Adrian was physically sitting in a leather chair inside of his home. Physically, he was contained in the seat he was in but spiritually and mentally he had fled his body. Like a hypnotized man, he was slouched forward at a back-aching angle with his elbows resting heavily on his calves, his hands were limply held in between. A gaze that would be hard to break bore beams into the wall across from him, ten feet away. Bare feet touched dusty hardwood floor, the only part of Adrian that was unclothed beside the top of his head.

Inside of his head, Adrian was swimming… a weird and nauseating sensation that pulled at him much like how a riptide will pull a strangler out to sea. As thoughts tried to process, sensational wave after wave slammed him around. Not being a man who felt the sickness of the sea often, his gut was churning like someone furiously wanted to make butter.

Adrian had had this tormenting swimming feeling ever since… the accident. There hadn’t been a moment of clarity on account of it. The hospital lights had been much too bright, the doctor’s too loud and persistent which did not mesh well with an unsourceable loud ringing that stayed persistently in his ears that was only drowned out if Adrian instead focused on trying to swim.

Which he did not want to do. Swimming was terrible. There was no destination nor place to rest. Swimming left him devoid of a lot of his mental abilities. Critical thinking power, his sense of morality and even his own personality was now a big encyclopedia that he needed to leaf through to get the answers he was looking for, answers to questions as simple as “is this pain bearable?”, “have I been through anything worse than this?”, or more frequently “was what they told me of the past two days all a dream?”

And that was how everything felt to Adrian. Like the moments after waking up in the morning, the power of sleep fading. The past two days were like trying to remember the dream he had been having as it relentlessly slips from memory. Except not even a single detail was able to be retrieved, and would not be brought to the forefront of his mind for a long time, on a day when Adrian would be gloomily driving through Santa Monica with a dog in his backseat.

Back in West Virginia, though, inside of the condo building that he had been living in for three years, Adrian was sitting. I might just sit here until mold and moss grow he thought. It would be the easiest thing to do, rather than confront anything beyond this murky veil. For at the same time that it was imprisoning him, this feeling of swimming, it was also protecting him. There were realizations that he wanted to let lie for a while, deep in the black recesses of his mind.

No lights were on, the blinders were shut. It was dark all across Adrian’s room, with little rays of sunlight sneaking past the curtains to make a glowing rectangle on his wall.

It reminded him… of… something. His mind irregularly whirred passed a few memories that whisked themselves way as soon as they touched the tip of Adrian’s forerunning memory. He tried to recall them but found that he couldn’t. A cold, tingling sensation gripped him from the top of his spine and shook its way down. All of a sudden he didn’t like the dark. Like a stone giant come to life, Adrian unbent concrete legs and with speed that became quicker over time he drew back the curtains and opened the window blinds. Outside was a small park, Adrian lived in a quiet part of town. Children ran freely at three o’clock, playing tag and other games with their families. Animals wagged to and fro. Ducks swam gaily through a pond…

Another series of janky memories ran by the running screen that was Adrian’s conscious mind. For fractions of a second he was able to see unidentifiable images that came across in blue, red and white blurs. Each one was a miniature wrapped-up punch in the gut, felt fully but without knowing where the blow came from. Adrian didn’t even have the slightest inclination to explore them. The grandest pain that he felt wasn’t one hidden from his own memory, it was an omnipresent fact that every surrounding presence screamed silently at him.

Alyssa was dead, killed while he was behind the wheel of the car. She no longer existed to this world or his… and that stomped his heart into broken, tiny shards of glass and grinded them into a fine dust when he thought about it. She was the love of his life, and while he had questioned it earlier he definitely knew it now. Despite the differences and petty arguments, Adrian had never loved like he loved Alyssa.

