watch me drown

Alex cursed herself for the Ariel song, ‘Kiss the Girl’ playing on repeat in her head. It was distracting, but in such a good way. “I was wandering one day before camp started, just stumbled across it… it’s pretty perfect isn’t it?” Alex let her shoulder rest against Lydia’s. This was all so easy, but the brunette knew it was also extremely delicate.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Alex blurted out, cheeks reddening as she looked at the woman next to her, worried about a poor reaction to her words. The last thing she needed right now was Lydia leaving, now when everything was falling into place like a fucking movie.

Lydia couldn’t even hold her focus long enough-- or maybe just her blush-- to look at Alex through the whole sentence. She turned back to sweep over the trees and the waterfall and the secluded place that was exactly what Alex insisted it was-- perfect. It was. 

The song swelled and then dropped again, Alex’s eyes never leaving Lydia’s. Maybe it lame and maybe it was cheesy, but it fit that moment better than anything Alex could’ve said. As the song came to a close, Alex paused before moving over to Lydia.

“Look… I know what happened the other night was a lot to take in. The way I see it, we have two choices.” She was now standing in front of the blonde, almost dangerously close.

“We can either pretend it never happened and be friends or…” Alex took a deep breath, “we can agree that we’re attracted to each other and see where it leads… either way, I know I don’t want you out of my life just yet.”

It was plain humiliating to have to sit through the whole thing, for Alex to not even be subtle about the point she was trying to make. For her to shove it right there between them, like a hand raised to grace a face. Lydia almost felt indignant about the whole thing. By the time it’d ended she had her arms folded over her chest, her knees tucked up like some sort of protection. Her molars ground together.

She didn’t want to look at Alex when she approached her, didn’t want to hear her out, to listen to her logic the whole situation like she was the more rational one of them, like she hadn’t initiated it-- she felt hot and prickly all over her skin, and she didn’t mean to be confrontational, didn’t want to be, but then she stood up to meet Alex’s height and stared her straight in the face, anyways, and there was a challenge there, in her expression, and she wasn’t even fully aware of it or what sort of challenge it was to begin with. 

“The standpoint you’re approaching the situation from is inherently flawed, and thus so are both of your solutions. 

“Alex,” Lydia started, her tone condescending, the way she liked to make it when she was trying to win an argument. “You’re acting like it was more than something drunken. We were both smashed-- a mistake I won’t be making again while I’m here, especially not at any more of those bonfires-- and we were in this beautiful place, and there was a moment, and we took. Or, you took it. It was one of those things that just happens. No strings, no complications-- and it’s not going to happen again.” 

“How about something more contemporary… yeah?” Alexandria moved behind the keyboard, fumbling with a few buttons and knobs until she had the piano sound she wanted. She then tugged over the small electric drum kit. To do this right she’d have to loop it, so she began first with the percussion, recording the few sets she knew before moving back to the keyboard.

She played this song many times since it’s release, memorizing the beats and movements with ease. 

“You can be amazing You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug You can be the outcast Or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love Or you can start speaking up Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do And they settle ‘neath your skin Kept on the inside and no sunlight Sometimes a shadow wins But I wonder what would happen if you Say what you wanna say And let the words fall out Honestly I wanna see you be brave”

Even after Alex complied, slowly and absently, she could tell by her face it was a stupid thing to say. Alex was just looking for the right segway to change the topic, play some other song, and Lydia didn’t care, not about the song-- she just felt stupid for suggesting it. (It was the only thing her dad had ever taught her, and if a 10 year old with an old electric strummed it out begrudgingly, there was no way Alex would do so willingly-- and she should’ve known that. She was so stupid). 

She didn’t say anything when Alex changed the style, although she was surprised to see her set down the guitar-- acapella?-- and more surprised to see her switch it out for a keyboard. She shouldn’t of been-- didn’t Alex say she could play a bunch of things? She had to, being the music counselor-- but that wasn’t what Lydia had anticipated. Although maybe she should’ve. She didn’t know what to expect out of anything. 

