“Good for you,” Holden said. “Better for me.”
I felt his eyes on me as I stripped down to my boxer briefs, and instead of it stopping me, knowing he was watching spurred me on. The sensation of being alive and free intensified. I dove headfirst into the deep end. My lungs constricted at the cold bite of water that mellowed, slipping over my skin like cool silk.
I broke the surface and swam to the edge, rested my arms on the concrete. “You coming in?”
The booze was making me reckless. Holden, in the pool with me, stripped down to his underwear, was a bad idea.
Or maybe it’s the best bad idea ever.
“I don’t swim,” he said.
“You don’t know how?”
“I know how. I choose not to.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t been in so much as a bathtub in years. Not since Alaska.”
My chest ached, and the anger at those who’d hurt him returned with a vengeance, sobering me slightly.
“What happened? Don’t give me the PG-rated version. Tell me everything.”
His lips curled in a faint smile. “I like drunk River. Drunk River is direct.”
“It helped me to tell you my shit. I want to help you.”
“You can’t help me,” he said sadly. “But it’s nice that you want to try.”
“Tell me,” I said gruffly. “If you’re up to it.”
He thought about it and finally nodded. “Fine. But you’re too far away.”
Swaying unsteadily on his feet, Holden got up from the lounger and lay down on his back, his head at the edge of the pool near where I rested my arms.
“In Alaska,” Holden said, staring at the sky, “there is a lake. Copper Lake. The counselors—and I use this word facetiously—would strip us naked and drag us to the water, submerging us for a few seconds, and then drag us back out. We were there late fall through winter. I don’t have to tell you the water was a few degrees above freezing.”
The pool water around me suddenly felt ten degrees cooler. “Fucking hell.Why?”
“Punishment, mostly. For inappropriate behavior. Inappropriate thoughts they suspected us of having. In my case, they suspected right.”
I didn’t smile. Prince sang about being left in a world so cold.
“It was part of ourrehabilitation. To drown unwanted urges. To kill our desire. To destroy the want and attraction and love we might one day give to someone who also happened to be a boy.” He turned his head to look at me, pain swimming in the depths of his green eyes. “Instead, they killed any love we had for ourselves. Shame. Guilt… They beat us with it as surely as they beat us with fists and clubs. They drowned us in it with every trip to the water’s edge.”
I clenched my jaw. Beatings. Submersions. Hundreds of miles away from home.
I couldn’t fathom it.
I hated that he’d endured it.
Holden witnessed my reaction and faced the sky again. “I’m ruining your swim.”
“You’re not.”
“And you’re a good person, River Whitmore.” He rolled over onto his stomach, seemingly unconcerned that his expensive clothes were getting dirty and wet. His fingers skimmed the water. “It’s too bad, really. Feels nice.”
Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. I submerged myself to wash them away and resurfaced in front of Holden, our faces inches apart. My heart clanged madly in my chest, but the alcohol broke my thoughts apart so they couldn’t talk their usual bullshit. Nothing guided me but instinct.