The amnesia he had gotten, a symptom of the concussion he had also received, had stretched back to around the time Alyssa had fallen asleep earlier in the evening of that fatal day, two days ago. He didn’t remember her waking up, or why they were out driving. Adrian couldn’t remember what their plan was, where they were going or why they would ever choose to drive in the backroads at night. The only person either of them knew out there was her ex’s old friend, Emile Stoddard…

Several more graphic photographs blipped into and out of existence, Adrian tried desperately with his mind to snag one, to solve his curiosity as to why the name Emile Stoddard caused such anxiety to him right now. As he mentally wrestled for control, a swelling of dread arose, and the memory was wrested from him and repressed again. As it went, so did the feeling of oncoming dread. These fleeting thoughts that Adrian both wanted to relive and at the same time keep repressed were dividing him in half. With thick, pitiful sobs he cast his head into his hands and let fat tears stroll down his cheeks. He made to sit back down but forgot (what with the concussion, depression, and general disorientation from the traumatic past few days he has had) where he was standing, which was in front of the window and still five feet or more from the chair. Awkwardly he made to lay himself down, but having nothing underneath him left him fumbling and grasping backward until he fell on to his ass, and in a fit of frustration the tears came more steadily and accompanied with miserable sounding whimpers.

Adrian sat there in front of his window until the tears stopped flowing. Ten minutes later, he was wiping his face with the bottoms of his palms and readjusting himself back into his leather chair. The comfort it provided had a phantom touch, existing to Adrian and even felt by him, but not how he used to feel such content. This was an awkward, distant and cold imitation left in its place.

Dead and motionless his cellphone laid on a simple mahogany desk. It’s sleek, black body lay flat and close to the corner. Adrian had been told that he was lucky that he hadn’t brought his cellphone along; his other belongings had been water damaged or washed away. His wallet, packed with driver’s license, bank cards, two hundred dollars in cash and also a sentimental photo of Adrian and Alyssa hadn’t turned up at all, despite the search of the car when they had retrieved it from the water that the police had orchestrated, and the equally thorough search of the river. The black rectangle vibrated, and from Adrian’s angle on the chair he could see the screen light up but not what was displayed on the screen itself. It was another glowing square and when Adrian closed his eyes it left glowing outlines on his retinas. He opened them, trying to escape the image and the thoughts it brung along. The attempt failed, only producing a negative afterimage of the glow wherever he cast his vision, which happened to be looking near the still-illuminated cellphone. He considered briefly who might be calling him.

Who would call me right now? The police said they had everything, it shouldn’t be them. Beyond the brief initial talks, I never made any arrangements with a lawyer. Adrian had had a few small talks with ameteur lawyers, whispering legal secrets in his ear that he let whistle out the other. Not one for law and its antics, he kept his head down and waited for the “all clear” he had been hoping for. When Lieut. Barfield himself delivered it, Adrian shook his hand and shook off the lawyer’s like a dog with a bad case of fleas. News reporters? I did have to wave off that one local newspaper journalist as I left the hospital. But a distinct feeling in his gut was telling him that it wasn’t anyone with any sort of media looking to scope out the finer details of the fatal crash. The curiosity was only starting to thaw out the icy edges of his apathy when the light died out, the vibrating pattern that was starting to become rhythmic stopped suddenly. The contrast the silence provided, despite the apartment being as quiet as it has ever been before the phone rang, was awakening. Could that have been Mom or Dad? Maybe Douglas even… he hasn’t said a word to me yet. Not even a visit to the hospital. His parents, who had visited twice and with obvious worry and doubt in their eyes, had been avoiding his questions concerning Douglas and Felicia, Alyssa’s sister. While their love for him was still clear and apparent, they did want to know why he was out on the backroads so late, and were skeptical about what could cause an accident on such a quiet night. Adrian’s lack of information only made them leave the hospital room uneasily when they were ready to make their retreat, not before staying for an appropriate hour to discuss the event and other, smaller trivialities.

When Adrian had asked about Douglas, his parents both awkwardly avoided his stare. They made mention of his… “concern” as it was put, and suggested subtly to avoid Douglas until Felicia had been consoled. When Douglas’s life partner had been brought into question, the downward cast glances became glued to their shoes. She was an inconsolable mess, wanting absolutely nothing to do with Adrian. The word “hate” wasn’t stated out loud in reference to how she was currently viewing her lover’s brother, but it was being heavily implied.

