Hydrophobia 101: E
“Thanks for driving me home,” Colt said softly, hugging his middle. The car smelled moldy and the exterior was four different colors while the majority of the interior had been torn out except for the mismatched driver’s and passenger seats. The backseats had long ago been torn out, Colt had guessed.
“No problem. Um, look, I’ll see if I can get Duncan to let up on you, ok?”
“It won’t work,” sighed Colt, “He’s been picking on me since we were in grade school. I’ve kind of gotten used to it by now.”
“He’s an asshole.” Jaysin said firmly and gave Colt a ‘don’t argue with me’ glare.
“Yeah,” Colt laughed wearily, “But I just tend to bring that out in people.”
“What happened there?” asked Jaysin, “When they threw you in the pool, I mean. You were freaking out pretty bad.”
Swallowing deeply, Colt replied, “Um, I’m severely hydrophobic. You know how some people are afraid of heights of small spaces or spiders? I’m afraid of water.”
Jaysin gave him an incredulous look, “So how do you live?”
“I can drink it,” Colt sighed, “And I can take showers and wash my hands. I can’t… I can’t stand baths. Or pools or hot tubs.”
Jaysin was frowning and had a dark, contemplative look on his face. Colt swallowed and prayed that he didn’t start treating him like a freak. Few people had ever accepted his seemingly unfounded fear. He was getting better, though. When he was younger an episode like this would have resulted in him spending a few weeks in the hospital psych ward.
“Why are you so afraid of it?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.” While there were people that knew about his fear, very few knew the cause of it. Jaysin looked a little surprised that the subject had been shot down so swiftly. “That one is mine.”
Jaysin pulled the car up in front of Colt’s house. Colt gave a quick thank you and good-bye and hurried inside.
He was immediately assaulted by Cheri and Nathan. He gasped as his face was shoved against Cheri’s chest and he was held there, very much unable to breath.
“We were so worried!” She shouted, trying not to cry, “When Stephanie called my heart just stopped. What happened? Are you alright?”
“I can’t breath!”
She let him go and Nathan pulled him into a less enthusiastic hug, but still caring.
“What happened?” she asked again, “Stephanie just said they’d played a prank on you and you were going to stay with a friend for the night.
“Yeah,” Colt sighed, “Duncan’s cousin put me up in his room for the night after some football jocks threw me in the pool.”
The two gasped, “Are you alright?” “Do you need your pills?” “Do you want to go see Dr. Murphy?” “Did you do your breathing exercises?”
“I’m fine!” Colt shouted, ending the barrage of questions, “I just slept for a while and everything was okay. Jaysin pulled me out of the pool and I passed out and that was that, I was fine.”
“Are you sure?” Nathan looked so worried.
Colt smiled, “I’m fine, okay? Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got homework to do.”
He hurried up to his room and pulled a book out of his back pack, a cheap paper-back sci-fi novel he’d found at Wal-Mart. He couldn’t afford a lot of books he wanted, so he was satisfied with whatever he could find for five or six dollars there. Usually it was something based on a movie, but this time it had been some small, unknown author. It was pretty good so far.
He sat on his bed and tried to read. It just wouldn’t work. Jaysin’s face kept popping into his mind.
But he didn’t really mind too much.