KAISER

SEVEN YEARS AGO

"Don't you know how to swim?" Joremo denounces.

"I do."

"Join us, unless you're afraid of water," an older boy with Harry Styles' hairstyle insists, flashing a tyrant smile like some bully eighth-grader from my school.

It's been a year since I've been on my own—no friends, no caring parents, just me, Cuppy, and Elena, the housekeeper my parents employed to replace the parental comfort and love they refused me.

After four hundred days of expecting a miracle, hoping to find my best friend again, I've given up and accepted the reality that she's never coming back. So today, after school, I gather the strength to visit the playground I've been avoiding since Daisy disappeared.

"Maybe that little girlfriend of his turned him into a diaper boy," Jarome ridicules me in front of everyone.

"I can swim."

"Prove it then," he taunts.

"Okay."

"Kaiser, Kaiser, Kaiser..." Mr. Perfect Hair begins chanting, calling everyone's attention until all the kids chime in, reciting my name.

There was no going back for me.

"Okay..." I repeat after swallowing for the seventh time.

Before I terrifyingly lower myself into the water, I take in the small circle of kids around the pool, encouraging me to go for something I've been avoiding since the lake incident a year ago—swimming. They had hope in me to prove myself to them, if I were to back down now, they'd forever treat me worse among them. I have to do this now for myself.

I doubt I cared enough to cloak my dreadful expression as I advance deeper until I can't feel the surface beneath my feet.

I'm floating. I'm swimming.

I wasn't a good swimmer, and I've become even more hesitant since Daisy drowned, leaving me with no choice but to fear any depth that inhabits the water.

Right now, as I suffer from every emotion, I believe I got past all the stages of fear, it comes while my body sinks deeper under the water with my screams inaudible. But then again, it occurs to me that I'm stuck in a void, as once again the same little girl with caramel brown hair that spreads underwater grabs onto my ankle and drags me down with her.

I don't want to go there—amid darkness. It's bottomless, scary, and infrasonic, like a cage under the ocean. She wants to take me down with her.

My breathing quickens; an imperceptible anxiety penetrates my chilled bones.
"Help..." I scream.

"Pretty boy is scared of swimming—I knew it," someone snorts, but I don't care who it is, I just need help. I am choking on water.

"Help me, I can't..." I'm drowning. I feel an unintelligible pressure as I struggle to reach for someone, battling Daisy's firm hold on my ankle. "I can't breathe."

The kids instead, burst into laughter, evacuating the pool and pointing at me like the foolish kid who falls for every prank. Only they have no idea or maybe they do—but I'm fighting to survive.

"Please." I plead, letting my tears blend with the water from the pool.

No one hears. No one cares. They let the girl in the water successfully pull me into her prison which I painfully fear. I can't see or perceive anything—the water blocks every hole in my body. I was going to die.

"Please!" I cry although it's muffled by the water filling my throat. My head and chest hurts severely. "No!" I scream with all my might, hoping the sound is powerful enough for someone to hear me, only to be able to open my eyes to a different surrounding and my body shoots up to a sitting position in intense fear.

It takes a moment before I mentally connect with the environment.
No, it's my penthouse bedroom not underwater.

"Baby?" Riley leans over, her elbow supporting her propped-up head resting in her hand. She looks worried, with creases etched on her face, her fingers tenderly caressing my cheek. "It's okay," she promises.

I continue to breathe hard and fast, staring at her with frosty eyes like she's some ghost holding me in place to announce the news of my passing.

Until slowly everything processes in my head, my labor breathing subduing and I am cognizant of my sweat-beaded forehead, the moisture trickling down my skin in thin lines.
It was a nightmare that I had, one that was real. I remember that exact day when I drowned. My parents thought they had lost me; it was the day I spent hours in a coma on a hospital bed. Mom said a man found me floating in the pool after every child had left. He rescued me—I was unconscious at the time and didn't get to see him afterward because we moved out of the neighborhood immediately after I was discharged.

"You're sweating; I'll get a cool towel."

Riley climbs off the bed and makes her way to the ensuite bathroom, returning with some slightly wet paper towels in both hands.

"How are you feeling?" she asks softly, while gently cleaning my face and neck.

Cuppy whines beside the nightstand, looking sad, just like every time I wake up screaming for help.

"Much better, thank you."

"Do you want some water?" she asks quietly.

"Don't worry, I can get it," I insist and manage to guide myself out of bed.

Riley has done a lot for me. I can't keep letting her treat me so heartily when I'm doing nothing but kissing her best friend behind her back.

Disappointment and anger fill every part of me by the time I walk into the kitchen.

And there she is—the only human being who makes my heart drum in a torturing rhythm.

Daisy is sitting around the counter in the quiet darkness. What is she doing here at this time?

Instinctively, my eyes narrow before they find the table clock. Thanks to the lights from other buildings and mostly to the moon striking dimly through the large glass windows, I can see it's a quarter past one in the morning. Why is she not sleeping in her bed?

Even in the dark, her beauty doesn't wane; she's stunning and everything that makes up perfection. I can't stop looking until her exquisite face turns toward me. Those gorgeous eyes find mine, and instinctively, I look away. I can't let her see my vulnerability and I sure as hell pray she didn't hear my screams.

I can feel her eyes boring into me as I walk towards the kitchen. She must be happy right now—Kaiser is one broken mess, screaming helplessly at night.

Feeling bitterness swelling in the back of my throat, I charge for the fridge and pull open the door.

"Are you okay?" she finally asks after I gulp down the entire bottle of water, trying to ignore her.

Her voice is quiet, low, and gentle—it makes me want to scoot across that island and take her mouth in mine, again. I know it will be a healing balm to my inner ache, but fuck, that's so messed up to even think.

"No, not until you disappear," I retaliate and angrily slam the door shut.

She must be short of a comeback since I am able to leave her behind without any further communication. She didn't attempt to insist or challenge me, and for the first time, I'm glad and proud of her for taking her lesson seriously. She knows better than to push me to the edge at this time of the morning.