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Chapter II: Drowning
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Frankie was feeling pretty good later that night. What guy wouldn't trudging around six girls and a beer in hand all night. He was the life of the party. It came easy to him because it was all about kicking the crap in your life in the back of your mind and giving way to what ever you chose. Some people called it a lack of self-control, he could careless what some people thought. But at one point in the night he found himself away from the blaring noise of the party, alone at the edge of the lake.
He gulped down the beer he held while gazing across the dark lake. He tried to talk himself to believing the summer was starting off great. Call him a fool. He gulped down on more beer wanting to forget his troubles which awaited him back home. Tonight his old man had no one to beat the living daylights out of and bark at for being a worthless excuse for a son. Tonight his mother wouldn't come back home to their cramped apartment too strung up to even make it into bed before her nightly custom of puking on the floor. He was sure his parents were sitting around a table full of real homemade food rather than instant noodle and smiling into each other's eyes hoping all was well with their son. He was sure.
But the beer wasn't accomplishing much as he plopped it to his lips, it only made him drunk--drunker. The lake looked good right about then. He wanted to go swimming and that beat sitting around thinking about a fantasy life. He was captain of the swimming team for a reason. He stood up from the ground and tossed the empty can of beer to his side. After he stripped off his tee and stepped out of his flip-flops he ran like a mad man into the blistering water. It felt great. Perfectly bone-chilling to cool off his flaming head.
He loved swimming. It took him away from the beauties in his life. His muscles tighten at the contact of the water before he could stretch and turn to float on his back. What happened next was complete mystery for him. One minute he was relaxing as he floated on the water watching the night sky. Next everything was dark and a delicate, yet aggressive pressure was being vigorously applied to his chest. Slowly the sound of his surrounding came back to his ears. He heard the waves of the water moving back and forth as peaceful as before. Only he didn't feel that he was in the water anymore. He was lying on a hard, patchy surface. There were cracks snapping up above him, and finally the soft, panic heaving of a breathless person came to him. Suddenly he realized his eyes were shut closed and the uncomfortable texture of something groggy and wet was climbing up his lungs.
Frankie's eyes split open as warm water escaped his lungs and burst out of his mouth and nose. He shot up in a frenzy, coughing the rest of the liquid out. His head was pouncing as if someone had been pounding it with a hammer. He grabbed it bitterly confused and laid eyes on a splitting red fire light up in the sky and then disappear. Firework? That explained the cracking noise he had heard. But then he caught sight of her.
She was drench and breathing uncommonly hard. Her wet t-shirt and long hair stuck to her thin body. At first he thought he was in some dream, but then hard coughs attacked him pulling more water out of his lungs. Gradually he realized he had been drowning. The captain of the swimming team and he had been drowning? Could anything be more hilarious than that? He got a yes to that question when he considered the fact that some girl had saved him. He peered back at the girl to really look at her again and was taken by surprise.
Her already fair pallor turned ghostly white underneath Frankie's bewildered eyes. It was the odd creature he had seen at the parking lot earlier that day. She looked more fearful in that moment than before and was stubbornly yanking at something beside him. Frankie looked down and saw that he sat partially on her soaked skirt. He quickly lifted his leg and the skirt pulled from under him. As soon as she was free the girl quickly rushed up to stand. Before he could do much she swept around and scurried like a little squire into the dark night.
"Hey!" Frankie yelled after her.
He popped up woozily on his feet and tried to follow her. No one had ever done for him what that girl had. No one had ever shocked him in the way he was shocked by her gaze on his face.
"Wait a sec," he shouted, but all his energy was absorbed and he was still drunk.
He stopped short from his chase when the girl vanished behind the woods far off in the distance. What had happened? How did he drown? He stumbled to the ground and started heaving. His eyes felt so heavy he wanted to sleep and before he knew it, he was. One question hunted his mind whilst he slept.
Why can't I forget her face?
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A/N: short, I know. Just wondering whether to keep going in case there's one person out there who wants to find out what happens. We'll see.