Into This River I Drown

“Hope to die,” I tell her as I make an X shape on my chest with my finger.

“Stick a thousand needles in your eye,” she finishes solemnly. She pulls on my face until I’m lowered to hers and her lips are near my ear. I shudder as she breathes.

Finally, she says, “The blue follows you because it worries. The blue dances to make you notice. The blue flashes to make you smile.”

“Worries? About what?” Not that I believe a damn thing she’s saying. This is ridiculous. I shouldn’t be feeding these fantasies of hers. She’s obviously deluded herself into thinking—

“You, Benji. It worries because of the river. You’re drowning.”

I jerk my head back out of her hands, and for a moment she leaves them outstretched in front of her, as if she’s offering herself to whatever it is only she can see. I take a step back, because she’s too fucking close, and I can still feel her breath on my skin.

Nina lowers her arms and opens her eyes, those damnable, intelligent eyes. She’d been born with Down, yes, but fell into a category that only affects a small portion of those afflicted: mosiacism. During her gestation, some of the cells in the Down’s embryo were able to revert back into their normal chromosomal arrangement. Which essentially means that while she still has Down syndrome, her intelligence is above others with her same condition. I’ve grown used to her insights, knowing she is much smarter than most people will ever know.

But this?

“What did you do?” she asks again, but as if she is speaking to herself. “What changed? Why today? Why now and—” She stops suddenly, a sharp intake of breath. She slowly raises her eyes again, passing over my face until she’s looking above me. She’s silent. Then, “I see.” Pause. “And you would do that? For him? Oh. Oh. Yes. Oh, yes. So lonely. Like you? Like… you.”

I am rapt, unable to look away. A tear slips from the corner of her left eye and down her smooth cheek. I reach up and rub it away and she comes back to me, whatever conversation going on in her head now over. Or at the very least on hold.

She grasps my hand and says, “You see it, don’t you?”

I shake my head before I can stop myself. “Nina, I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not real. There’s no blue. There’s no light. It’s just a trick your mind is playing on you.” Because that is what I must believe. Please believe it too.

She gives me a knowing look.

“There’s nothing up there,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice level. “There’s nothing there. You know this. You’re better than this. You’re smarter than this.”

“Apparently the smarter of the two,” she retorts.

I sigh. “Nina—”

“Benji, it’s here, no matter what you do. Open your eyes.”

“My eyes have been open for years now,” I say bitterly, not expecting her to understand. “They’re open. You can take my word on that.”

She suddenly rushes forward and throws her arms around my shoulders and buries her sweet face in my neck. She starts to cry quietly and I hold her while she lets it out.

After a time, she looks up at me with bright eyes and a watery smile. “Oh, Benji,” she says. “I’m sorry you feel so lonely. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was that bad.”

A tremor threatens to rise through me, but I push it away. I kiss her forehead instead. “How can I be lonely when I have you?” I ask her.

Nina laughs as she pulls away, wiping her eyes. “It’s my bedtime,” she tells me suddenly and turns back toward Big House. I watch her reach the porch and am about to head back to the truck when she calls out my name.

“It won’t be much longer,” she says. “Pretty soon, I think you’ll see.”

Chills flash down my spine. “What’s soon, Nina? What will I see?”

She smiles and it’s kind. She thinks for a moment, as if trying to carefully decide what to say. Finally, she decides on a single word and says it aloud before she turns back and opens the door to Big House, then closes it behind her, leaving me in the dark, the sounds of crickets and the wind through the pine needles fading, as the one word echoes back to me, the only thing I hear.

Everything.

Little House is empty. Nina spooked me more than I care to admit, and I

go room to room, turning on the lights, checking under beds, in cabinets. Closets. Drawers. Nothing. There’s nothing here. No one. Little House is empty. And at the same time, it’s not.

I can’t help but feel someone behind me everywhere I turn, like I’m being

followed. I catch myself in the mirror, my skin white, my eyes blown out, black overtaking green. I look detached. I look like I haven’t slept in days. Weeks. I look insane. I look unreal.