Vacant (Empathy #3) (5 page)

IT’S TEN PM AND I’M pacing my room. I have too much energy to sleep but my mind can’t focus on homework. I keep thinking about Ryan. What’s he doing? Where does he live? Does he think about me? Argh, I’m driving myself insane. Maybe I should look for him, but where would I start? Dammit, I need to shut my brain off. I grab my swimsuit and towel and make my way to the campus pool. Surprisingly not many people use the pools at night and if they do they usually use the outdoor pool and then it’s only swim team members. I’m not on the team but I use the pool almost every night and have yet to be disturbed there. Most girls would find it eerie but for me it’s calming being encompassed by the cold force, free amongst the liquid depths.

It’s more of an urge now. I
need
to swim. When the water surrounds me and makes me light and free it’s like being on a cloud swirling with the air. I picture myself transparent like the water, fading more with every passing day until I become nothing. I let myself drop to the bottom of the pool, knowing how easy it would be to stay there, to leave the world I don’t fit into. I couldn’t do that to my parents, they would never recover. I’m not suicidal just indifferent these days, which is making me careless. Grief and loneliness turn quickly to anger, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth and dark thoughts in my head. How could he stay away for all this time, leaving me in limbo, not knowing if he’s out there and then getting someone else to deliver a note? What the hell was that? I deserve more than that after everything we went through. We’re the only people in the world who understand the other, yet he’s content to stay away from me and leave me to battle my way through the normality of everyday life. Screw that, screw him, screw everything. I rush to the surface and take a deep breath. After pushing my body to do more laps than I’m used to, I sigh knowing I’ve tired myself enough to sleep tonight. I swim to the edge of the pool and pull myself out of the water, grumbling when I hear a voice coming closer.

Hannah? No freaking way. Of all the people on this campus why did it have to be her?

Her footsteps falter when she sees me standing there in my one piece. Her eyes rake over me and a repugnant look pulls her lip into a sneer. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

I imagine punching her in the face for shock value but decide against it. “It’s a free pool, Hannah.”

I don’t have the patience to keep playing this game with her. She is stunning to look at and talented enough to get a scholarship so her insecurity and bitchtude is confusing and grating on my last nerve. I’m not her competition; I never encourage boys’ advances or try to stand out in class. I don’t swim to compete so she has no worries there. I’m just fighting through every day. I want to make it through each day without tearing her and everyone else to shreds. She makes the voices inside whisper to me; they want me to toughen up and indulge in the dark side I’m becoming more and more a part of.

“C
OME FIND ME IN THE DARK, CEREUS.”

“Only the swim team can use it during these hours. You shouldn’t be in here,” Hannah says.

“Well, I’m leaving so I won’t be.”

I brace for the shove I know she’s going to try and give me. A smirk appears on her face and her upper body tenses as she moves towards me. Her shoulder collides with mine but I’m solid, waiting for it which she didn’t expect, and her footing slips from under her. She goes over like a dead weight, her mouth opening in shock. I want to laugh at her arms flailing, reaching for me but only finding the air in front of me. The crunch as her head hits the tiled floor tightens my stomach muscles; she slips straight into the pool like an anchor is attached to her feet, pulling her under.

I stand over the edge with one hand on my hip, looking down as the water covers her, swallowing her up. She’s such an attention-seeking brat.

“Drama much, Hannah?” I ask as she fails to surface. If she thinks I’ll believe she’s drowning she has another think coming. No way would fate be this kind or cruel. If she’s out cold and dies, then why does it have to be with me here to witness it? But if she is truly drowning right in front of me, I have to save her, right? As the seconds pass I realize she can’t be faking it. A crimson circle begins forming next to the top of her head which is now bobbing, breaking the surface of the water. How hilarious. She tried to be a bitch and karma killed her. She’s drowning. Her lungs are filling with the water I was just swimming in; her organs struggling and closing down, her heartbeat diminishing. She’s going to fade into the afterlife right in front of me if I don’t reach out and save her.

“L
ET HER DIE, CEREUS.”

It’s like being in an alternate reality; the rest of the world becomes a grey fog closing in all around me, blanketing me in its shelter, in its haven, in its depravity. The only color that matters is her red blood
.

“I
T’S BEAUTIFUL.”

Ryan’s voice echoes through my head before Tom’s voice drags me from the comfort of the shadows.

“Hannah, you’d better be naked, baby!” His voice booms, bringing everything back into focus. My heart hammers in my chest and I drop to my knees and reach out for Hannah’s shoulders.

