Clementine had become a wild child. Born in America but raised abroad, she now had little regard for the expectations of high society. But her reckless ways eventually catch up with her when she is kicked out of college in New York City and forced t...
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The shivers ran up her spine as she felt the water climb up her body the deeper she descended into it.
They all first walked a little way down the beach: Zico and her, Mina and her husband, and a few of their other friends that tagged along. Together they weren't more than 10 but it definitely felt like their own party inside a party.
It felt intimate.
Nothing could ruin this, she thought, these are the moments you remember forever.
The moon was so bright that it was its own spotlight, creating trail of moon shadow down the water that seemed to last forever.
She thought about how the water seemed so intrinsically tied to hers and Zico's history together.
She recalled one night, she was just hanging out with Mina who all of a sudden pulled out her tarot cards. And even though she tried to teach her, (this was before she went to the gypsy in the shack by the sea - right before - and maybe the reason why) but all she remembered was Mina talking about the water symbol: That whenever she saw it in her cards it represented a state of flow, of passing. The way water moves down a river. Always constant, ever changing.
She looked at Zico, bravely leading the way, going into the water first as if ready to take on all the sharks just by himself, and she thought it to be true.
How they were ever changing. The feeling ,even. Ask beautiful as the first moments were with him, every time she went back, searching for that initial high she could never find exactly that. But maybe she didn't need to. Maybe she didn't need to step into the same river twice. It was just that she was having a hard time telling where this river was going to turn next - what exactly was around the riverbed. Though she knew she could splash in these waters forever.
The champagne was definitely starting to have an effect, because it seemed strange to her that this could seem so normal. Stepping into the ocean in her dress, with all her fancy friends in their tuxes and with Zico. It was a little sign of rebellion. But then, she thought to herself, for someone like Zico - whose whole life was an act f rebellion - this was probably something very mild.
They all splashed around like feral dolphins. Clementine, like the rest, moved throughout the circles of girls and boys weaving in and out like a mermaid. Finding Zico every once in a while like in a magic whirlpool.
Then, when she was least expecting it, he swam up behind her and grabbed her by the waist.
"Hoi," he said in his voice, sounding deep, mingled with desire. No, pure desire.
"Hi," Clementine managed to breathe.
"Are you ready?" He asked her.
"For what?" But before she really had time to voice her concerns, she felt his fingers slip underneath her dress and between the waistband of her panties. She felt her breath sucked out of her body, not ready for that welcome intrusion.
"Shh," he placed a hand on her neck, gently holding her in place.
"What if I drown?" Clementine proposed hypothetically, her wading her legs, him on his tippy toes.
"Them we'll drown together," Zico responded.
There was something so macabre and romantic, yet dark about that thought.
"Not today," she said, and turning around, she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, prompting a few joking whistles from the group.
They both looked up smiling, and then Clementine went underwater and swam away.
"Are you going to make me chase you?" He asked, swimming behind her.
And Clementine relished in every moment.
She dipped under the water, going as deep as she could before the pressure started to feel behind her eyes and in her ears. When she swam to the top, getting out of the water, she was already running out of breath and she came out with a sudden need for oxygen. A sort of gasp for air. And as as she emerged she had the strangest deja vu. She knew then it was not the deja vu of a lived experience but of an old feeling.
So many times when she meditated, something she took up often not only after the shrink, but after he left her the last time - so many times in the middle off er meditation she would get interrupted by this thought: As if she was swimming to the top, coming out of choppy waters, gasping for air.
It took her a moment to come back to her body, and Zico had just enough time to catch up to her.
Then, when they both swam a distance away, and it was just the darkness and them, shallow enough for them to both reach and not get swayed by the gentle waves.
Clementine cocked her head to the side, and again she couldn't help but feel those uncomfortable thoughts swim up to the surface.
"Zico," she said his name with caution.
"Siii," Zico was playing with her fingers.
"Are you on drugs...now?" Clementine asked and he dropped her fingers.
"I wish this wasn't a problem with us." He sighed, "I'm not. And anyway, my parents are in town...I can't drink or smoke or..."
"I didn't know that! Is that why you're kind of...on edge?" She splashed him with some water.
Clementine teased him, but found it funny that a man as violently independent as Zico - a leader in many ways - still restrained himself with his parents.
Maybe that's all parents, no matter who you are. Or maybe, he was repressed in his childhood and that's why he was acting up now...Clementine didn't want to think about it.
"But, why do you do it?" She tried to understand, though she knew she most likely wouldn't ever.
"It's under control. I'm not on anything tight now. It's what I do. I mostly deal." Then when Clementine wasn't responding, "it's how I get out of the favelas, anjo."
"But..aren't there other options?" Clementine asked and immediately realizing how hypocritical she sounded, considering her own father was doing the same thing.
"You know its different for people like me. And anyway, you shouldn't be talking. You are only one step ahead of me. Your father..."
"No, that doesn't count! I have no control fo that. I had no idea until after I met you."
"Yes, but all that money, your whole life style is a direct result of that." Then, more quietly, "our daughter could have the same lifestyle, she wouldn't have to struggle the way I did."
Clementine felt a pang, it was too much to talk like that right now when only 12 hours ago he wasn't even in her life anymore, technically.
"Isn't it dangerous? The risks...I have no idea how my father did it, but I know that so many have fallen in order for him to get where he is."
"Yes, but I am lucky, meu carinha." He turned to the statue of Cristo Redento, visible to the other side of them and yelled "Eu sou o filho de deus!" Proclaiming to be the son of God in a way so feral that Clementine was almost scared for a moment. Something flashed through his eyes, that scared her, and she realized that he must act different with her but that must be that very instinctual part of him that keeps him alive on the street. That makes him an enigma.
But to her it seemed a thing impossible to control. And that scared her.
