Love In Actuality

2.2: Kyree

Special? Me? No. Wrong person. Nobody thought of me as ‘special’. God,

this guy was screwed up if he thought I was special. This was Aaron we were

talking about here. Aaron, who had a new girlfriend every two weeks. I shook my

head until it started aching again, and then stopped. “Aw, come on. There has to

be something special about you,” he said, and I was almost fooled into thinking

that he was a slightly compassionate person. 

I considered this for a while, but came up short. Most of the words I used

to describe myself were very negative. “I can swim, I guess,” I admitted. “That’s

about it.” His eyebrows raised in speculation. “What?” I asked. “You’ve never

even seen me in the water.” Not that I remembered, at least. 

That made him scoff, but I could tell he was stalling a little bit. A portion of

my brain wondered what the issue was.  “No, I’ve seen you in the water all right.

I’ve just never seen you swim in the water.” Ah, the Aaron I knew and hated.

There was silence fore a while after he said that as I found the words to tell him

why I’d wanted to talk to him.

“Do you…do you know what happened? I don’t remember…just going in

and waking up here.”

He seemed torn. “You sure you want to hear this?” I nodded. “Well, me

and my friend Tony-you know Tony, right- were on our way back from…a place…

and then there you are, practically blue in all visible places, unconscious, just

floating in the middle of the ocean. So I pulled you out, and…” He paused, as if

he didn’t want to tell me the next part. “To be truthful, you were dead. No

heartbeat, no pulse. Completely gone. So Tony called emergency and I did the

whole CPR rescue crap and got a faint pulse going, and then we got to land and

the EMT people showed up and brought you here. And now you’re alive.”Well, crap. I had been so close to death and then they just have to go and

revive me. My God. Now I’d have to do this all over again. What a waste. Aaron

was obviously waiting for some kind of response, so I said, “Okay.”

He looked relieved that I wasn’t going to cry or anything. “Now you have to

tell me something.” I cocked my head. “What were you doing out in forty degree

weather with the waves that strong? I’m sorry, but that’s just plain stupid.” I

looked away from him, focusing on the diagrams on the wall. He could know,

couldn’t he? I’m going to die anyways. Besides, who would he tattle to? Aunt Elle

wouldn’t care. I doubt she would even be sober enough to make a response. 

“Promise not to tell?” I asked like everybody did in third grade. He grinned

but nodded. “I was killing myself.” Then I looked away so that I didn’t have to see

his face, didn’t have to see the reaction. 

“You mean…to tell me…you were committing suicide?” His voice was

quiet but steady, usually not a good sign. The calm before the storm.  I sat there,

inspecting my fingernails. Was it so hard to believe that an unhappy girl would

commit suicide? I started chipping away my manicure. Aaron was staring at me

like I was the stupidest person in the world. For that expression, I might as well

have told him the world was going to die. In a different situation, I might've

laughed. Not now. 

"You gonna say something or what?" I asked. 

"That was stupid," he declared. I nodded, but not really in agreement.

More in Lemme process that for a minute. "Why?" 

"Nothing left to live for, I guess." All the reasons for suicide came together

in my head, but never had managed to make it out of my mouth. 

"Well, maybe I can change that."