convince my parents to let me go, but that shouldn’t be a problem. If they know I’m with you and D, they won’t worry.
Do you think you can convince J and S to come? A is already in, guaranteed. That girl always says yes to anything. It would be so amazing if we could get everyone to go. I can’t think of anything more perfect than a massive party on my birthday. So you can’t back out! I don’t know what I’d do without you.
Plus it’s a million kilometres from home. We can do whatever we want and our parents will never know.
YOLO
D
*
*
Damian goes insane
IT’S TOO COLD. My body erupts into a million tiny convulsions, despite the best efforts of my well-worn duvet cover. I toss and turn until the uncontrollable shivering eventually wins the battle and my body jerks awake.
As my eyes adjust, the cause of the sudden drop in temperature becomes clear. Water leaks from the cracks and gaps in the window, streaming down the walls into a rapidly expanding puddle on the wooden floor. There’s a muted sound coming from behind the curtain, like fingers scratching on wet glass.
It takes a moment for me to realise that something is trying to enter my bedroom from the outside.
I’m fully awake now, the smell of the sea strong in the air. Slowly, I detangle my limbs from the blanket and clamber out of bed. When my bare feet touch the wet surface, patches of goose bumps flare up my arms and down my back. Wisps of frozen air escape from my mouth.
The sound is louder now. I can hear the roar of the ocean, the howl of the wind. I need to find the cause of all this, but it takes an age for my outstretched hand to pull the curtain aside, as if I’m moving in slow motion.
Her pale cheek is squashed against the window pane, while her fingers search the glass for any opening. Her hair floats around her gracefully like tentacles curling in and out. At first she doesn’t see me, but then she turns her head and I find myself staring into her familiar pale-blue eyes.
My body aches to be closer to her. I reach out my hand and she mirrors my gesture, flexing her fingers against the glass, as desperate as mine are for contact. But something is wrong with time, and our movements are too slow.
The force of the water causes fractures to slowly spiderweb across the surface. Her hands push against it; her slender body twisting itself till it fills the whole window, searching for a way inside. Tiny bubbles float from her lips as she forms words I can’t hear.
My own lips say her name. “Demi.” The sound is hollow in the empty room.
Green seawater curls and rolls against the glass, then recedes as a wave crests against the side of the house. The window trembles under the strain. I watch, mesmerised, as wave after wave slaps at the glass, getting higher and higher until the grey sky is no longer visible outside. My mind travels to my parents, asleep in their bedroom, and I stand up and ready myself to run, to get them out of the house before it floods completely.
But I don’t. My feet are locked in place.
The glass cracks like thunder and shatters. Water barrels into the room and I have to spread my legs apart to keep standing as it gushes past.
I reach out, ready to grab her hand, but before we can touch, the water throws me back, down into the murky green depths. I tumble over and over, till the force of the deluge carries me away, out the door and into the passage. Photos of my family tumble from the wall and are swallowed by the sea. Her mouth opens and closes as she calls my name, but I’m already out of reach. My fingers snatch at nothing.
I wake up covered in a cold, slick sweat and gasping for air. My chest heaves painfully as my breathing struggles to stabilise, but my heart is beating too fast. Instinctively, my fingers reach for the plastic pill box on the side of my bed, the one with a compartment marked for each day of the week. I count the days marked out on top: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, but I haven’t been keeping track. I don’t know what day it is. My trembling fingers pry open a lid at random and I pop a little white pill in my mouth and swallow it dry. My body is so used to this action that I don’t even choke any more.
It takes a couple of seconds for my brain to register that the room is not underwater. It was only the dream again.
I go through the steps of the calming exercise Dr Klaassen taught me. Focus on the real world. It’s stupid, but it helps.
I force my eyes to take in one thing at a time and ignore the memories of her screaming for my attention.
My guitar gathers dust in the corner. Two of the strings are broken. The Ernie Ball replacements are still in their unopened packaging on the floor, frozen in time since the day I bought them. To the left, my surfboard rests on its side against the wall. It’s useless to me now. I’m never going to go back in the water. There’s no point.
I move on to the next insignificant thing, then the next. Comic books, crumpled jeans, a coffee cup, a couple of CDs, debris of a young man’s life. It doesn’t even feel like my stuff any more.
It takes a while for the anxiety to pass, but it’s replaced by a dull ache I’ve come to accept will never go away. I never thought I could miss someone so much. It’s like an oxygen tube has been torn out my nose and I’m slowly suffocating from the inside.
Forgetting Dr Klaassen’s advice, I close my eyes and try to remember the dream, but the details are already fading. I shut them tighter, but it’s no use. She’s gone. This recurring dream is torturing me. She comes to me: real and soft and in the flesh. The more I want her to go away, the more I need her to stay. It’s ripping me apart, like pages being torn from a book until there’s nothing left but the spine.
Wolverine senses that I’m awake and begins snuffling outside my door. When I don’t open up for him, he starts to whine. He doesn’t understand what’s changed, why I don’t respond when he presses his wet nose against me. I just can’t. There’s nothing left in me for any of that normal stuff.
As if she’s developed a sixth sense herself, Mom enters the room and shuts the door carefully behind her so the dog can’t follow. She deposits a fresh glass of water on the bedside table and smiles as she straightens my duvet, a little unspoken reminder that I have to take my pills. Her smile is too forced, and the dark bags beneath her eyes reveal her true feelings. They’re a little hopeful, but mostly afraid, as if she’s wondering what type of mood I’m in today. Dad just stays away.
“Good, morning, angel,” she says, too chipper to be genuine.
I shield my eyes as she pulls aside the curtain and opens the window. Water doesn’t come crashing in, only millions of dust particles floating lazily in the sunlight.
Mom straightens her shoulders and blinks back her unhappiness. It’s what she does when she’s putting on her “Everything is fine” mask.
“Damian, honey, don’t you think it’s time you let me clean up in here? I’ll make you a bed on the couch. You can watch some TV, like you used to when you were in school?”
She wrings her hands hopefully. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand how her voice grates my brain and makes my
