Chapter 2
Cooper
Two weeks earlier.
Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning.
Not thrashing. Or screaming.
Just trapped in a glass cage, while the water climbs. It slowly rises inch by inch, first to my knees, then I feel it seep into my underwear. Then the liquid begins to fill my lungs, displacing the air that should be there.
I don’t bother taking a last breath of air. What would be the point?
Most people would panic at the dream, but it is something entirely different to me.
I embrace the element.
I embrace the clarity it offers.
Because the moment the water rises over my head… everything goes quiet. The noise shuts off. It’s a moment of reflection to realize that everything we do is pointless, that there is no meaning to anything but a rat race to certain death.
Wouldn’t it be gratifying to know that you don’t have to fake it any longer?
That you don’t have to pretend to be the fake Cooper Larson with a beaming fake-ass smile.
To be relieved of the constant pressure swarming around to be good.
To be kind.
To be what my parents expect of me.
To try and live up to what my brother should have been.
It’s a dream to stop pretending that I’m not exhausted. That I’m not bored of life.
Do I have an excuse?
Sort of, I guess. But does anyone really need one to tap out in life?
Is it depression? Quite possibly, but seeing a shrink isn’t going to make my sick desires shrivel away into the nether. Medication isn’t going to fix my fucked-up brain.
Is it wrong to crave relief?
I’m not suicidal.
I’m just… done pretending that this life thrills me.
I’m done pretending that I’ll ever be half of what Carson was.
He should have been the survivor.
Not me.
Carson was the one who wanted to live and experience life.
He had a future that didn't depend on other people's expectations of him.
He was going to be a structural engineer.
Create bridges that would outlast both of us.
He had a girlfriend who loved him, friends who didn't see him as just the blonde, funny one.
I'm a shadow of him. Sure I'm smart, but that doesn't mean I want to live. But maybe if I save enough people, the karmic balance of the universe might forgive me if I do something bad. If my head doesn't shut up.
The guilt is never ending, you know? A cold, lead weight that drags me down.
Every time my mom forces a smile, every time my dad looks at me, I feel it.
They look at me and they see the wrong son.
I look in the mirror and I see the same disappointment.
I stole his air. I stole his life. And I'm wasting it in libraries.
So, yeah. He should have been the one to walk away from that car. I was just the one who got lucky. The universe likes to play cruel games with fucked up people.
“Hey, no napping pencil shit. We have anatomy to memorize,” Ava orders, flipping her pen across my forehead.
“Ughhhhh, thank you so much, dear best friend,” I groan, blinking my eyes awake. They were enjoying the mercy from my luminescent laptop screen, but my first midterm is next week, and I can’t fall behind my study schedule. Only one-thousand more flashcards to go…
Click. Click. Click. Click.
Ulna. Radius. Tibia. Tarsus.
The guy two chairs down from me is snoring loud enough to saw down a forest. Maybe another powernap wouldn’t be too bad, a little doze into dreamland…
…then I can tell my brother that I’m sorry.
I should have been in his seat.
I have had this dream thousands of times in the ten years since it happened. Sometimes I’m able to convince myself that it’s real—that I finally get to switch places. That it will finally be over.
But it never is.
Not yet.
I drag my groggy brain back to the present, cracking my neck in a circle like I can somehow banish the dream from ever appearing again. My hand grabs the pre-workout drink from my bag. It might be my fourth one of the day, but I do plenty of cardio, so that cancels it out, right?
My lips meet the tip of the bottle, wrapping around the rim, inhaling the carbonized goodness, like it's actually going to keep me awake.
Probably not, but the artificial blue raspberry flavor is delicious and the caffeine should keep the headaches at bay for a few hours at the minimum.
I chug all sixteen ounces like it’s my hidden talent.
Whoever encouraged me to go to medical school should have slapped me in the face instead, explained that it takes twelve fricking years before you are actually an independent physician, maybe fourteen with my residency calculated in.
But here I am, on a Friday night, in the second-floor library, watching the current of the Mississippi surge with a vengeance from last night’s storm.
My noggin is attempting to memorize every bone in the human body.
However, my brain is on the upstarts of a rebellion.
It simply refuses to retain any additional information.
Then a campus email pops up: A third student reported missing. Please alert campus authorities of any suspicious activity.
