Hold Me Under

by Riley Nash

I stare at the plaster ceiling, looking for shapes. I find a horse and a cock.

If only someone had done this for me. If only. But I don’t deserve the same things as him. He’s a simple, pure person, made of cats and cookies and little brick houses full of afternoon sunlight. I’m made of mud and broken things, deep water and suffocation.

“Tanner, can you stand behind Victor and put your arms around him?” “Sure.” Ethan turns to me. His autumn eyes look swollen and bleary, his hair wet where the assistant spritzed it. I expect him to grab me, but he hesitates. “Is it ok?” I stare at him. No one has ever asked. I’ve never been allowed to make this choice. “Fine,” I mumble.

Before I gave up on relationships, I dreamed of finding The One. He would be kind, sensitive, intelligent. We would hit that perfect balance of independent and supportive that leads to optimal mental health and happiness. Our fulfilling sex life would teach my body to want the things it was supposed to want, to do what it was supposed to do.

But you don’t leave. You pull back the sheet and climb in next to me. No one ever comes back for me. Until you.

There’s a place I go. The water is emerald green and has no bottom so I can just sink and sink and sink. As long as I keep sinking, as long as I don’t come up for air, no one can reach me there.

As long as he’s here, nothing bad can come near me because there’s no room for anything but him and me and the ways we hurt each other.

I flop back in my seat, rubbing my palms against my eyes. “No, Victor, I did not pack you drugs. You didn’t even let me pack a dry t-shirt.”

For someone who wants to die, I’m awfully afraid of being dead.

He sits on a broken pillar, rotating slowly to face me as I examine the foundations. “You think they were fucking?” “All my straight friends carve their names on the wall of their shared bedroom.”

“I don’t have time to think about myself. But sometimes I wake up and I’m just made of want. I don’t even know what for. It’s all caught in my chest in this big snarl, but I can’t pull it apart. And it hurts.” “You should see someone if that lasts more than four hours.” I aim a kick at his head and he rolls over in the grass, laughing, his shirt riding up over the smooth, olive skin of his hips.

“I would say that’s the most privileged sentence you’ve ever uttered, but I’m confident that’s not true.”

“Follow your mommies,” I call to the fawn when it hesitates, confused. Ethan’s hand brushes the back of my leg. “I don’t think that’s—” “Shhh. They’re a lesbian couple taking their new baby for a walk. Don’t be an asshole.”

“It hurts too much,” he whispers. “I need to quit you slow, or it’s going to kill me.”

Our bodies fit together perfectly, every hill and valley contoured to each other like we were one person who got broken in half before we were born.

And if this has to be the end, maybe that’s ok, because this is absolute and forever, no thoughts or words, just us. If love can see us now, it must be ashamed that it has nothing to offer. You tore me open and put me back together but you kept something for yourself. You won’t give it back, and now I belong to you.

“Maybe I’m ready for you to teach me how to swim. What do you think? What stroke do you think I’ll be best at?” My teeth are chattering, but I finally force the words out. “Doggy paddle.” His chest bucks under my hand as he laughs. “That’s mean.” I headbutt his shoulder. “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

“That’s right,” I say against his wet hair. “You made it. You don’t have to fight any more. You’re so fucking brave.”

He’s all the things that drive me crazy and all the things that lead me home.

Because here, even when I fuck up, it’s not a big deal. No one’s waiting to hurt me.

I never thought. I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I’d know what it means to be happy.