Chapter 4
Graham regained consciousness as sunlight burned his eyelids.
He squinted into a pale blue emptiness above him, his mind struggling to process: sky, not ceiling.
A rigid surface dug into his spine. The gentle rocking underneath finally registered—he was lying in the rowboat, its hull partially dragged onto the lakeshore.
The moment Graham leaned forward, a blinding pain stabbed through his head like someone had driven an ice pick between his eyes.
His vision swam, stomach heaving as bile surged up his throat.
He managed to drag himself to the edge of the boat before a violent stream of sour beer and lake water erupted from him, splattering onto the pebbled shore in a steaming puddle.
He hung there, knuckles white against the weathered gunwale, chest heaving as his stomach contracted, each spasm producing nothing but thin strings of saliva that dangled from his clammy lips.
He coughed wetly, the sound echoing across the still water, then spat a final glob of bitterness and wiped his mouth with the back of a trembling hand.
Graham's stomach heaved. “I'm never drinking again,” he mumbled, the words scraping his cotton-dry throat as he crawled awkwardly from the boat.
His palms pressed into the damp pebbles, sharp edges digging into his flesh as he collapsed onto his hands and knees.
The world tilted and spun, each throb behind his temples keeping time with his racing pulse.
Sunlight stabbed his bloodshot eyes, intensifying the pounding against his skull.
He wondered if he would have to crawl the entire fifty yards up to the cabin, because walking seemed as impossible as scaling Everest right now.
Graham raised his head as he sat back on his heels, swaying like a sapling in a breeze, his eyes drawn to the lake—a mirror of flawless blue glass, calm and serene, not a single ripple disturbing its innocent surface.
His memory of last night flickered like a damaged film reel—bright flashes punctuated by periods of darkness.
He recalled the wooden oars creaking against the rowlocks as he paddled out onto the glassy lake, the way his grandfather's ashes had billowed like a pale cloud beneath the water's surface, and the bitter alcohol sliding down his throat, bottle after bottle, until the stars blurred overhead.
Typically, his limit was two beers, their bitter foam leaving a film on his tongue that he secretly hated; he'd never been much of a drinker, even when hanging out with friends who had been sneaking warm, skunky cans from their fathers' refrigerators since middle school. By eighteen, they could pound six-packs without flinching while Graham nursed a single bottle, pretending to enjoy the acrid taste that made his nose wrinkle involuntarily. Yet he’d forced it down anyway, fingers white-knuckled around red Solo cups at parties, desperate to be seen as “one of the guys.”
The excessive drinking last night made more sense to him now; the alcohol had been a warm blanket thrown over the rawness of his grief.
Each bitter swallow had temporarily filled the emptiness with liquid courage, dulling the edges of a pain too deep to face sober.
“Smooth move, dumbass,” he mumbled, pressing his fingertips against eyelids that felt like they'd been scrubbed with sandpaper.
His skull throbbed with each heartbeat, a relentless hammer striking an anvil directly behind his temples. “You almost drowned.”
He remembered falling into the water—the violent bubbling around his ears as he plunged beneath the surface—but couldn't recall how it happened, other than him being stupidly, recklessly drunk.
Something was in the water.
Graham pressed his palm against his throbbing temple, fingers digging into his scalp as he racked his brain for a coherent memory.
The fragments that surfaced were kaleidoscopic flashes of slick movement beneath the water's surface, a sensation of being enveloped, held.
But these images tangled with the dream's visceral details until he couldn't separate reality from fantasy.
He shivered as a remnant of the eroticism lingered in his system like an electric current, a phantom touch that made his groin tighten involuntarily, disturbing him in ways he wasn't ready to examine.
Where the hell had that dream come from? Never in his life had he dreamed of getting jerked off by a…
Graham shook his head, the motion sending daggers of pain ricocheting inside his skull.
He cleared his throat, tasting bile and lake water.
His bloodshot eyes fixed on the glassy surface of the lake, searching for any ripple, any sign of disturbance.
