Page 44 of Open Water
"Yeah."
"I just — I don't know if this is weird to say. But I saw what happened, and I think you're really brave. And I hope you're okay."
She said it fast, like she'd rehearsed it on the walk over and wanted to get it out before she lost her nerve. Her face was red. She was already stepping past me before I could respond.
"Thanks," I said. To her back. She didn't turn around.
I stood on the steps. The wordbravesitting in my ears. A girl I'd never talked to, who sat two rows ahead and took notes in colored pens, had walked up to me and called me brave and hoped I was okay.
I wasn't brave. I was terrified. But she didn't know that. She just saw a guy whose photo was going around and decided to say something kind, and it made the world feel one degree less hostile than it had thirty seconds ago.
But it wasn't enough to make me walk into the lecture hall. I turned around, went down the steps, and headed back to the dorm.
The room was empty. Noah had an eight AM class. His bed was made, his desk organized, a sticky note on his lamp that saidI'm around if you need me. —Noah
I pulled my shoes off. Climbed into bed. The sheets still smelled like Alex and something sharper underneath, adrenaline maybe, the chemical residue of the worst night of his life soaked into my pillow.
I lay there. Staring at the ceiling. The cinderblock walls painted depression gray. The strip of light coming through the blinds.
I thought about my mom. Her text from last night, still sitting unanswered on my phone.
I needed her.
The thought arrived with a flush of embarrassment that I hated. Twenty years old. Scholarship athlete. Just got outed to his entire team. And the person he needed to talk to was his mother.
But she was the only one who could actually hold this. Noah was steady and practical but he couldn't tell me it was going to be okay with his whole body the way she could. Remy could sit next to me at dinner and give hostile looks to anyone who stared, but he couldn't make me feel safe. Alex was the person I wanted but Alex was across the river fighting for his own survival and I couldn't put this on him too.
My mom was the only person on earth who loved me without conditions. Who'd loved me before rowing, before the scholarship, before Alex, before any of it. Who'd worked doubles at the hospital so I could have new shoes and a decent winter coat and a shot at something bigger than a marina worker.
If she rejected this, if she heard her son was kissing a boy and it changed the way she looked at me, then nothing else mattered anyway. No scholarship, no rowing career, no future. Because she was the foundation. Everything else was built on top of her.
I picked up the phone and scrolled to her text.
Hi baby. Just thinking about you. Hope you're having a good week. Love you.
I pressed call before I could talk myself out of it.
It rang three times. Four.
"Liam?" Her voice was surprised. I never called in the morning. A call at nine AM on a Wednesday meant something was wrong.
"Hey, Mom."
"Hey, baby. You okay?"
I closed my eyes. The ceiling disappeared. Just her voice and the dark behind my eyelids and the sound of whatever was happening on her end — a TV on low, dishes maybe. She was probably between shifts sitting at the kitchen table.
"Yeah. I'm okay."
"You don't sound okay."
"I know."
She waited.
"Something happened last night," I said. "And I need to tell you before you hear it from someone else."
Her breathing changed. I could hear it, the shift from relaxed to alert. "Okay. I'm listening."
