Every Little Thing Read Online Free Page B

make it sound like thur’s zombies down there or something.” Ryan let out a fit of reckless laughter to alleviate Cohen’s concern and looked around, through drunk-enthused eyes, at moss-entwined trees and then the splash of a trout. When he stood again, to take in the view, Ryan was wobbly, pale. Knees like pivots. “Turn around and keep the boat going. A man’s gotta piss if a man’s gotta piss!” He reached to turn the volume up on their stereo, but he knocked it off the bench and waved a hand like, Fuck it .
    Cohen sat at the back of the boat staring behind him as Ryan relieved himself. His hand going numb from the vibration of the throttle.
    â€œHurry up, man!We’re not headed for a wharf or anything are we?”
    â€œNo. And slow down a little. Jesus, I’m gonna piss on myself here!”
    There was a flying V of ducks overhead and Cohen watched it shoot like an arrow through the sky. He felt the lever of the throttle torque his wrist up, like the propellers had snagged on vegetation or struck a rock. But it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like the grinding halt, or the slight tug, that his hand had felt a hundred other times in running that propeller into stone or vegetation. He cut the motor. “Ryan?”
    Before he’d even turned around, his jaw went numb at the thought of the propellers biting into his brother. He let go of the throttle and refused to turn his head and be sure. Some force, some invisible set of hands, pushing against his head as he turned, slowly, to look at the front of the boat.
    And it was empty.
    Ryan wasn’t on the floor of the boat, but Cohen took a stubborn look behind a bench. He looked in the water behind him and Ryan wasn’t swimming towards him. He wasn’t swimming towards shore. Cohen hauled the outboard motor up and out of the water to check for signs the propellers had struck his brother.
    He cut the stereo and a curtain of silence fell all around him. A stillness. He heard no thrashing, no panicked screaming, no reckless laughter. He shouted his brother’s name into that silence. Filled it. Shouted like his screams would yank Ryan to the surface. Fish him out of the water.
    He didn’t think to close his mouth or take a breath of air as he dove into the pond. He was in the water and his chest stung— the wound from his surgery still not closed. He was screaming his brother’s name and it came out bubbly and muffled; the murky pond water gurgling in his throat whenever he yelled Ryan’s name. The taste of it thick in his mouth. Like cow manure and grainy dirt.
    He couldn’t see a thing. A million flecks of brown were suspended and bobbing calmly up and down in the water. A ballet of silt; such a stark contrast to his panic.
    He came to the surface for air. Gulped. And his lungs felt like torn bags. He submerged and swam for the bottom: the water getting more and more visually impenetrable as he descended; the spaces between suspended dirt closing and closing until it felt like he was swimming through mud. And darker still as the sun’s reach petered out. The silt felt like microscopic claws at his eyes. His legs kicking furiously and eventually his palms hit mud. Sank inches deep into that mud. His lungs begging for air, tightening, or threatening to burst. He felt around. His throat ready to pop; an urgency for Ryan overriding an urgency for air. Buoyancy yanking him towards the surface. He fought against that pull, the need for air, kicking his feet, scraping his hands off God knows what on the bottom of the pond—the mud cool enough to soothe whenever something tore his flesh. The incision on his chest had stopped stinging or adrenaline had him feeling invincible. Like he could punch a hole in the bottom of the pond to drain it and find his brother.
    He rushed to the surface for a refill of air. He was shovelling his arms through the water and the water felt like a gel. He dug