“Waterfall of course… it’s the only thing out here really.” Alex pushed through the brush, following the noise of the river. “Should be right about….” Alex moved the last bit of tree branches to reveal a rather large waterfall, cascading down the mountain side. “Here.” She looked back at Lydia and then up at the moon perfectly illuminating the water. 

“How’d you even find this place?” She breathed. 

And she let herself be dragged again, yanked towards the water at the base of the falls, which was shallow and clear enough by the shore that Lydia could see all the washed out, multi-colored pebbles lining the bottom of it, subdued by the night and the ripples. She had to let go of Alex’s hand, just for a second, to scramble up after her onto that big rock, but the second she didn’t need it for her own she sought Alex’s again, and Alex sought hers, and then they were both sitting on the edge of the rock, over this surreal little place, the two of them. Alex let her legs dangle over the side but Lydia pulled hers up, knees to her chest, hair around her like some bleached-out curtain. She looked straight at Alex.

“Okay… I may be bad with words… but I promised you a few songs yeah… Here.” Alexandria slid a chair over to Lydia and gently placed her hands on the frozen girl’s shoulders, guiding her down into the seat. 

And Alex called her out on it, too, even with her guitar in her lap, ready to try and make what happened between them half-way okay. And Lydia didn’t know what to say about it. She wanted to apologize, strangely-- she felt like then, in that moment, Alex deserved that. Really, Alex deserved an explanation, something beyond an “i’m sorry,” to soften all the tension between them. (She could cut it thick with a knife). 

Still, Lydia didn’t know what to say, how to start it, where to go once she had. She hadn’t spoken and she felt stupid, embarrassingly stupid, and she needed her mouth to work before she totally just blew the whole thing, made a total ass of herself here, to this person who didn’t deserve it, and so she blurted the first thing she could properly say. 

“No! Thank god. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to face her knowing what I know now. I think I lucked out and didn’t make a fool outta myself. Crushes on straight girls…. they are dangerous.” Alex glanced at Lydia, grinning and tugging her down the path, hands linked again. 

Partly because she didn’t care. 

“Hey….” Alex tugged the guitar strap over her shoulder and leaned the instrument up against the stand. She was timid, not really sure what to do or say, afraid that Lydia was like a lost pet, one who could jet at any point in time. 

She was standing there stupidly again. She could feel it-- the stupid expression on her face, like she didn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten there. 

Like she didn’t know what to say.

Alex vocalized it for her, and it wasn’t sharp or mean, the way she said it, but she could tell it wasn’t in this kind or forgiving way, either. It was hesitant, like beating around the bush, like approaching an injured deer. Was she the injured deer? 

Or maybe it was just what stuck out to Lydia the most.

She could’ve asked about the spray paint: where she bought it, how many cans she needed, how far into her project she was arrested. She could’ve maybe touched again on the bravery of it, of standing up for a good cause with her own two feet, two hands, despite what her mother or anyone else had to say about it. She could ask about the community service, if she took it graciously and what they made her do; she could ask about other felonies she’d maybe committed, when and with who and how big. And she almost did. She really almost did. For all the alcohol in her system, all the stumbling over branches and laughing and warmth she’d felt since she got to the bonfire, she didn’t think she had enough of any of those feelings to see where this was going.

“ If I gave you my number Would it still be the same If I, if I saved you from drowning Promise me you’ll never go away Promise me you’ll always stay”

The words hit close to home. Lydia may have been relatively new to her, but after their night, it was all Alex could think about. Lips, hands, bodies, everything, but it hurt now more than it had. Alex could tell by the way Lydia avoided her that she’d more than regretted it, maybe that she’d even blamed Alex. 

