Page 21 of Emmett
I’m hollow; and the edges where the rest of me was pulled out are left jagged enough that it rips and tears a hole open. The only thing that can come in now is the silky shadow of darkness that lurked on the outside, waiting for an excuse to climb inside and make itself at home again.
When I can finally move again, I stand and make my way toward the bathroom in the hall, unsteady on my feet. I reach for the bathtub’s faucet and crank it until the water runs at its highest flow, then adjust the other until it’s just warm enough to closely match my body temperature, like a pool left open in the dead of summer – not blazing hot, but certainly not cold, either.
When I finally step into the tub, I lower myself in to my chin. My clothes stick to me as soon as the water touches them, gluing the fabric to my body like a second skin.
I lower myself further as the water continues to run, taking a deep breath in and squeezing my eyes shut before I fully submerge myself beneath the surface. All I can hear is the rushing of the water into the tub as I count the seconds inmy mind, ticking the time away to see how long I can hold out.
It was easier to do this in the pool at our old house; I could just drop myself into the deep end and count the time it took until I was forced to come up for air, going longer and longer the more frequently I did it.
Any time that I could feel myself starting to spiral, I would sneak out to the pool and throw myself into the deep end. It was like force-resetting my brain. Feed it a concentrated dose of controlled fear and let it come back to reality.
I imagine that I’m lying on the ocean floor, letting the tide take me out into deeper water, dragging me down until there’s nothing left but a vast darkness that swallows me whole. My mind paints the picture of the life being sucked out of me as the salty water fills my lungs, replacing all of the oxygen inside and not leaving room for any air to come back in.
I don’t want to die.
At least, I don’t think I do. I just need to push myself as close to that edge as I can. I need the terror to bring me back from the darkness clawing at the walls of my mind before it gets too deep inside and takes over its host.
By the time I hit four minutes, my lungs start to burn and I stop counting, but I still don’t come up for air. I’m not scared enough yet. It won’t work yet.
Come on.
Just a little longer.
After another minute, I release all of the air that I’d been holding, sending a thick stream of bubbles up to the surface as I empty my aching lungs. My chest starts to tighten and myheart rate picks up as my body becomes desperate for a breath of oxygen that I won’t give it.
I bring my hand to my chest, clutching at the fabric of my shirt with a white-knuckled grip and silently begging for the release that I need.
Get scared, damnit!
I can feel it right at the edge of my mind; the fear that I need. I’m so close to it, all I have to do is hold out a little bit longer. Push through the screaming pain in my chest until my nervous system lights up and I can grab onto the fear with both hands to use it as my life raft.
The sudden feeling of something grabbing my arms startles me, making me gasp, and I suck in a mouthful of water as I’m yanked past the surface of the water, coughing and gasping for air.
“What the hell are you doing?!” My dad’s voice pours into the room past the sound of running water.
I lean over the side of the tub, hacking until the water is cleared from my lungs, and I angrily shove away the hand that still rests at my shoulder. “Why are you in here?” I demand.
“Because you weren’t answering me and there was water all over your hallway, Emmett! What the hell were you doing?”
The floor around us is covered in water, enough that all of the mats are soaked through and there’s a pool of it leading out of the door and into the hall.
I suck down several lungfuls of fresh, waterless air while he reaches in to pull the plug from the tub’s drain and shut off the flow of water.
“I was resetting,” I finally tell him.
“Is that code for trying to drown yourself?”
“It’s abathtub, Dad,” I snark. “I could have gotten out.”
“Then do that,” he orders as he stands, “and get into some dry clothes.”
With a sigh, I brush a hand through my dripping hair and step out of the tub, trudging down the hall toward my room as my feet splash against the water on the floor, and I dig through my dresser for a fresh t-shirt and some joggers. I toss my soaked-through clothes onto the floor next to me while I change.
A knock sounds at the door a few moments later, followed by Dad asking, “Are you decent?”
“Yup.”
The door opens and he storms into my room, heading straight for my closet. I watch half-stunned as he pulls hangers off of the rod, tossing the clothes onto my bed in a small pile.