STEPHEN

STEPHEN | 8

Dedicated to officialfuryevans because he's fury and honestly is one of the best people on wattpad :)

8

I listened. I didn't speak. All I did was listen about the eight-year-old boy who had been swimming with his brother.

I didn't even know he had a brother. I didn't know a lot of things about him.

Adopted brother. Adopted because Stephen's mother endured complications from his own birth and Stephen's brother was the result of another child wanted. He was also the result of all the love that was previously given to Stephen. Stephen may not have noticed the way his entire appearance changed speaking of him.

He became restless. Visibly irritated. His fingers tapped against the seat as he spoke. His eyes hardened. His voice was strong but each word that spilled from his lips like he was spitting out the poison. The poison of childhood, of his teenage years, of his family and resentment.

It was evident. He didn't have to tell me. He envied his brother. He hated his brother. They were the same age and I feared that the comparison of two individuals had been clear in the family as well. I don't think Stephen meant to loathe him but when your parents' love is clearly unequal it caused a strain on relationships.

And that one day was the day that topped everything.

Stephen was young, naïve, innocent as many children could be and his brother was the same. One day, they were a distance away from the adults that had been speaking. The families were close, laughter and chatter buzzed in the air in the area where the sand was. Sand. The barrier between sea and land. The restriction between the children and the adults in the situation.

The girl, about the same age as Stephen and his brother, had merely wished to be included in a game the two were playing. She was an only child and like many children, where the adults occupied was where boredom was certain. Stephen saw this and let her join but there was a period in the game when no one had seen her continue to go further into the water. Where the deeper parts of the lake Stephen and his brother avoided by the familiar memory of their father telling them the times they had been before.

But she didn't know and she went further. Further to the point where she could no longer feel her toes touch the wet sand. Where her head would sink underwater and her arms would flail as she would try to go up with no experience of swimming. She would kick with all her might as if the water was the enemy. She would try to fight her way to the one goal:

Air. Oxygen.

The essential part of life we take for granted. One second without it wakes us up from the routine of taking it in and out consistently. In that one second, we gasp in the fear that without it, our entire life can slip without it. We come to the realization of how important it is. In the medium of water, there was only one way to go.

Up.

But that didn't work. In this circumstance, without no experience of swimming, it could feel like an anchor was tied around your ankle and there was no way to go up. The only option was going down but you fought anyway knowing that in the moment of desperation, the issue was not just the water.

It was time.

How long would it take for the water to fill your lungs? For you to go into unconsciousness? For your organs to shut down? For your brain to shut down? For you to give up and breathe in the water anyway? For someone to find you and try to resuscitate you?