Maybe a serial killer? But I wouldn’t rule out drunk sorority girls falling off the bridge into the rumbling river below…
Riverside University has been roiled by students that have gone missing. Both have been women so far and I can almost guarantee that this one is too.
I set down the empty bottle, with a slight burp.
“Careful there stormtrooper, you still need to sleep tonight. Right after these flashcards,” Ava says as she rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah… I think I can handle my caffeine.”
“Mmmmmm.” Ava snorts while she flips her flashcards. “Let’s see how long your heart can handle it before it explodes and I’m the one calling your parents, explaining to them about their son’s supposed medical ignorance while he’s literally in medical school.”
“My parents would understand. My father spent decades in the back of ambulance surviving on coffee and snus.”
“Snus or coffee are not a replacement for calories, Cooper.”
“It is in Northern Minnesota, besides this is just our lives for a few years. I’ll do better once we graduate, once we become residents. Okay?” I say as I shove a nicotine pouch in between my lips.
I know how bad nicotine and an abundant amount of caffeine can be for your heart, for your blood vessels, causing systemic micro-inflammation overtime.
However, these are my crutches. It’s temporary.
Not forever, just for now. My little slivers of dopamine and norepinephrine, while I’m trapped in a library boring enough to make church seem interesting.
“How far are you with your flashcards for tonight?” I ask in an attempt to pivot.
“Only three more body systems to go.” Ava groans as she wipes her eyes with her palms.
“What if we call it a night? We can double-fist our study session tomorrow?” I ask, knowing the possibility of that happening is slim-to none. My legs are aching to move, my lungs pleading for some fresh, dark air.
Ava lowers the flashcard in her hand to give me a dead-eye stare. “Why do you have to use terms like that in public?”
“Use what?”
“Double-fist,” she hisses through her teeth. “The Mormons in our class are ten-feet away from us.”
I glance to the left. Sure enough, there they are in white, studying diligently or maybe ready to spread the word of their Savior.
“Don’t worry, they don’t know what it means.” I chuckle. “Do you think they can make me straight?”
“Oh my God, Cooper. I might strangle you myself, before that River Stalker can.”
“If I go missing, make sure you give an honest speech at my vigil. None of that fluffy bullshit.”
Ava snickers under her breath. “Oh, I’ll be brutally honest Coop. ‘He died a hero, trying to take down the River Stalker like he was roleplaying a vigilante.’ His head was so dense from his ego, he sunk the moment he was thrown into the river.”
“Perfect, just a few notes. Please make sure to mention my clean jawline and killer six-pack. It’ll be important for the headstone.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “You wish, I’m not stroking that mile-high ego of yours in the afterlife, Coop.”
“Ughhh. But Ava, what if these are my last words to you. My last, dying request?”
“Still not happening bud. I’m committed to the truth.”
“Okay… I bet you’ll come around when circumstances change,” I say as I stand up to put my laptop in my bag and clear the area on the table.
“Where are you going?” she asks with furrowed brows and a pen wedged between her teeth.
“For my nightly run…”
“Even after Rachel Parks went missing… the third one in three weeks?” Ava asks, her eyes almost bulging out of their sockets.
“Don’t worry Ava. I’ll be safe. I’ll even keep my music below the maximum—just for you. Plus, this stalker obviously has a gender preference.”
“But what if,” she says, pointing her pencil at me like a spotlight, “he decides that you are such a pretty boy that he wouldn’t mind plucking you off.
I unsuccessfully attempt to hold back a laugh from the flattery. “Well then, I would be honored. A man so devoted, he would chase me down through the night.”
“Don’t you dare flirt with hypothetical kidnappers.” She stands, throwing her flashcards into her bag. “I swear to God, if you get abducted, I’m not putting up flyers around campus for you.”
“Would you put up stickers instead? That might motivate people to search a bit more.”
She glares at me with those hazel eyes. “Oh Coop, I’ll make one that says He Asked For It.”
“Well I didn’t ask him yet…”
“COOPER.” She claps her hands together, instead of strangling them around my throat. “Stop thinking about seducing imaginary serial killers.”
“I haven’t seduced him yet Ava,” I protest, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. “I’m just leaving the possibility open. That’s called having a growth mindset. Maybe this murderer needs someone to see him for who he is, instead of what the news is saying about him.”
“Well I won’t be shocked if we find you in pieces next to the canoe rack.”