Say it （or. don’t）
Say it (or... don’t)
Niall
THE WATER ISN'T blue.
I’m trying the best that I can, but I can’t use my legs, or my arms. Every time I try to move them, it’s like I’m pulling myself deeper down and end up not going anywhere.
I can see the surface, see beyond it to the sky. But no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get myself to move. My lungs burn, my throat aches, my limbs are leaden. I’m stuck in the middle of the water—not floating, not even sinking—just suspended in agony.
I can’t save myself—I’m trying, but I can’t.
I can’t breathe.
I’m going to drown.
Then, like lightning, something breaks through the surface. Hands. Hands reaching for me, fingers spread wide, palms slick with water. I try to lift my arms—try to push myself up—but I can’t. I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t scream.
I’m trying, can’t you see I’m trying.
And then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the hands are gone.
No, no, no.
The water closes over them.
I wake up gasping for the air I was being denied in the water (water that wasn’t real), sweat-soaked sheets twisting around my legs when I try to move.
I panic for a moment before I realize what the source is, and quickly pull all the covers off my body so that nothing’s touching me and making me feel held down.
The clock on my bedside table reads 3:07 AM.
My bedroom is dark, draped in shadows that shift like tide pools.
I look over at the end of the bed, half expecting to see the water rising over the floorboards.
Countless times I think I’ve woken up from a dream only to realize I’ve just shifted gears into another one, making me further question my grasp on reality.
But there’s nothing there but my football boots, tossed in the corner, caked in the drying mud of the game we should have won. A game I let slip through my fingers.
I roll onto my side, pressing my face into my pillow, fingers digging into the mattress.
I don’t know how much time passes before I finally throw the sheets off, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. The wooden floor is cold under my bare feet. I stand slowly, testing my weight, gripping the bedpost until I’m sure I won’t collapse. The knee’s a little better now.
The whole house is silent. I’m no stranger to it, I’m constantly waking up in the night from yet another dream of drowning. It’s like my brain needs to torture me in every possible way.
Why can’t I have just one repeating bad dream like a normal person? Why do they always have to be different?
Even though I was underwater in my dream, my throat feels like sandpaper and I need something to drink. Probably a cold glass of water.
It’s fucked up—that people need water to survive, but then water can turn around and kill you for fun. It doesn’t need you to live, but you need it. And it’s like it knows, and uses that against you, as if water is some kind of predator.
The deadliest.
I decide I’ve lost my mind and descend the stairs in the darkness.
I find a glass in the cupboard, filling it at the sink, pressing the cool metal of the faucet against my palm. The water is clear, not blue. Not endless. Not drowning me.
I hear a sound behind me and turn sharply, water sloshing over the rim of the glass and spilling onto my hand.
Molly stands in the doorway, her hair loose around her shoulders, tangled from sleep. She’s wearing a large shirt as a nightgown, the hem of it brushing her thighs and the fabric slipping slightly off one shoulder. Neither of us speaks for a long moment, the air between us thick and charged.
Like the moment before lighting strikes.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she finally asks, her voice hushed and rough with sleep.
I shake my head, setting my glass down on the counter. “Bad dream.”
“Same.” She nods, stepping further into the kitchen. She has to reach past me for a glass, causing her hip to brush against mine. The contact sends an electric current rushing through me.
“Molly,” I start, then stop. Her name tastes strange on my tongue for some reason, even though I’ve probably said it fifty times, maybe more, since meeting her.
She turns to look at me, hands suspended mid filling her glass. “Hmm?”
“About earlier—”
“No, I’m sorry,” she cuts in, not watching the sink as her glass fills up. “I shouldn’t have pushed. It wasn’t my place.”
She shouldn’t be sorry. I was the one who snapped at her, angry over a litany of things.
Running into Jeremy Grigson off the pitch, losing the game, the fact that she was right in everything she was saying.
I should tell somebody about my injury, but I won’t.
I hadn’t even meant to tell her, it just came out.
That, was a side effect of talking to Molly Lockhart. She made my lips loose and my mind numb. But the anger? Well, I could draw that all back to the drink I’d taken from a hidden bottle in my room as soon as we’d gotten home, under the pretense of dropping my gear bag in my room.
And then I went into the basement after fighting with her and drank some more.
I run a hand through my hair. I decide the best apology is to be honest with her. Well, partially. “It’s alright, Mol. Nothing you said was untrue.”
The glass is nearly full. “Still I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay. I know.”
The water spills over the glass, running over the side and her fingers, and she quickly turns back to shut it off.
The dream lingers in the back of my mind—the water, the hands reaching for me. Hands that I can’t grab onto, no matter how hard I try.
Molly is drying her hands and the side of her glass on a tea towel, and I can’t tear my eyes away.
The thought that comes is unbidden. I want to pull her into me. To kiss her. It’s less of a want and more of an ache. My gaze drops to her mouth, the soft curve of her bottom lip. She’s close enough that I could close the distance in half a second.
But I don’t. I don’t move.
“I forgive you if you forgive me,” I say instead of giving into the temptation.
I’m rewarded with a smile that paints those pretty lips I’m imagining on mine. “It’s a deal.”
I step back from her, nodding. “Goodnight, Molly.”
She hesitates, her lips parting like she wants to say something more. Then she returns my nod. “Goodnight, Niall.”