Alyssa hadn’t been a public alcoholic; as far as Adrian was aware, he might have been the only one to know about her binging problem. Her family knew her to be social and outgoing, and someone not afraid to enjoy alcohol, but it was obvious with how her side of the family was acting that they thought that alcohol never could have played a part in the car accident. There had been no alcohol in the car, and since Adrian had been the driver and had openly mentioned that Alyssa had been intoxicated (this he could remember, the expensive bottle of Russian vodka she had drank was in fact still at Alyssa’s home), no one looked into it any further. Adrian was known to be straight-edge, and so far hadn’t received an accusation for being at fault of the accident, even from Alyssa’s visiting parents, Martin Haines who was tall and lean and Talitha Haines who was tall and wide, when he was in the hospital room. The poor things were walking shells of themselves, the ghost of Alyssa was looming right over their shoulders. They had meekly made conversation, said that they were glad for his health (and to their effort seemed honest and genuine), and then left after ten awkward and tense minutes.

The phone buzzed again. A single buzz. Adrian blinked, a little bit taken by surprise as he deduced, from the previous call, that someone had left him a voicemail.

The frozen corners of his lethargy melted at a quicker rate, and curiosity began to thrum a familiar chord inside of him. At the same time as he was curious as to who would call him, and undoubtedly there was a small list of people who that might be, he did not feel like talking to anyone and this provided an easy outlet to both problems. He felt like remaining comatose, lamenting the events of the past few days. Adrian hadn’t spoken to anyone for a solid twenty-one hours and was only feeling worse as time ticked on. It wasn’t healthy to sit. To stew in his own sorrow. But it was easier, and that was good enough for Adrian.

But he was curious about the caller. He reached for his cell phone and pressed its side button to light up the screen. It took him some seconds to turn the phone around and properly find the button, his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the focus he was trying to use, and his senses failed to cooperate on time. Finally he correctly prompted the screen to light up.

VOICEMAIL (1):

FELICIA SHEPHERD

“Shit.” he said tersely. The possibility that it had been his brother’s wife had evaded him. Of course she would call. But what would she say? Would she possibly want to meet in person, to talk? Would she forgive him or would she never want to speak to him again?

Alyssa and Felicia hadn’t been twins like Adrian and Douglas, but their relationship was just as close as his own and Doug’s. They were born a single year apart, Alyssa being the older and both of them being 2-3 years younger than both Adrian and Douglas. They were simple girls with big dreams, Alyssa was a secretary for a doctor’s office, and Felicia was an accomplished interior designer. Douglas had fallen for Felicia, and it was Felicia who had introduced Alyssa to Adrian. What did she think of that decision now?

The screen faded to black from inactivity. He noticed his hand was trembling and not trying to activate his phone again. Do I want to? He wasn’t sure anymore. But he had to. That much was owed to Alyssa’s family, to hear them out. Slowly and with a held breath, he listened to the voicemail:

“.........Adrian? It’s as much that I could have guessed that you wouldn’t pick up the phone tonight. You are probably lying alone in your shitty apartment, wasting your fucking life away. I called you to say something. We do not have any need, that is myself or Douglas, in seeing you again. After what your reckless driving has done, I can no longer stand the thought of you and need you to be erased from my life. Douglas, too, has come to the realization that while your murder was deemed an accident, you are still to blame and he thinks of you as guilty.

“On top of this, he has finally come to the realization that you are not the good and amazing role model of a brother that you have always made yourself out to be. He has told me numerously over the months that he has been growing tired of the way you have always looked down at him and treated him like a lesser. Adrian, Douglas is more of a man than you could ever be. You’re a cheap, accidental fuck-up of human waste who killed my fucking SISTER!”

There was a pause for a matter of seconds, in which Adrian could hear the gentle release of long stifled sobs. Composed, she returned and said:

“We hate you. We both hate you, and always will Adrian. I hope you die as ugly a death as Alyssa did. Have you even seen her body, Adrian? When Alyssa’s ex was resting at the bridge during his jog, he pulled you out first. Do you know why he pulled you out, instead of someone he recognized Adrian? Because he didn’t recognize her. He had seen the condition of her head and couldn’t see that it was Alyssa.

