Drowning Is Inevitable Read Free

sober.”
    â€œDon’t make excuses for me,” he’d argue.
    No matter what I said, he wouldn’t believe me. Since then, it was like he was on a mission, loving me more to atone for his sins.
    He rubbed my scars now and shook his head. “I love you,” he said.
    He was wild, throwing around words like love. He pushed most people away, but not me. With me, he was dying to be saved. I wanted to tell him that love never saved anybody. It didn’t save my mom.
    â€œThat’s done,” I said. “You don’t have to be sorry about that anymore.”
    He had other things to be sorry about.
    â€œI’m sorry about what I said the other day.”
    I pulled my hand from his. We both knew that wasn’t true.
    â€œI’m sorry for how I said it,” he said.
    That I believed.
    â€œI didn’t know asking you to come to Baton Rouge at the end of the summer would be a deal breaker.”
    â€œI can’t see myself there.”
    â€œEven though that’s where Jamie will be?” he asked.
    Jamie was going to LSU in the fall. The thought made me hollow. It was only about thirty miles away, but you couldn’t measure the distance from St. Francisville in miles.
    â€œI can’t see myself anywhere.”
    â€œLook, I get it,” he said.
    But he didn’t. Max had always had a place, in the past, in the present. Max had a future, even if it was one he didn’t want. His dad was a prominent attorney in town who expected his son to follow in his footsteps. Max was headed to LSU, pre-law of course, and his dad had already added the and son to the sign outside his office.
    There wasn’t a lot of new ground broken in St. Francisville. Most people just did what their parents did, which was why almost everyone who knew me half expected me to follow my mom into the water. No one asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” If I was honest, it was a question I didn’t want to hear. In two months I’d be eighteen, and a day after that I’d outlive her. I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, because there had never seemed a point in planning past eighteen. I figured if I pulled through, then I’d make some decisions. This frustrated Max to great extremes and had been the catalyst for our last fight.
    â€œOlivia, you have to pick something. You have to do something !” he’d yelled.
    â€œI am doing something!” I’d yelled back.
    â€œYou’re playing dress-up in a dead girl’s clothes. That doesn’t qualify as a life plan.”
    My eyes had watered and my nose had stung at his words, like he’d struck me. “Should I keep doing whatever it is we’re doing?” I’d asked. “Having sex in your truck on turnrows and getting day-drunk for no reason. Is that a better life plan?”
    It was his turn to look like he’d been kicked in the gut.
    â€œI haven’t had a drop of anything since that night, and you know it.”
    I did know it, but I couldn’t keep myself from rubbing salt in his wound. I’d wanted to hurt him back.
    â€œI know. I’m sorry.”
    â€œI try every day to do the right thing,” he’d said. “My dad says I have to be honest, own up to my mistakes. And that’s what I’m trying to do, but you make everything so hard.”
    â€œHow do I make things hard?”
    â€œBecause you’re not honest back. You’re always pushing me away. You won’t let your guard down. You won’t let yourself be with me, really be with me.”
    â€œWhat does that have to do with me forgiving you for almost killing me?”
    We’d been standing in my grandmother’s front yard, not far from where we were now, and he’d picked up a rock and thrown it. It had hit one of my grandmother’s flowerpots and shattered, soil and petals flying everywhere.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he’d