Someone got it! Oh yay! I'm sitting here and grinning like an idiot at a glowing computer screen while I write these words, once again delighted by the random typings of a stranger I'll never see or never know but who I love because they read my silly little stories. Yeah, yeah, I know it's simple and silly and I'm a total goof, but to make my ranting clear, somebody got my little hidden musical reference! Star2234, you have utterly made my night! And because you have put me in such a lovely mood, I think I am going to finish writing this chapter tonight instead of just adding a paragraph or two. But here is where it gets tricky though, because everything up to this has pretty much been fluff, and now I'm actually going to try my hand at some real writing. Cross your fingers for me please, cause I have the feeling I am going to need some serious luck.
Disclaimer: Still not mine, but i'll tell ya again.
I would love it if you enjoyed this!
I'm not a liar.
Please don't think that about me. I know that's what it may seem like at the moment, like I am this incredibly manipulative bitch who lives inside a fairytale world of her own elaborately concocted falsehood, suckering those around her inside of it with her. But honestly that just isn't the case. I know that my word isn't worth much at this point, but I really did wander through the neighborhood on my way home from group. I really did stumble onto the pool and ask the neighbors about that stupid little fake fundraiser. I really did start heading off after group with the intentions of swimming alone...at least for a while.
But then it happened, he happened, and it all changed. One night that man showed up.
You think you have a sense about these things, you think that somehow, someway you would know if there were someone only a few feet behind you, especially in the absolute stillness of the night air. You think so, or at least I did, but you don't. I was lost in my own little world and completely oblivious to the presence seated silently in the shadows, oblivious to the man who would make me wish I had never crossed over his threshold. I don't have any idea how long he had been there for, but it wasn't until I was ready to leave and in the process of hoisting myself over the side that I saw him. With all of my weight resting on my arms as I attempted to pull myself up from out of the water, my elbows bucked once I caught sight of this man, sitting calmly in an expensive lawn chair under the illusion of shadows surrounding his mansion.
And yes, I said his threshold, and his mansion, because the man who had called my name tonight was the was the owner of the home on which I was trespassing, the proprietor of the pool which I had grown accustomed to calling my own. There wasn't anything particularly portentous about his immediate presence, he was exactly the kind of man you would expect to live in this kind of neighborhood. He was a businessman in his late thirties, with a wife and a child spending the summer with relatives in the states, who frequently came back to Toronto in order to do a bit of work for his office. It was on one of these visits that he happened across me on his property, a teenage girl stripped to wet undergarments alone in his pool.
I'm not a whore.
Please don't think that about me. I know it must seem dirty, that there must be something going on between us for him to allow me to keep coming back, and for me to actually do so, but that simply isn't the case. He has never laid a hand on me, not once in all the nights he has sat and watched me. Because that's all he does, just sits and watches. I know, it's creepy and disgusting and any girl with half a brain cell should run in the opposite direction from any older man who gets off by watching her swim in her underwear. I know all this, and the knowledge used to gnaw at me endlessly whenever I would show up at his house in the middle of the night. But still I would show up. God, who knows why I did it, maybe I was scared of what he might do if I stopped, maybe I was flattered that someone thought I was nice to look at, or maybe I just couldn't stand the thought of living again without the water. I don't know I don't know I don't know.
Or maybe I do. Maybe I do but I just don't want to think about it, maybe I just don't want to think about anything besides the cool rush of water against my skin, the muted slap of waves against tiles, the moonlight bouncing off of an ever-changing surface. Maybe I don't want to think about boys that leave, or dad that might not come home, or moms that act like children, or best friends that can't seem to think about me.
Maybe.
He didn't move an inch when my arms gave out from under me and when I fell back into the water with a seemingly deafening splash. Heart racing, I sputtered and flailed around in terror until I had righted myself as soon as possible, feeling horribly vulnerable and exposed in my discombobulated condition. Then, when I was able to stand and could look around me, he was gone. I was sure he had retreated into his house, but I was by no means going to investigate this assumption, and quickly shot out of the gate towards home. I didn't go back there for the remainder of the week, scared to death of the consequences my actions might hold in store for me, but at the same time missing the place dreadfully. Finally, I snuck back, emboldened by the lack of his presence when I arrived, but still careful to stick close to the edges of the pool for a swift route of escape. But then again, when I was leaving he was there, watching me intently. This time he spoke, only to ask one thing, my name. I answered truthfully, giving him my first, and not inquiring of his own. At this he smiled sadly, turned and made his way back towards the direction from which he had come. I stood in a sort of daze for a moment or two, but when my senses returned I also made my way home.
It was then that I would come back.
And I did, over and over again in the weeks that drug on before he left to rejoin his family, though never did I establish any sense of ease or comfort with him. We spoke sparingly, and even then he was the only one to initiate such conversation. I answered with nods when I could, and simple "yes's" and "no's" as much as possible; I did not feel any of his need to spare our personal lives with each other. This disappointed him I could tell, but I did not feel any sympathy towards him. He intrigued me in a strange, frightening way, in a way that made my heart pound and my chest tighten on the path to the water's edge, but still, even this did nothing to satiate the anxious gnawing that ate away at me whenever I saw him.
Then he left, and I felt the gnawing subside a bit.
Then Craig showed up, and the gnawing was gradually forgotten, replaced by the giddy anticipation of meeting a boy at the pool who wasn't old and married and creepy as hell. With Craig I had managed to push away the inevitable fact that the man was coming back, that it was in fact his home and the reasons he allowed me to frequent it wouldn't work for Craig as well.
The last time that I had seen him had started out like all the others. He was not anywhere to be seen when I arrived, but sometime during my swim he emerged from the darkness to watch me. At first I had tried to look for him, keeping an eye trained in the direction of the pool door to be guarded against his entrance, but I never caught him. In the second, the instant that my gaze departed he would appear, silent and stealthy as a serpent, and just as ominous. But this time he left his seat, moving with that same surreptitiousness so that he was within a breath of me once I had climbed out of the water.
I had never been so close to him, and it was with everything in me that I wanted to push him away violently and make a break for the gate, but I didn't. Instead I stood stock-still and waited for him to make the first move, hoping fanatically that he would simply turn and walk away, satisfied with our momentary closeness. Then he opened his mouth to speak, his words only to tell me that he was going back to his family for a month, but that I was welcome to visit upon his absence. When he had grown quiet once more, he raised a hand as if to stroke my cheek, but thankfully thought better of it and lowered it slowly. For this, I was grateful, and closed my eyes in relief. Upon opening them, I expected him to be gone, but to my surprise and somewhat disgust, he stood planted before me just the same. His lips had curled into a repulsive smirk, as he had taken my reaction to be one of reverie instead of relief. He started at me for a moment or two longer, before finally turning to leave.
That night, I prayed for a plane crash.
So this might be getting towards the end, I haven't decided yet...