“ So watch your head and then watch the ground It’s a silly time to learn to swim when you start to drown It’s a silly time to learn to swim on the way down”

Alex wasn’t facing her-- her back was turned a little, face angled down towards the frets, wrapped up in them. Whether she had heard Lydia come in and was refusing to even look at her, somehow knew who it was and didn’t have the energy to extend the courtesy of a greeting, or even acknowledge her, or if she was oblivious to her presence entirely-- that remained to be seen. (The latter option was obviously the most plausible, but she couldn’t get it out of her head, that maybe it was the former).

Whatever song she was singing, Lydia had never heard it before. It was pretty; maybe she just liked the way it was being sung. But the lyrics, they were nice, too. 

“Hmmm… not too bad, honestly a bit harder than I had expected. I’d thought someone from South Dakota maybe tipped a few cows or did a few donuts in a pasture.” Alex chuckled at the thought of a more delinquent Lydia. 

The stuff Alex did, it sounded a lot more hardcore. Public protesting? Lydia never even dreamed of doing stuff like that. She saw all the movements, the marches and the stand-ins and she supported them, sure, but she’d never participated in one. She wasn’t sure how they worked and she didn’t know if she could get arrested and, honestly, she was still a little paranoid that two missing sodas from a Mobil would cost her her college career. 

“Wow.” Was all she said. As much as she was taken aback by the fact Alex really did something like that, graffiti, she couldn’t overlook the reasoning behind it. Maybe it was just the alcohol, messing with her brain and stuff (she didn’t usually drink this much), but it felt like she’d brought up that whole instance on purpose, to make a point of it. She didn’t know what to say. She mulled it over, chewed a few words before spitting them out, into the night air like that. 

They only had a month left, one month of stolen glances and flashes of that night. If Alex concentrated really hard she could still feel Lydia’s lips on her own, a siren song calling her back to that night. And each time the blonde avoided her gaze hit Alex a little too hard. 

During chapel services Sunday, Alexandria wandered into the empty music room, picking up a guitar and trying to sing her thoughts away, but every note was the start of some love ballad. Finally, the musician settled on a Tegan and Sara song, My number, the lyrics flowing out of her as she strummed on the electric guitar, adjusting the amp until her sound was clear. 

Everything in her was telling her to go inside, but she couldn’t think of a reasonable excuse, a way to explain to Alex why she was there, without seeming rude, or maybe like she wanted to kiss again, somehow sending all the wrong signals.

Did she want to kiss again?

No. She couldn’t.

She knew it was unreasonable. She could list every reason to keep walking. Maybe go to the chapel, to the dining hall, back to her cabin to fiddle with her laptop. 

And then, instead of doing any of that, Lydia opened the door. 

And she wanted to kick herself for it-- for stepping into the room, the sleeves of her jacket covering her hands, her hair kinked from the humidity, her eyes wide like some deer caught in headlights. 

And she just stood there. Stupidly. 

However, when Lydia suggested a walk with Alex, the brunette perked up, smiling as she stood to stand next to her new friend. 

“I promise I won’t ask anything too personal…. mostly.” Alexandria grabbed Lydia another cider and without even thinking, reached down and took the other woman’s hand, tugging her down the path past the group and into the woods. 

Alex didn’t waste time with her questions, and Lydia chewed her bottom lip hard while she thought about how to answer it. “It’s going to sound mundane by your standards, I bet,” she pointed out, before doing a big shrug type of motion. 

“Would it sound better if I said I wanted to get to know you more?” Alex drained her cinder, the bubbles dancing down her throat. 

“People are so much more than their stories. Surely it takes more than an afternoon to know everything and if you say it doesn’t, I call bullshit.” Alex tugged open the cooler and took another cider. 

“Well, this isn’t where I want to be.” She stood up, abruptly, all that alcohol in her system making her jittery.

 She couldn’t keep still like that, on that burning log, any longer. “I can’t tell stories sitting still. And I can’t sit still anymore.” She was being more open than she’d been with anyone (with an exception of her best friend) in a long time, and she felt a lot more tipsy than she’d ever been before. She felt a lot of things and they were good and warm and she wanted to keep feeling them, in this place, with Alex.