Head Underwater

Overflow

        I felt a hurricane of emotion sweep over me. I was engulfed in confusion and depression at the same time.

        "He drowned? Are you sure?" I asked, desperately hoping it was not true.

          "Yes," His voice seemed tired and heavy. He lowered his eyes and folded his hands together. 

         The pain from my brother's death seemed to weigh a million tons and my dad was carrying it all by himself. We spend about five minutes sitting in silence. I try to open my mouth to say something but I know nothing I say will help. It would all just be me attempting to make him feel better. All that would come out would be empty words with empty meanings meant to put a band-aid over a permanent laceration. 

         "I'm really sorry Dad," I say. 

         There it is again. Sugar words. Sweet chitchat that was meant to fix the unfixable.  

        "Don't worry about it. It was an accident, " my Dad replies "and besides, I still got you as my son."

          He smiles weakly and turns toward the T.V. to distract himself. We sit and stare at the T.V. blankly. I can't stand just sitting there so I rush upstairs to think. I take short, deep breaths. My heart is pounding. I run to my computer. My fingers smash into the keyboard as I type:

         Seven-year-old Boy dies in accident in water...

         Child drowns in small town...

          I come across an article.

          Seven-Year-old Drowns in Lake near Home

       I click on the link. I squint my eyes and search for the date. June 25, 2005. I start to remember small details of that week. 

         It was humid. I sat on the porch with scraped up knees and a torn up shirt. That same day I fell off my bike. I remember police sirens and sobbing. My Mom was crying and shrieking.  I asked where Josh was but no one answered with the truth. "He went to school," "He's sleeping be quiet,". Nobody had directly told me but even at that age I still figured out that he wasn't coming back. 

     This is it. This is the article. I begin to read it. 

                                         Seven Year Old Drowns in Lake Near Home 

                                                    Written by: Jack Gilman

      JUNE 25, 2008--Tragedy strikes the whole town when seven-year-old Josh Wilson died last Thursday on the 23rd. He had drowned in a lake less than two miles away from his house. The young boy went outside to play in the lake. His body was found by his mother, Jane Wilson. It was an enormous shock to the community as a whole.  "It's such a tragedy to hear about a kid dying ya know," says Ms. Gray, a schoolteacher who had taught Josh "He was such a nice, young boy." Josh was also able to swim which led to the suspicion that it was not an accident. "I just think that it's sort of strange that a seven-year-old who knew how to swim just drowned," Wilson's neighbor Tom Finn, remarks. The police did not make any comments on the child's death. 

     I stare blankly at the screen. It was not an accident, it was not an accident.  This can not be real. I rub my eyes. I flip through the phone book and find Jack Gilman's number. My shaky hand presses the digits on my phone. A deep, tired voice answers. 

"Hello? Who's this?"

"Uh hello I am doing some research about uh shocking news stories in this town," I choke out, "You wrote about Josh Wilson's death right?"

There is a long pause. "Sorry can't do it," he blurts out.

"Please," I beg "It's for a big research project for the college I go to." I knew it was a lie but I needed more information.

"Okay," he says with hesitation. "Meet me at the diner on the edge of town at noon tomorrow."

He gives me the address and hangs up. What have I gotten myself into?

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Hello, everyone!

       Thanks for reading. I am going to make the chapters a lot longer from now on. I wasn't able to update the last couple of week because of finals but, I will be updating more often now. Make sure to vote/follow/recommend this book. Thanks.

-Laura