“I wish he had left you… it wouldn’t bring Alyssa back but knowing that you were dead as well would bring some rest to this nightmare.”

The phone’s dial tone blared. Adrian thumbed the off button and sat it back down. He was still deep in a state of lethargy, to the point that the devastating phone call was just another grievance next to a growing list of problems. As if his mind had suppressed the emotional distress that had been building up, he felt a great wave of sadness crashing down from a distant place and rush up and around to consume him.

Is this my fault? Am I to blame? Did I kill Alyssa? These thoughts that should have been wailing cries were merely inquisitive queries. Adrian could never have believed it that he could have intentionally wanted Alyssa to die, that simply was not a part of who he was. Adrian was not a barbarian. But could he have been the hand who was orchestrating it, unknowing or not?

It had been Alyssa’s birthday… and she had been drunk. Although she was a pretty good driver who claimed to have exceptional drunk driving skills, Adrian had been the one that the jogging man (who, in a surely funny coincidence, turned out to be Alyssa’s ex-boyfriend) retrieved first. He (whose name was Chucky) had recently turned his life around. Chucky was formerly a drinking buddy of Emile the bootlegger, and him and Alyssa met through their mutual hobbies.

Apparently he had had an epiphany, quit the booze and became a health and fitness fanatic. Alyssa had mentioned him once or twice but it was comments that Adrian let sift in one ear and ease out of the other. Now the town of Beckley was heralding him as a hero while simultaneously mourning the loss of one of its own citizens.

The reports that Chucky had made were not as informative as Adrian had been wishing for. He wanted answers, he wanted to know that he wasn’t a guilty man so that his conscience might be clean. Apparently, Chucky had been at the other end of the bridge when he saw a car. Chucky was fond of jogging near midnight on the backroads because it was quiet and provided less traffic, normally none at all. He had noted when Adrian and Alyssa drove by but didn’t recognize her car in the dark, nor when it was underwater. It wasn’t until later that Chucky realized who the person he had pulled out of the water second was.

When he saw the car coming across the bridge, he had intended to wait for it to pass before he started jogging back toward his home; Swimming Falls had been as far as he was going to run before going home for a shower and then sleep. The car, with blaring headlights outlined and surrounded by inky nighttime darkness that blocked the view of the windshield, veered to its right in a fashion that was sudden and did not appear deliberate. As he told the newspaper, he never wasted a second and didn’t think twice about running down the rough slope of dirt, loose gravel and stone which was the embankment of the bridge. According to the article, the heroic son of a bitch hadn’t even taken his shoes or his shirt off in his mad dash to save the sunken car’s passengers.

Adrian didn’t know why he hated Chucky, but he did. Adrian wasn’t so petty as to feel like a lesser man in comparison to him, during or after his relationship with Alyssa. But he hated Chucky now that he had saved his life. He saved my life… but Alyssa should be here. None of this should have happened, and I can’t shake that feeling. Stress laid heavily on his shoulders, a feeling of remorse and guilt mingled within. The sensation that he was to be blamed, that he had done something wrong and should feel bad about it. It gnawed endlessly at the fog and confusion that amnesia provided willingly.

Something that Felicia had said came back to him. She mentioned that not only she but Douglas as well didn’t want to see him again. That one comment had been especially barbed, and it prodded Adrian in tender spots in his heart to think about that being a possibility. What would I do without Douglas? He’s my brother…

Adrian grabbed for his cell phone and went to his brother in the contact list. The photo that Adrian had stored for his profile, one of him and Doug covered in mud, the background was of a swamp and created as much confusion as their huge, laughing grins provided considering the environment and filth coating their faces. The dial tone rang, Adrian could have sworn that his heart beat as often as the tone came.

The call dropped after eight low, buzzing drones. Adrian let go of his cell phone and cried, truly feeling the sorrow he had experienced now.