And as I say it, the hideous extension of the question plays out in my mind:Who saved me…and why did they leave El to die?Because there was time. There had to be. The car wasn’t all that far from the shore. Whoever dragged me out of the window only had to wade back a little way and drop me on the bank, then return for El. In fact it’s simpler even than that. El wasn’t trapped by his seatbelt. It would have been just as easy – no,easier –to pull him free first, then try to unharness me.
But they didn’t do that. Which means it must have been a choice.
Ellis, theydeliberatelyleft you to drown.
“Who was it?” I shout.
Because I want to find them and then I want to kill them. I don’t care that they saved my life. I don’t wantthislife. Ellis is dead, I believe that now, and it’s just like the poem says:Darkness there and nothing more.So who showed me mercy and condemned him? Who stood by and let the lake claim my El? I rise and fall with these questions as I tear the bed sheets from my body. I’m throwing things, I don’t know what, pushing, wrenching, scratching at my own face until the glue that holds my cheek together breaks apart.
“WHO WAS IT? WHO SAVED ME? BECAUSE THEY KILLED HIM! THEY MURDEREDHIIIIIIIIM!”
And then I see Dr Luthor swim into view. I’m on the floor. Has the officer knocked me down? Did I fall? I don’t know. I just don’t. The doc kneels over me, cradles my shoulders, smooths the blood from my face. His voice switches: softness for me, sharp orders for the nurse. He names drugs that sound like characters in a comic book.
“He was mine,” I sob, and he nods and says:
“I know, Dylan. I know.”
“I miss him.”
“I know. You will.”
And I feel the tiniest scratch.
The world becomes distant again. Edges blur. It’s like drowning, I think.
“I loved him. He was mine. I miss him, I love him.”
“All right. All right.”
I’m lifted; sheets are straightened around me.
“They saved me. They left him. Why?”
Luthor shakes his head. He’s a very long way away now. His glasses gleam like car headlights failing in the blackness of the lake.
“But there wasn’t anyone,” says the officer. “A passing motorist saw some of the debris in the road and called it in. The kid was alone on the shore when we found him. No one rescued him, doctor. He got himself out of that car. So why…?”
“Guilt,” whispers the doctor. “Survivor’s guilt maybe. He’ll realize the truth, in time…”
Mr Morris treats me to a half-hearted disapproving stare, then sighs and drops into the chair behind his desk.
“Your grades are good, Dylan, no one’s disputing that. In fact, I’ve never had a better student in all my years of teaching… Oh, no offence, Mr Berrington.”
Mike looks up from his desk where he’s been role playing strategies for the footie team, crumbs of rubber eraser standing in for players.
“Huh? Oh, no offence taken, Mr M. Please, continue finding faults in the amazing McKee.”
I shoot Mike the stink-eye. We’re having our appraisal together simply because we’re Dylan and Mike. It’s understood we come as a pair, like Caesar and Brutus, Batman and Robin, social media and low self-esteem.
“You’re doing pretty well in your other subjects too,” Morris continues, as images of Mike’s Batcave flash through my head. Mike would clearly be the Dark Knight in this combo, me his accident-prone Dick Grayson. The Boy Blunder. “But” – clearly my favourite teacher can tell I’m daydreaming – “as I say, there is this one weakness.”
“Is it his ankles?” Mike asks. “Because that’s not really his fault, sir. He’s always had weak ankles. It’s pitiful, really. You should’ve seen him as a baby fawn emerging from his mummy deer’s gunk and trying to stand up. He was all trembly and cute and then some hunter went and shot his mum and… No, wait, that’sBambi.Sorry, I’ll shut up.”
“If there’s a God, you will.” Morris leans back and uses thumb and forefinger to smooth his nicotine-stained moustache. “Now, you must understand, I do havesomesympathy with this whole ‘school community spirit’ thing, and the plain fact is, McKee, it’s been noted that you show absolutely no interest in any extracurricular activities.”
I look at him as if he’s just told us that he secretly hates history.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
