Drop

Three.

Owen was sitting on me.

Okay, let me re-phrase that: I sat in the back seat of my parent's pickup truck, and Owen sat on top of me. Except, I don't think he knew he was. No one else seemed to know either. He just sat himself down on my lap, clicked the seat belt, and said to Ashley, who'd sat beside him,

"Why is this chair wet?"

Oh geez.

Dad, who still looked like he'd been run over by a truck, turned from the driver's side to stare at Owen. "I don't know. It might be milk. Finn-" He choked my name out, as if it was hard for him to even think of me, "he might've spilled some milk there yesterday."

"It wouldn't still be wet." Mom put in, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

"It's not milk." Owen said.

Ashley stared at my knee, although I don't think she knew she was. "It just looks like water. Maybe lake water from the back of your shorts." 

That seemed to effectively shut everybody up, and Dad started the engine. I peered around Owen's bulky bicep to see a parade of police officers leading the way down the dusty, mountain road. As the truck bounced around in four wheel drive, I thought about the night before.

The night I drowned.

It had only been a couple hours before that Owen and I had arrived at the party. We actually only went because stupid Roger Ferris told us that if we didn't go, he'd key our cars. I honestly don't know why Owen and I even felt threatened by that, since, you know, neither of us actually owned cars.

Anyway, that's beside the point. We went. I hated parties. I think I mentioned that. I hated that you had to carry a cup of beer around, and talk to people. I hated talking to people. It's like, what's the point in telling some random person how you are, and then standing there for years listening to them tell you how they are? Neither person ever really cares. You might as well just stand off to the side and make conversations in your head.

"What was the last thing he said?" Mom's shaking voice knocked me from my rambling thoughts.

I could feel Owen's chest constrict as he coughed nervously. "I-I don't remember."

"Are you sure?" Dad seemed adamant to know my last words, "Weren't you right there? That's what you told the police, right? That you were standing next to my son when he accidentally tripped into the lake."

Narrowing my eyes, I jabbed my elbow as hard as I could into Owen's back. The dirty little liar. Accidentally? Tripped? I jabbed him again.

Owen shifted in his seat- or my lap, rather. "This is so weird. I feel like there's a waterfall going down my back."

I rolled my eyes.

Ashley gave him a curious look. "Probably sweat."

Dad gazed at Owen in the review mirror. "You wouldn't lie to us, would you, son?"

I hated that he called Owen 'son'.

"Yes sir. I mean, of course I wouldn't. No." The ends of his dark blonde hair were curly and bounced over my face when he spoke. "Absolutely not."

A silence fell. I yanked my arm out from beneath Owen's back, and adjusted my glasses. It was then that I realized the right side was cracked. My glasses only had prescription in the left side, due to the ball point pen incident, so one side bulged, while the other was thin, clear plastic. 

I honestly looked ridiculous.

Not that anyone could see me anymore.

"The police said that an Amber Alert has been launched, and that if Finn really did run away after he tripped off The Cliff, he will definitely be found." Mom was telling Dad in a hushed, dejected voice. 

I sighed loudly. But not loud enough for anyone to hear.

Dad looked back in the review mirror. "Ashley, did you see where Finn went after he fell into the lake?"

I craned my neck to the side, and almost knocked heads with Owen. My eyes landed on Ashley's, and by then, I could already tell she and Owen had talked out the lie.

"All I saw was Finn trip over some rocks, and disappear off the side of The Cliff." She lowered her clouded green eyes to the Cheerio-molded carpet of our truck. Don't judge, I still like Cheerios. "It was real dark." Ashley added for affect, and then proceeded to sniffle.

I realized that behind Ashley and Owen's pathetically-fabricated lie, there was guilt. 

I mean, after all, I'm a pretty popular guy in town, and now they're responsible for my death. Must be tough.

"Finn wasn't very popular," Mom said.

Mental face palm.

"so I don't think he had any enemies that would intentionally push him in, do you, honey?" She glanced over at Dad, who was doing some kind of cool steering-wheel-twist-to-get-out-of-the-mud thing.

He eventually pulled us out of the muck, and the tires squealed as he shifted gears pulling onto the highway. "Well, we can't rule anything out yet. They still haven't even found Finn."

I swallowed and sank far back in the ripped leather seat. 

"I swear it's like I'm sitting in a puddle!" Owen bit out after about two miles of silence.

Ashley brought her long legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them with a remorseful expression. "I miss him."

"Thank you," I said in an over-dramatic radio-announcer's voice, rolling my eyes, "that's the most intelligent thing anyone's said in the past hour."

Owen bobbed his head in a nod, completely unaware of my wonderful, sarcastic presence. "Me too. I just- I can't believe he..."

Fell?

Died?

Drowned and magically woke-up at the bottom of the lake, paddled frantically to the surface, and watched his own homicide slash missing person's scene?

"left last Tuesday's game jersey under this chair." He then went ahead and held my purple, three-imprinted Nike shirt up for everyone to see.

This time, I lifted my leg and jabbed Owen in the ankle.

He started howling. Like a freaking dog. "I'm bleeding!"

Dad had the nerve to swerve the truck to the side of the road and slam on the brakes like not only I was dead, but now Owen was too. Which he wasn't. He wasn't even bleeding.

"Where are you bleeding, son?" Dad asked frantically, "What happened?"

Mom even opened her purse, muttering something about a first aid kit.

 "I-I don't know," Owen said, his face pale, as if he'd seen a ghost. Maybe he had. "B-But I'm starting to really freak out. First the dancing water, then the puddle on the chair, and now there's water just falling down my leg!"

Ashley threw my beach towel that I never washed at Owen's face. "Oh stop being a cry-baby. It's just a little water. Maybe someone spilled some water on the floor, and it got on your foot." 

He glared at Ashley, but used my towel to dry his foot anyway.

Owen began to mutter incoherent things as Dad made a stony face and started to pull back out onto the highway. A Mac truck blared its horn and barreled away from our lane. Dad let out a string of cuss words, and Mom started crying again.

I sat there and wondered if it was possible to die twice. Like, I was technically already half-dead, in some weird, unexplained way, so if we'd hit that Mac truck, and we'd all died, would I die too? Or would it be like those sci-fi movies where, if you die a second time, you come back to life? 

My wet, brown hair kept getting stuck to my forehead, so I pushed it upwards, and leaned back in my seat. It was roughly a two hour drive from Ridge Park Lake to the actual little town of Ridge Park. 

Before I could question if taking a nap while you were dead would jinx the unexplained un-dead-ness, my head dropped to Owen's left shoulder, and I fell asleep.

"I think my shoulder's bleeding now." Was the last thing I heard before drifting off into a half-dead man's dreamland.