Cursed Waters

19

UPDATED LOL

Sam

How did I end up here?

I stood on Brandon's porch, my arms crossed over my chest as I stared dully at the street. I could hear kids playing farther down the road — giggling, their voices high and excited as they chased each other across lawns, their parents watching from their open front doors. There were a few shrieks mixed in as the kids poked at the dead fish still rotting in the street. 

Just a few weeks ago, I'd been sitting in English on the last day of school, dreaming of a future where Millie Clearwater would actually acknowledge my existence for more than a few moments, and now I was cursed. Cursed.

Things like this weren't so supposed to happen in the real world. I was supposed to go to college at the end of the summer. I was supposed to play soccer, I was supposed to go to parties. I was supposed to meet a girl and fall in love and have sex and get married. I wasn't supposed to die before the summer was even over.

But that's exactly where I was — standing on the edge of everything, waiting for one hard gust to send me over the edge.

I didn't want to hate Millie for this, but I was having a hard time with that. This was her curse, and she'd somehow managed to transfer it to me, and was going to get me killed.

Behind me, Brandon's front door blew open. It hung open and empty for only a moment before Brandon charged through it. His face was red and his jaw was tight, his shoulders hunched as he stormed across his lawn.

Millie came stumbling out of the house seconds later. "Hey! Jackass!" She yelled, brushing by me. "Get back here! Don't fucking walk away from me."

I was momentarily frozen. I'd been annoyed when Bridget had sent me out of the house after Brandon, and then beyond pissed when he'd went into the house a few minutes after I found him, forcing me to stay outside.

What was I supposed to do? Trail after Millie and Brandon like a sad puppy, when they were clearly keeping secrets from me?

Before I had much time to think about it, Bridget came out of the house, too, looking pensive.

"What's going on?" I asked her.

She shook her head and didn't reply.

Brandon spun around the second he got to the street and jabbed his finger at Millie. "You seriously have the audacity to yell at me right now? Really? This is all your fault, Millie. You're the one that's cursed. You're the reason Sam is going to die. And you're mad at me?"

"Whoa," I said as I stepped off the porch. I'd just been thinking the same thing, but hearing it come from Brandon's mouth sounded wrong. "Dude. You have to chill. Don't yell at her."

Millie laughed, ignoring what I said entirely. "You think this is all my fault? Yeah, alright, okay, blame me. Yes, I messed up. I involved Sam in this when I shouldn't have. But this is also your fault, Brandon. Don't you dare try and pretend you didn't have a hand in this."

"What?" I walked toward them. "What are you talking about? Millie?"

She turned to face me quickly, her eyes wet. I stepped back, surprised. Millie was — crying?

"You want to know the truth, don't you, Sam? That's what you keep saying. You want the truth. Right? Right?" I nodded quickly, disturbed by the wild pitch of her voice. "Well, here's the truth. Your best friends family is the whole fucking reason this happened. His family is the one that cursed mine. His family started this. And guess what? He knew this whole fucking time! He's always known the truth about the curse, and even though he could've told me, could've stopped this from happening, he didn't. He kept it to himself and now we're both going to die."

Brandon stepped toward Millie. "Don't tell him that without telling him the whole truth."

"The whole truth?" She practically screamed. I'd never seen her so . . . not put together. It was like watching her come apart at the seams. "The whole truth is that I've always thought the curse was about falling in love, Sam. My entire life, I never let myself love anyone because I was sure that I would kill them. But the whole truth is that the curse was never about love. It was about pure happiness. The second I felt it, boom — I was done with." She looked at me. "Brandon knew that, and he didn't warn me. If he had — maybe . . ." She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence, but I knew what she was saying.

Slowly, I looked at my best friend. He stared back at me, his expression unreadable. "Dude? Is this true?"

Brandon's chin trembled slightly. "It's not like that. I knew about it but —"

"But what?" I interrupted him. "Why didn't you tell her? Try and help her?"

Brandon looked at me helplessly. "What did you expect me to do? I couldn't just walk up to her and tell her that the second she was happy, the curse would kill her! That wouldn't have helped her. One day, she was going to be truly happy, and that was that. That was the end." He paused and looked at the ground. "But Sam, you know that if I knew it would ever involve you —"

"Then you would've helped her?" I cut him off and shook my head. "That doesn't make it okay. It shouldn't matter that this happened to me, too. Didn't you want to help her?"

"He never wanted to help me," Millie said, crossing her arms over her chest. The tears in her eyes were making silent tracks down her cheeks. "He still doesn't want to. He can break the curse, but he won't."

"You want my help?" Brandon snarled, turning on Millie. He advanced on her quickly and she stood her ground, tilting her chin up at him haughtily. "You keep saying you want my help, but you don't even know what it would take to break the curse. You think you know everything, but you don't. You don't know anything."

"Then tell me," she whispered, and I barely heard her. She stepped closer to him until their chests were brushing, and a weird sense of déjà vu flashed through me. I hadn't seen this before — I couldn't have. But why did this feel so familiar? "Tell me what we have to do. I will do anything."

He stared into her eyes, and I glanced at Bridget, confused. What was happening? And why did I feel like this had happened before? She was already looking at me, a contemplative expression on her face.

"Anything?" He asked in a low voice. She nodded, her tears suddenly gone. She looked defeated, but strong. "Even kill someone?"