Someone Willing to Stay

Ouija Board

"Oh my God it's cold, it's so cold." Mel shrieks as she resurfaces the water.
I laugh, looking at her as she swims around frantically to get warm.
"I thought I was going to die, in that moment, when we were falling," her voice trails off, "but then we didn't."
"We didn't." I confirm.
She smiles widely, "That was insane! I just jumped off of a cliff, Mason, I just jumped off of a cliff!"
Her childlike excitement makes me grin. She's spinning around in the water, swimming laps around me.
"I haven't gone swimming in years. This is amazing." She sighs.
I float in the water next to her. Listening to her giddy laughter and the splashes she makes when she goes underwater. You would think it's her first time swimming if she wasn't so skilled.
Suddenly, she splashes me and I sit up confused.
Mel points to a little trail on the side of the cliff that leads back up where we jumped from.
"You jerk, we could have gone down the trail!"
I splash her back and smirk, "But we jumped off a cliff. That's a way better mode of transportation."
She rolls her eyes and flicks water at me.
     Everything is so serene here, so picturesque. Untouched by the rest of the world.
     My brother brought me here on my first day back. He pushed me off the ledge, almost drowned me in the pool of water I'm swimming in now, and stole my clothes so I had to ride home wet with the air conditioning in the car on.
But it's my favorite spot.
"Mel," I say to her, "Come on, I wanna show you something."
She stops splashing around giddily and swims after me.
We're right by the waterfall, all the water is splashing in my face and the roar is louder than ever before.
I look at her and point underwater, "Go under it!" I yell.
She nods and ducks her head underwater, I follow suit.
I swim under the waterfall, feeling the pressure hitting my back as the water bears against me but I push through.
The calm after the storm. I found this by accident.
Behind the waterfall, there's a small cave carved into the cliff side from the erosion. It's quiet in here, although the water dripping from the stalactites on the ceiling echoes every time it hits the hard ground.
I climb up onto the cave floor and put my arm down so Mel can grab on and hoist herself up. Her stomach grazes the side of the rock and she hisses in pain.
"Are you okay?"
She shakes it off, "It's fine."
Mel looks around the dark area, it's not a deep tunnel, you can see the wall a couple hundred feet away where I carved my name with a pocket knife.
"It's so peaceful." She says quietly.
I reach out and stick my hand under the waterfall, feeling the water fish onto my hand and run back down my arm.
"Do you come here a lot?"
I nod, "Almost every day since I've been home. It's nice out here. I can think."
"I get it, it's your own hide away from the world. I'm glad you found somewhere other than your bedroom peeking through my window." She smirks.
I feel my face grow hot, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure, if you say so. Pervert."
I groan, "It's a force of habit. Remember when we would write notes and put them in our windows so we could talk?"
"Do you want to come over for lunch?" Mel recites with a small smile.
"Mom's making spaghetti." We say at the same time ending in a fit of laughter.
"You never spelled spaghetti right." I tease her.
She sits down next to me, "It was hard! At least I could say spaghetti."
"A lisp is not a laughing matter." I reprimand her and she snorts.
"A lithp?"
"Shut up."
We both laugh.
Today has been the best day I've had in years. I've been myself today.
Rob and David are great, and they're really good friends. But they're not Dylan, and they're most certainly not Mel.
No one can smile like Mel. Her laugh is unique and I've gotten to hear it today more than I have in the past few weeks. She knows my story. And I know hers.
"I missed this." I say suddenly.
Mel looks at me with one eyebrow raised, "Missed what?"
"You, this, us."
After a few minutes she sighs, "I did too."
     I see her hesitate for a second before she slowly reaches her arm out and grabs my arm. Her touch is gentle. She pulls my arm towards her and flips it over to reveal the tattoo I had gotten earlier.
     She focuses on it, tracing every line and curve with her eyes.
     "The D stands for a person doesn't it?" She asks.
     I look at her and nod.
     "They're important to you?" She assumes.
     I nod again.
     He was my best friend. The person I ran to when my Dad couldn't stand up on his own. The person who would hand me a baseball bat and drive me to the scrap lot to beat the crap out of some metal when I was falling apart.
     "What's their name?"
     I smile, "Dylan. Dylan Thomas. Two first names."
     "And you miss him?"
     She's so curious asking all of these questions to analyze my tattoo and get all of the unspoken answers.
     I haven't talked about him. Not to anyone. One of the most important people in my life, and I haven't said his name in three years.
      "I do a lot."
      "Don't go all soft in me now, Mason," she teases, trying to lighten the mood, "you keep in touch with him right?"
     We don't exactly have a ouija board.
     Shut up, smart ass.
     "I can't really do that." I chuckle out forcefully.
     Just tell her, rip off the bandaid. You need this.
     "Why not?" Mel asks.
     I take a breath and look at her, "He's dead."

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