Untypically in Love: Drowning in You

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Read the full story, chapter by chapter here.

Some names and events have been changed to protect the identity of certain individuals.

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Chapter Twelve
Drowning in You

I learned a lot of things over the course of the following week since being in a relationship with Matt, most importantly that you are never allowed to be the first one to break a hug.

We didn't make some big announcement to our friends about our new relationship. We were to busy loving each other to care what anyone else even thought. When Megaera saw us holding hands in the hallway, her eyes popped out of her skull, but she grinned and later told me that she was happy for me, and that she never realised how perfect Matt and I really were for one another.

Everyone told us that as the days progressed.

Our circle of friends began blending together permanently, with the exception of course, of one person who refused to speak to either of us, for obvious reasons.

I spent my time in class writing him love notes.
He spent his time copying the lyrics from songs that reminded him of me.

When we together, we were attached at the hips, (or mouth, if we're being completely honest here.) When we were apart, we longed for our inevitable reunion. We were lucky we didn't have cell phones back then. We'd have been forced to break up due to expensive charges for going over our minutes. Not a moment of my day was spent without thinking about him. I was beyond enamored. I was obsessively in love.

Most moments we were together, I spent with my face nuzzled into the crevice of his neck, his arms wrapped protectively around me. I'd never been happier in my entire life. Everything in the world was perfect. Even my family liked him, which said a lot considering how many boyfriends I had even brought home to begin with.

The ones that did make introductions were proclaimed idiots, Josh being the only exception prior to Matt. My Grandmother in particular was fond of Matt more than any of my boyfriends, or even friends all together. When he'd come over to the house, he always made a point to say hello to her, despite the fact that she could not properly respond.

My Grandmother had suffered a stroke when I was seven years old impairing her ability to speak. She did the best she could, but most of the time her words came out gibberish. It was often frustrating for the family, though a handful of us could understand her better than others. I was the best at it. She was the closest person to me in the whole world.

And it was hard when people didn't understand.

Her disability usually made my friends, and especially boyfriends nervous or afraid. They didn't speak to her because they thought that she couldn't understand. When she spoke to me in her gibberish, it made them uncomfortable.

But not Matt.

Once when I was out shopping with my aunt, he and a friend had walked down to my house to see if I was home. When my Grandmother opened the door he smiled politely, said hello and asked if I was home. She did her best to tell him where I was, but there was no way he could have really understood what she meant.

"She's not home?" He asked her as she waved her hand off in the direction we had driven, shaking her head no. "Okay, will you tell her I came by?" He asked, never once assuming that she lacked the ability to pass on a message to me.

She loved him.

Which was good, because so did I.

"I can't get enough of you," I sighed looking up at him, my head resting on his chest, my hands wrapped around his waist.

"I feel the same way," He smiled down at me, his hand buried in the thickness of my hair as we sprawled across the couch in my living room, the television quietly providing background noise.

"Why?" I asked him. "I still don't get it. Why me?"

"You have no idea how beautiful you are, do you?" He laughed.

"I'm not as pretty as Megaera." Or any of the other girls he had dated prior to me. Most of them were tall and blonde. The ones who weren't were still smaller than I was. Petite little things that he could easily throw over his shoulder.

Matt rolled his eyes. "You're kinda dumb, you know that?"

"What am I going to do the whole summer without you?" I asked him, changing the subject. Summer was coming fast. In less than two weeks school would be out and I would be sent to Utah where my aunt had gotten me a job working at the bakery where she was a manager. Not only would I be dramatically torn from Matt's side, but I would have to work. Summer was no longer a vacation.

"You're going to call me every chance you get," He smiled, knowing that it wouldn't be very often as neither of our families had decently prices long distance on their home phones. I would end up spending most of my summer paychecks on phone cards just to hear his voice. "And we'll write each other everyday," he promised. "Less than three months." He smiled, trying to keep me upbeat.

Despite the fact that Matt's parents didn't allow him to date either, they were less on top of him about it as Josh's parents had been. While it was inappropriate for a girl to ever call Josh's house, I called Matt every single day. While Josh wasn't ever allowed to go anywhere with a girl, Matt was given permission to spend my birthday with me.

