There are a lot of ways to drown.
You can drown in your beer, in your sorrows, in bad atmosphere, in cheesy, bad-smelling cologne. You can drown without screaming, whispering, clawing at the sides of the boat, or even feeling the water.
You can drown just about anywhere. But the way that you can't breathe, the way that something, so dangerous, fills your lungs... that doesn't change.
So it's a Sunday afternoon, late in the day, when I can't breathe.
I don't know what's filling my lungs, but there's a hell of a lot of it. I think I might be the sight of Bobby, half undressed. It could be the way he smells, just out of the shower and standing in front of me in a towel and slippers, hair looking a lot darker than it should.
His eyes are looking a lot darker than they should, too. There's one thing for certain; I won't find a life preserver bobbing under his towel.
Or in that face, either.
So, his bedroom door shuts. I thrust out my arms, kick my legs off the carpet, and push my way to the kitchen. I wonder why, on saner days, I didn't fall in the water over someone more apt to see the depths.
But Bobby is Bobby. And there's no changing that.
In the kitchen, there's a meal going on. I move to sit down in my usual place, not realizing that-- oh, Bobby's chair is beside me.
I shuffle down, taking Sam's spot. When he comes in to eat, there's no words exchanged between us. He might be the side of the boat, he might be the oars. He might be the deck, or the planks. Or he might be just someone who is willing not to comment when I take his seat, in order to avoid swallowing more water from the man who isn't mine.
I swallow, forcing food down. It sloshes around in my stomach. I feel bloated, smell salt, and taste the sea.
Nope, I don't see anyone wearing any inflatable rafts here. I'll have to swim on my own.
When Bobby sits down, there are words, like fish, in the air. He speaks, then Scott speaks. Jean butts in, smiling. Silver apparitions of communication are all around us. I can almost see the bubbles.
This is so surreal. I feel the sinking.
This doesn't happen to normal people, I think.
This doesn't happen to normal people, and this doesn't happen to happy people, or balanced people, and if we'd known then what we knew now... well, that's the question, isn't it? I'm a gambling man. I think I would take the odds that say we would have gone into it still, eyes wide open.
We can see underwater, everything's just distorted.
And we're in it, to the full, eyes wide shut, too. Cause it's us, and it's different, and we're not normal people, we're sinking into this place beyond and above and special.
We're giving up everything else to search for that moment where we're really, honestly, special. And I think it's killing Bobby, day at a time. I can't stand that look he gets in his eyes when he sees everything behind what's in front of his face.
I'm afraid to point it out to him, what he can't seem to see for himself. Or maybe he does and is waiting for me to point it out for him. Or maybe he just wants me to talk to him and doesn't know how--
See, this kind of thinking is what always sends you up to the roof, Remy. Just stop it.
There are a hundred and one things Bobby Drake could be saying in his head when he looks at you across the dinner table. There are a hundred and one more that you could whisper back, but his eyes aren't giving any ground and the mashed potatoes don't give enough to start a real conversation.
So just ask for the potatoes, and keep your eyes on the white color of them, and don't look him in the face, whatever you do.
Just, don't.
I know why I don't want to look at Bobby Drake (when did he start having a first and last name, when was it this formal ever?) but I'm not going to even think it. Because if I think it, then that space I can just feel myself peering into will be real, it'll be there, and I'll have to take it as truth.
I'll find that reserve of fluid, and it'll pull me under. I can take it as just simple paranoia, right now.
Jean is quiet tonight, and that means that no one is really saying much of anything. She's worried about something-- poor Jean. She has to feel what we all feel.
I think at her, as loud as I can, a wordless apology. Either she doesn't hear it, or she doesn't want to hear it, because there's no warm reply, not even a lukewarm smile. I don't get even a look from anyone at the table except Bobby.
Bobby doesn't stop looking. Hank doesn't stop murmuring to him. Jean doesn't stop worrying. I don't stop--
I don't start anything. I don't want to start anything else, I think we've all got enough on our dinner plates with potatoes and peas and meatloaf. No one else here has the stomach for it.
I can do numb for now. I can do work for now. I can leave all this until after I've digested my meal.
The food's gone far too quickly. I wait until most people are gone from the table, and then help Stormy clean up. The water turns on, and my hands plunge into the water. I've never really liked washing dishes.
In the rushing noises the tap makes, I can hear the waves. I don't know when, exactly, I was thrown overboard, but it must have been ages ago. Bobby Drake, he's out there somewhere on an island.
I'm on the mainland, or maybe I'm the island. Either way, there are a hundred things I could write about, say to him, but there's one small problem. I'll don't think he can let me be the man to wash ashore on him. And I have my own obstacles. The saltwater, the sound, the screams of drowning fishermen--
I might be in the water, but all those things I should be saying to Bobby Drake, the man I can't let go of, are just more letters that will never swim.