“What the fuck?” he bellows.

“She fell! I thought she was faking!”

“She’s bleeding! How can she fake that?”

Tom runs over and helps me drag her from the water. She weighs more than her petite frame implies, and her lips are turning blue. The reality of the situation penetrates my mind when he begins CPR. My legs feel a little weak. Hannah convulses and begins coughing and sputtering up water, and I’m a little disappointed to see life in her.

“Shit, you’re okay. You’re okay. Cereus, grab some towels,” he barks, making me jump. I walk on autopilot into the locker room. Without taking off my swimsuit or drying off, I slip into my sweats and tee and leave.

MY DOOR SWINGS OPEN. IT’S three am and Tom fills the doorframe. He doesn’t wait for an invitation; he strolls inside and slams the door shut. I must remember to lock that.

“Where did you go?”

I wasn’t sleeping but I rub my eyes as if I have been and get to my feet.

“Hey, I helped pull her out. I did my part.” I shrug and he laughs without humor.

“She nearly fucking died, Cereus! Where’s your humanity?”

Huh, good question.

“I must have left it in the corridor with all of Hannah’s bitchy comments.”

He sighs and rubs a hand over his head. “I get it, okay? She can be a fucking bitch but, Cereus, she was almost blue in that pool.”

Like I care. Like he freaking cares.

“Why aren’t you at the hospital then?”

“I came to get her some clothes. She wants to come home but they’re keeping her overnight.”

“So she’s waiting for you?”

“Yeah, I need to get back. She’s fragile right now and keeps crying; it really gave her a fright. She said it was your fault, by the way. She said you need to lose weight.” My mouth would be hanging open if I didn’t already expect her to still be the awful bitch she always was. I need to lose weight because she can’t knock me down? That’s priceless. I hate her and that’s something new for me. I dislike people in general but I’ve never really hated anyone before. She’s a horrible excuse for a person. I run and swim too much to be fat. My body looks and feels the best it has ever been, but superficial crap like that isn’t something that enters my mind. Hannah’s insecure and the way her boyfriend leers at me all the time tells me why. I hate weak women. She should leave the loser and go find a man who will love and worship just her. She’s an attractive girl, even if the inside is rotten to the core.

“I guess this will give her more reasons to blacken my name.” I sigh, throwing myself back on my bed with dramatic flair. I don’t want to give a shit what people think of me but it’s grinding on my nerves that some stupid hateful skank can alter someone’s life and college experience. If she’s doing this to me, she could be doing it to other girls; girls not as indifferent to what others think of them.

“Y
OU SHOULD HAVE HELD HER UNDER UNTIL SHE WAS NOTHING.”

Ryan’s voice plagues me. I inhale and exhale slowly, his voice comforting me, even if it is imaginary. I want to live inside my dreams when they’re of him, and they often are. Sometimes they’re so vivid I can almost smell his scent in the air. My eyes close and his face greets me behind my eyelids; his smirk, the dark abyss of his eyes beckoning me into them, his rough, strong hands touching my cheek and making my stomach fill with lightning bugs, accepting me for who I am. I know it’s dysfunctional. I’m not under any delusion that how I feel about Ryan doesn’t border on the obscene on too many levels to count but I feel it all the same. We’re made from the same soul, fractured and forced into two bodies, and mine craves his presence, his love and his touch. The realization makes my breath hitch. My mind never goes there. He’s older and related and it can never be that way with us. I’m all jumbled up inside from everything that’s happened tonight. Maybe I need to forget about it all. Maybe I need to experience that stuff with boys here; boys my own age. Sex is supposed to be intense and fulfilling. Could I go through life with Ryan but not have that part of things? Oh God, how wrong am I, thinking like this? He would freak out if he knew my forbidden thoughts. No, I’m just tired and confused and mixing up all my feelings.

I spring from the bed, making Tom jump. I’d forgotten he was still there. His eyes scan my face and then drop to survey my body again. I’ve never been interested in sex before this moment. This feeling humming inside me is a first and I want to explore it. I’ve kissed someone before but that’s the extent of my sexual experience. Pathetic really. Tom’s eyes focus on my nipples tenting my pyjama top. I’d showered and slipped into a shorts and tee set when I got back from the pool.

His cell shrills, highlighting the silence that has fallen between us.

He shakes his head, probably to clear it from lust if the glaze in his eyes and the erection in his shorts are any indication.

He swipes his thumb across the screen of his cell and brings it up to his ear, his eyes trained on me