Page 10 of Waters that Drown Us
Despite the fact that she didnotapologize, I shoot her a forgiving smile that she doesn’t acknowledge.
“It’s totally fine, I was unnecessarily standoffish. And same, stressed. About the research.” I bump her shoulder with mine, which is a little difficult seeing how much shorter than me she is. “Truce?”
She finally looks at me, her chin tilted up and her eyes squinting against the bleak morning sun filtering through the haze. God, she’s pretty. At least I didn’t fabricate that.
“Truce.”
It takes me less time to set up and adjust the equipment today, now that I’m used to the feeling that nearly freezes my cells as I lean over the edge to drop the ROV. The water is a little rougher today, and Alice has to turn the engine back on twice to adjust our position.
After the little robot has sunk to its appropriate depth—a job I am thankful belongs to machines and not me—I try to think through how to get Alice to open up to me. To let me crawl through her brain and pick all the pieces I need out like shards of glass from skin.
“So, how long have you been in Oregon?”
Her head whips up, her fingernails frozen under the sticker she was prying from her aluminum water bottle. Genuine terrorflashes across her skin like lightning, disappearing as quickly as it came as she forces herself to relax.
“A few years,” she says simply, locking in the customer service facade she had when we first met. Placid smile, serene attitude, like nothing can shake her.
I don’t love that it makes me want to see how much she can take before she breaks.
“What made you choose this place?” I ask, writing down coded observations—both of the sea and of the woman across from me—in the spiral-bound jotter balanced on my knee.
“I was passing through town and saw they were hiring for the whale watching boat, and decided it was time for a change,” she replies, the answer sounding clinically rehearsed. To anyone else, they would seem like the words of a woman who has been asked the same question by tourists a thousand times over.
“Staying here is certainly achoicethough,” I laugh, gesturing toward the shore like we can see the empty streets and abandoned buildings from here. “Were you from a small town before?”
She opens her mouth to respond and then freezes, the little smile she had nipping at the corner of her mouth dissipating. Back in place is that carefully empty, pleasant expression.
“You ask a lot of questions for a stranger,” she says with a light laugh, her tone carefully curated to sound like the end of a conversation. But obviously that won’t be happening.
“I’m a researcher, that’s what I do,” I wink, pretending I don’t get a little thrill from the blush that spreads along her cheeks. “And we’re going to be out on this boat a lot together over the next few weeks. Would it kill us to get to know each other?”
She pulls her lower lip between her teeth, and for the first time it really is like I can read her mind. She must know that itmightkill us to get to know each other. From her perspective, I could be a spy of her father’s or her fiancé’s, or simply a carelesstourist who will open her mouth at an inconvenient moment and reveal her location to those hunting her. Talking to me, trusting me, is a risk.
But after a few moments of relative silence, save for the thump of the boat rocking in the waves and the gentle scrape of the ROV tether against the hull, she looks a little more resolute.
“I suppose we’ll have to find out.”
Chapter 5
Alice
Imay have miscalculated my dose.
I’m hunched over the toilet for the third hour straight, completely nude and wishing I could shave my head so I didn't have to feel the strands stuck to my neck with sweat. My muscles spasm uncontrollably as my stomach clenches and I throw up more bile into the bowl, because there’s nothing else left in me to expel.
Still, this isn’t the worst post-ingestion reaction I’ve had. The first time I swallowed a vial of diluted rattlesnake venom, I honestly thought I had signed my own death certificate. I knew, getting into this whole mithridatism business, that accidental death was a possibility. Even likely. And while it would have been a shame to waste the efforts of all those who died to keep me alive, I still believe it’s worth the risk.
Even if that belief is being tested at this moment.
My abdomen stops contracting, and I take the fleeting opportunity to lay back on the laminate floor, pretending it's cooling my overheated body. I’ve tried to convince myself I don’t miss much about Vladivostok, about the prison that was my father’s estate, but I can’t even lie to myself that convincingly. I miss luxury. Marble floors, clean beds, soft linens, prettydresses. At night I dream of thick rugs under my toes, and massive bathtubs filled with warm water and fragrant perfumes. I crave rich foods and fine wines, sparkling jewelry and experiences that only blood soaked money can buy.
And I’d leave it all over again.
The ocean breeze, cool and humid, filters through the long rectangular window over the shower, and eventually my body temperature starts to regulate. I know this isn’t the end of the consequences of my misdosing—I’ve learned that rattlesnake venom poisoning is a long process to heal from, and I won’t be truly out of the woods for at least two days—but I need to force myself to rest. I have another excruciatingly long day on that boat with Emily tomorrow, and I need to fortify myself with sleep.
I find my discarded sleepwear—a 3XL men’s tee shirt with the wordsMiami Beach Wet T-Shirt Contest Sponsor 1997screen-printed on the back that I found at a thrift store outside Portland—and slip it back over my sweaty frame before climbing into bed. My flat is small, dark, and damp, the threadbare fold out couch and secondhand dresser my only real furniture. I stare, slightly delirious from dehydration and the effects of the venom, at the array of tchotchkes cluttering the top of my dresser. A humpback whale made out of chicken wire. A compact mirror gifted to me by one of the many roommates I’ve had as I floated around the Pacific Northwest. A notebook.
My mother’s.