes closed, the sounds around me muffled, warm surrounding my body as I held my breath and wrapped myself tightly, knees to my chest. Sounds kept coming, but I couldn't decipher what they were. Voices maybe, but I couldn't tell what they were saying. My own thoughts were flooding my mind, like the water that surrounded me. The voices didn't stop though, so I unraveled my body and pushed my feet hard to the ground, breaking the surface. Two gasps sounded. Mine from catching the air that now chilled my face, and my mother's, who had been waiting for me to come back up and was startled from my sudden surfacing.

Treading the water slowly, I let her words invade my mind. "Why do you do that, Jeremy? You know it scares me when you do." She was referring to my sitting underwater for long periods without surfacing. It's out of habit. I used to compete with my best friend about who could hold their breath longer. I always won. When she moved, I seemed to stop even entering the pool altogether. But when other things happened, I started just sitting at the bottom, deep in thought.

"Get cleaned up. Dinner's in twenty minutes," she called out before walking back to the house.

I hung on the ledge. Senior year starts in two days. I'm not ready. I gave a loud, long sigh and hoisted myself out of the water, my whole body now on the brink of shivering. Enveloping myself in a towel, I shook my head and rubbed myself over so I wasn't dripping pool water when I entered the house. I've learned my lesson there. There are still a few noticeable marks on the polished, wood floors from my younger years when I didn't know any better.

Finally showered and dressed, though the smell of chlorine still lingered, I made my way back down the stairs to the dinner that was just being set on the table. A strange combination of leftover mashed potatoes and mac-n-cheese. We still ate it, though, as silently as ever. It wasn't 'till I slid the last of my potatoes to the edge of my plate and had a small amount of pasta left that my mother tried at a conversation. "Are you excited for school to start on Monday?" A classic mother move.

"Not really. It's just gonna be like last year, right? We're just older."

"Well, you shouldn't think of it like that. Think of graduation and-"

"Graduation is at the end of the year, Mother."

"I know, but..." She trailed off a bit, struggling to find her words. "There's Homecoming, college searching, scholarships to look for. You should be excited."

I gave a low sigh and pushed back in my chair, standing. "Mother, it's school. It's not that great. Besides, after high school, I just have more school with college," I complained while grabbing my plates, scraping the leftover food, and sliding them into the dishwasher. Then I started stocking up the stairs to my bedroom, but my mother stopped me. "I want you to go out tomorrow. I don't care where. Just out. You need to spend your last day of summer vacation outside. An outside that isn't in our backyard pool. Go out with your friends or something." She left the bottom of the stairs and I started up again.

Flopping down on my bed, I let air seep in and out of my lungs. A groan escaped my lips in the process. I let a moment pass, then got up, set an alarm for 08:45 AM, and sat on my bed, headphones on and staring out the window. The music played softly at first, but I turned it up three notches so it blocked out my mother downstairs, watching television.

Six songs later, my mind went blank and a dream played in my mind. It seemed more like a film, though because it had already happened. My old friend and me at the beach for the first time.