Free The Drowning by Rachel Ward

clumsiness.
    Neisha gasps and jumps to her feet. She claps one hand to her mouth, trying to stifle a scream, and starts backing away, then turns and runs out of the room. I push on the glass to right myself and step back into the middle of the lawn, my feet sinking into the soft, wet ground. I look at the front of the house, then go up to the door. The porch gives some protection against the rain. I crouch down and peer though the letter box. She isn’t there.
    “Neisha!” I shout. “Neisha, please talk to me!”
    Nothing.
    “Neisha! I didn’t mean to frighten you. Open up, please! I need to talk.”
    I bob down and squint through the letter box again. There’s a doorway at the end of the hall. Neisha’s hand is clasping the doorframe. That’s all I can see of her. Just her fingers curled around the edge of the wood.
    I turn my head sideways so I can see through the gap with one eye and still shout. Behind me I can hear the faint sound of liquid hitting the pavement. The sound of my dead brother vomiting his guts up. It’s not real , I tell myself. It’s just the pounding of the rain … But I know if I turn around, he’ll be there, with foul stuff pouring out of him.
    “Neisha, I know you’re there. Come on, please talk to me. You don’t have to open the door if you don’t want to.”
    Force the door, Cee. Smash it.
    His voice is no more than a whisper, but it terrifies me. I can’t look around. Oh God, Neisha, please open the door. Let me in. Get me away from the nightmare that’s followed me here. Get me away from my own madness.
    Rob’s groaning quietly now, and each noise twists my guilt tighter inside me. Did I do this to him? Did I really kill him? My guts are so churned up, I feel sick, too, like I did in the kitchen. There’s pressure building up inside.
    When I hear Neisha’s voice, it’s shaky and quiet.
    “Go away, Carl. I’m calling the police.”
    She’s still hiding. Her disembodied voice echoes in the hallway.
    “No, don’t! I want to say sorry!” I shout. “I’m so, so sorry!”
    “Sorry’s not enough,” she says. “Sorry’s just a word.”
    There’s a hard edge of bitterness there.
    “But I mean it,” I say. “I know I can’t bring him back” — even though, right at this moment, he’s spewing his guts up behind me — “but I am really, really sorry.”
    “Bring him back?” She sounds confused all of a sudden.
    “Yeah, you know …”
    “Carl, what exactly are you saying sorry for?”
    “For Rob. For killing him.”
    Silence.
    Then, “You killed Rob?”
    My head’s starting to cartwheel. This is what she was mad about, scared about, surely. The stuff in my stomach is pushing its way up.
    “Yeah,” I say, “at least I think so. I can’t remember, not everything.”
    “Shit.”
    I don’t get it. If she doesn’t think I killed him, why is she so scared? What’s going on?
    “What did you think I was saying sorry for?”
    “For God’s sake, Carl!”
    “Neisha, I can’t remember. Honestly. What happened? Why did you tell the cops we were larking around?”
    There’s a long pause. Her hand grips the doorframe more tightly. I realize I’m holding my breath.
    “You tried to kill me.”
    The cartwheels are sickeningly fast, everything I thought I knew turns upside down, spinning, reeling.
    I killed my brother and I tried to kill this girl?
    “But … but why would I do something like that?”
    “You don’t remember anything ?”
    “Just little bits. Fighting with Rob in the lake.”
    “You and your evil brother. You were in it together. Now can you see why I don’t want you here? I don’t want you coming here, Carl. Ever.”
    I let the letter box flip closed and I sink to my knees. No wonder she screamed when she saw me in the ambulance. No wonder she slammed down the phone. Water drips from the edge of the porch roof onto my head, splashing the side of my face. Rob’s face flashes out of the darkness and it seems like he’s grinning, his