Matt, Kristine and I had planned to spend the day at a local water park. I may have been curvier than the rest of his girlfriends, but I could rock a bikini easy back then. It was the perfect place to strut my stuff. We spent hours in the park laying on the fold out chairs. Kristine spent her time tanning, while Matt and I were much more preoccupied in trying to prove to her that two people very easily fit on one chair if you knew what you were doing.

I refused to let him go for any moment of the day. I knew that once our date was over, we would drop him off at home and that would be it. I was flying to Utah the next day. I was addicted to him already and just thinking about the withdrawls I would certainly experience sent me into a panic. I had to have enough of him in one day to make up for the months that we would endure apart.

One of the few moments I let go of him was in the giant wave pool. We each took separate tubes to float in, holding hands the whole time. As a giant wave crashed into us, my tube was knocked over. I scrambled to the top where I took in a deep breath and was then immediately pushed back down into the water by a horde of younger boys that had been trying to get back onto their tubes after being knocked over.

The water was blurry and it hurt my eyes to open. When I did, I looked up and couldn't find a space to crawl through. The scene above me was a blurry of yellow tubes, packed together like sardines, with legs and feet below, kicking inches close to my face. I began to panic as I swam, looking for a clearing.

Two tubes parted ways and I could see the sunlight shining through. I kicked my legs hard and made a beeline for the opening, quickly losing the ability to hold my breath. As I made it to the surface, my hands broke through. I could feel the sun on my face and I immediately gasped for air. I breathed too soon. The tube to my right flipped over, coming down on my head. My mouth filled with water and suddenly I was back beneath the surface, lungs emptied.

I'd always been afraid of drowning.

When I was five years old my older sister took me swimming all the time. She insisted that she could teach me. But one bad experience at the pool where my floaties popped in the deep end, had me pool free for a whole two years before my younger sister took the time to finally teach me. I was seven years old when I finally learned to swim. And I loved it. But the worry of sinking to the bottom of deep water without the ability to breathe had stuck with me.

One more attempt to return to the surface failed miserably. I didn't even look for an opening. I pushed my way through the crowd of kicking legs and made it to the top. But the waves were large and soon after a massive tube flipped over, the large hard plastic handle smacking me in the side of the face.

I was under the water again, breathless, and suddenly feeling very tired and confused. My head ached, a bump already forming as shocks of pain shot horizontally through my entire face.

My heart beat faster, and just as I could feel my chest begin to tighten, begging me to breathe, an arm wrapped around my waist, hoisting me to the surface where Matt pulled me to his chest in one swift move. I gasped for oxygen, choking on the water I had inhaled during the commotion. I opened my eyes and could see at least two others being pulled from the over packed pool. One was coughing up water like me, the other, a child was screaming at the top of her lungs.

Matt carried me back to our chairs and laid me down on the towel.

"What happened?!" Kristine sat up quickly, checking to see if I was okay.

"You okay, baby?" Matt asked me, holding his hand to my cheek.

I sighed as my heart began to calm down. "See, I am going to die without you." I laughed.

Matt chuckled, breathing a sigh of relief. "Just don't go swimming in Utah."

"Gotcha." I coughed once more before pulling him down beside me.

I was crying long before our car ever pulled up to his house. Matt held me against him, running his fingers through my hair.

"I love you," He said, stepping out of the car.

"I love you," I said, my words coming out in short sobs. My right hand struggling to let go of him, while my left clutched the button up over shirt he had worn to the water park. I insisted it was mine now, and he obliged. I watched him leave our car and walk back away toward his house.

"He's a good boy," My aunt said. "He'll still be here when you get home."

"I don't think you realise how hard it was to get him in the first place." I sighed.

"I know it's hard right now," She tried to console me. "But even if it doesn't work out, he won't be the last boy you'll love." She said, having not only been a teenager herself before, but previously raising two girls before my sister and I, not to mention having three younger sisters of her own.

But she was still wrong.

"Yes he will." I said firmly. "I'm going to marry him one day."

Chapter Thirteen>>>