The Lochlan book with its faded illustrations of tentacled creatures—that had to be it.
Those images, swimming in a belly full of cheap beer, had birthed the dream.
Nothing more. Not some twisted desire he'd been harboring all along.
Graham's jaw clenched as he refused to acknowledge how his body still hummed with the aftershocks of what was, undeniably, the most intense wet dream he'd ever experienced.
With trembling arms, he pushed himself up from the pebbled shore, his soaked clothes clinging uncomfortably to his skin.
The book. He turned back to the boat; it wasn’t there.
The rowboat had flipped over in the lake.
No…
Graham's throat tightened when he saw the storybook lying open at the water's edge, its once-vibrant pages now swollen and bleeding watercolors onto the pebbles.
“Fuck...” He stumbled forward, the world tilting with each step, and collapsed to his knees beside it.
His trembling fingers lifted the sodden mass, paper pulp falling apart at his touch.
Water dripped between his fingers as the binding tore, releasing a damp smell of ruined ink and memories.
“No... no... goddammit.” His head drooped, bile rising in his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut against the hot tears threatening to spill.
The weight of the book felt impossibly heavy in his hands.
Why the fuck did you take it out on the water?
He sat hunched over, the ruined storybook pressed against his thighs, its waterlogged pages seeping color onto his jeans.
His throat knotted as he traced the faded illustration with one finger.
This had been his favorite Lochlan story…
his grandfather’s, too. Now it was dissolving between his fingers, another piece of his grandpa slipping away.
Graham sniffed wetly and pushed himself upright, swaying slightly.
Twenty feet away, the blue-and-white Coleman cooler bobbed in the shallows like a buoy, half-submerged among the cattails and lily pads.
Aluminum beer cans glinted in the morning sun, scattered around it like metallic fish.
He placed the soggy book on a flat rock, wincing as more pages peeled away, then waded into the water.
The lake bottom sucked at his shoes with each step.
When he reached the cooler, he plucked each can from the water, droplets cascading from their hollow insides as he tossed them into the cooler with hollow clinks.
Back on shore, he squinted at the rowboat, his brow furrowing into deep grooves. The wooden hull sat perfectly upright on the pebbled beach, its weathered planks bone-dry above the waterline.
How the hell had he managed to flip it back over, haul his drunken ass inside, and navigate to shore?
The memory was a black hole in his mind.
The oars were nowhere in sight—vanished as completely as his recollection.
The mystery tickled the back of his brain, but each pulse of his hangover drove railroad spikes deeper into his temples.
Graham abandoned the puzzle and trudged toward the cabin, the cooler handle cutting into his palm, the waterlogged storybook leaving dark stains on his shirt where he clutched it against his chest.
He abandoned the cooler and ruined book on the weathered porch planks and went inside, peeling off his damp clothes that reeked of algae and beer.
His fingers trembled as he pulled a faded Nirvana T-shirt over his clammy skin and stepped into clean boxer briefs and jeans.
The cabin's musty air clung to his skin while his hollow stomach twisted with hunger, yet the mere thought of food sent acid burning up his throat.
The previous night's fragments—the ashes dispersing like smoke underwater, the mysterious movement beneath the surface—swirled behind his bloodshot eyes.
He fumbled through his bag for ibuprofen, dry-swallowing three tablets before collapsing onto the sagging mattress that still held the ghost of his grandfather's impression.
The quilted comforter enveloped him as consciousness slipped away almost immediately.
Dreams flooded his sleep with images of iridescent blue-green tentacles wrapping around his torso, thighs, and ankles—pulling him deeper into the dark depths of the lake.
The water pressure should have crushed his lungs, yet he breathed easily, feeling not panic but a narcotic calm that spread through his limbs like warm honey.
The slick tendrils coiled and uncoiled against his goosebumps, leaving trails of tingling heat wherever they touched.
Each tendril's underside was lined with hundreds of dime-sized suckers that pulsed against him—tasting, exploring, and memorizing every contour of his body with reverent curiosity.