Read The Drowning for Free Online

standing in the middle of the rec. The play area for the little kids is to my right. There’s an ugly pod of parallel metal bars, which offers no shelter from anything at all, to my left.
    In a daze, I walk over to the metal shell and perch on the bars. They are spotted with rain and I can feel it soaking through, adding to the wetness already there. The rain’s gently pattering on the ground around me but I’m not hearing it. I’m hearing a yelping dog, then a moment of silence and the old lady’s voice, pleading with Rob. Cursing him. I hear my voice, too. Scared. Panicking.
    I feel churned up inside, sick. The brick wall in my head, the blankness, was better than this. Maybe there was a reason I forgot everything. Maybe this was the reason. The truth is best forgotten.
    There’s no vibration through the metal, there’s no noise, but suddenly I know I’m not on my own anymore. There’s someone close. I sense him and shudder, thinking of the shadow darting into the doorway, the pale shape across the street.
    I force myself to twist around and look through the metal bars. I jump. There’s a face looking back. The eyes are fixed on mine. The lips move.
    You bastard, Cee.
    I blink and he’s gone.
    Shit! I’ve got to get out of here. Go home. I’m going mad. My mind is playing tricks.
    I jump up from my perch and stumble across the rec, looking all around me as I run. I dash through the empty parking lot and haul myself up the steps of our building. There’s a set of keys in the other pocket. I let myself in and head straight upstairs. I don’t check the room first. I just go in, drop the jacket on the floor, strip off my wet things, towel my hair with a dry T-shirt from the heap, and flop down on my mattress. I lie on my right side, facing the wall, so I can’t see Rob’s sleeping bag, and I close my eyes tight shut.
    This time I don’t hear him breathing as I drift off, and I don’t hear him telling me to say good night, but at the last moment something clicks in my brain, and just before I’m asleep, I whisper the words, “Night, Rob.” And that’s the last thing I hear, my own voice … and the drip, drip, drip of the bathroom tap.

I have restless dreams, dreams where I don’t know if I’m awake or asleep, what’s real and what isn’t. Dreams of me, of Rob, of Neisha. With her clothes on. With her clothes off. When I finally wake up, the first thought that hits me is, My brother’s dead. Rob’s dead.
    I’m in our room, on my own, and he’s dead. The words are starting to mean something now. He was dead yesterday and he’s still dead today. Is it always going to be like this? This sledgehammer? Is this how I’ll wake up for the rest of my life?
    It’s light. I stick my hand out from the clammy folds of my sleeping bag, grope around the floor by my bed until I find my watch. It says ten past three. I shake my head and look again. The second hand’s ticking around, so it’s working. It must be the afternoon.
    I leave the sleeping bag in a heap on my mattress. Where the curtains are parted I can see condensation fogging up the window, blotting out the world outside. I stagger into the bathroom, trying not to put too much weight on my painful left leg. The cold tap is still dripping; it’s even worse now.
    Catching my reflection in the mirror, my heart jumps intothe back of my throat. The shape of my face, the angle of the gray-blue eyes, the set of my mouth and the lines of dirt. All these things say Rob. The face they zipped away — eyes open, skin pale and streaked with mud.
    But I’m not Rob. I’ve got to remember that. I look like him, but that’s all. We were at the lake together, we were there, struggling in the water … but I got out alive.
    The dirt on my face must be from when I fell over by the bungalows. I feel a shudder of revulsion, but I can wash it away. I can clean myself up. I reach for the hot tap and wince: My palm is sore. There are little raw points, bright red oozy