Left Drowning

“Okay, Mr. Responsible. You can rescue me if I start to drown. I’m no hotshot soccer star, but I can swim well enough.” It’s true. She is a good swimmer. Her strokes and form might not be pretty by swim team standards, but she is capable of handling herself in even rough ocean water. All of her general athletic failings don’t seem to matter in the water. She feels strong in the water and, more than that, she just loves the feeling of buoyancy. Nothing compares to being cradled and moved by the force of the ocean. You just have to be aware of its power. “Never forget,” her father had once said, “the current, the tides, the waves … they are all smarter than you are. They are in charge. It’s your job to listen. Don’t ever stop listening.”

Her father was right. And so Blythe always listens to what the water tells her. “Fine, fine, stay here. I’ll be back in a bit. Wa

“You got it,” he says, smiling. “Have fun.”

The path from the house to the shore runs under tall evergreens and is lined with feathery ferns. Blythe likes the way the leaves tickle her legs and how the rocky terrain makes her take her time getting to the water. She wants to slow down in general while here. This Maine vacation will be the calm before the storm. College applications are ahead of her in the fall, her senior year of high school: SATs and then forms, interviews, and freak-outs. Matthews is her top choice, obviously. Her parents met there, and aside from that cool aspect is the plain truth that it is an excellent college. She doesn’t want to go to an overpopulated university where she’d get lost in a sea of students. Frat parties and campus chaos are not her thing. Matthews is going to be her school. It has to. She even has on a frayed Matthews T-shirt right now. The pale blue lettering is chipped in more places than she can count and the red background is now closer to pink, but she doesn’t care how ragged the shirt is. It is her favorite. The Wisconsin winters would suck, obviously, but the beautiful campus and dynamic professors would make up for that. Blythe sort of hates that she will have to put down on her application that both her parents went there, because she wants to get in on her own merit, but she also isn’t entirely above using that co

The thought of all the work that lies ahead of her makes her even more determined to enjoy every minute of the summer. Which is pretty easy to do, considering the house has its own section of private beach. Blythe much prefers this shell-covered shoreline and cold, rough water to the perfectly smooth white sand and warm aqua water at tropical resorts. Maine feels real to her and much less showy. The boulders that are covered in seaweed, the barnacle-encrusted tide pools, and the salty air that invades every pore of her body: they are what make Maine special.

She walks to the end of the narrow dock and tosses her things into the old rowboat that is tied up. She throws on the still-damp orange life vest and easily starts rowing out to the square floating dock that rocks with the waves, her boat bouncing playfully in the water. Blythe loves being around people, but she likes her privacy almost as much and adores how this dock is like a private island in the middle of the cove. She reaches it a few minutes later and clambers on top of it, situating herself on her towel. At three thirty in the afternoon, the sun is still strong, but a slight chill from the cold water blows over her. She has her bathing suit on under her clothes, but she will try to warm up in the sun before she dives into the Atlantic. She kicks off her sneakers and removes her shorts, but keeps on her shirt.

Blythe lies down on her stomach and rests her head on her crossed arms. The sound. Oh, the sound of small waves lapping against the dock is hypnotic, and the sun burning on the back of her legs is nicely tempered by the ocean air. Bliss. The dock rocks under her, and she gives herself up to the will of the ocean, succumbing to the unpredictable rhythm of the water and her daydreams.

After what could be hours or minutes, Blythe isn’t sure which, she lifts her head, her content mood broken, but by what, she doesn’t know. She looks around. The rowboat is still tied to the dock. Nothing is amiss. She shakes her head. Blythe scans the shore to her right and studies the houses. Some are too far back or too shielded by foliage to see, while others are clearly visible. It’s fu

Movement on the opposite shore makes her look straight ahead. Someone is walking slowly where the water hits the land. She props her chin on her hands. From this distance it is hard to see the figure clearly, but she guesses that it’s a boy about her age. He’s tall, with dark hair peeking out from under a red baseball hat. He has on tan cargo shorts, and no shirt or shoes. And he is carrying two buckets, one in each hand. She watches as he plods slowly through the sand, wades a few feet through the heavy low-tide mud into the ocean, and then empties the water-filled buckets. He pauses a moment, tips his head back, and stands still. Maybe taking in the spectacular day? Or maybe something else.

The boy leans over and refills each metal bucket with water. Slowly he stands and brings the pails to his side and begins walking, obviously weary, back down the shoreline where he’d come from. He keeps his arms slightly bent at the elbows, flexing his muscles to keep the buckets from hitting his legs. When he reaches what is probably the end of his property line, he plods back into the water and dumps his buckets again. For ten minutes, Blythe stares entranced as he repeats this ritual over and over. What on earth is he doing? Does he have some sort of compulsive disorder that required him to repeat mundane acts over and over until his brain is satisfied? Although she would hardly call this activity mundane. Buckets of water are heavy, even for someone with his strong build, and the repetition had to be tiring him out. Perhaps it was some kind of physical conditioning exercise? He could be a sports nut like her brother. She continues staring.

Twenty minutes must go by. His pace remains the same, but his physical pain is easy to see. He has to be hurting. She stands up and brings her hand to shield her eyes.

Ten more minutes.

Stop, she whispers. You have to stop now. It’s too much.

Who knows how long he’d been doing this before she noticed? This is insane. But the boy keeps going, focused and unfailing in his routine. Even when he stumbles and spills half of a bucket, he continues.

Jesus, stop! she pleads silently. Put the buckets down. You’re going to pass out. What the hell are you doing?

Finally he pauses, turning his back to her as he looks toward the trees. Holy shit. His back is badly sunburned. If she can tell from this distance, it is definitely bad. It must hurt like hell, or at least it will later. He continues looking toward the trees for a bit, craning his head to the side. Looking for something? Someone? He drops the buckets and leans over, bracing himself with his hands on his legs. Catching his breath, for sure. The boy moves toward the water, looking down as he wades in a few feet. He seems to be shaking his head.

When he raises his head, Blythe finds herself clearly in his sight. She should probably be embarrassed, having been caught staring at this stranger, but she isn’t. She takes her hand from her eyes and stays where she is. The boy is looking right at her. His exhaustion, his sadness, his hopelessness, they all travel over the water and rip through her. Something is very wrong here.