Love You Goodbye

You Drowned, Didn't You?

"There." Matt sighed setting Scott's phone on a desk. He texted Allison from Scott's phone telling her to bring the bestiary to the station while Jackson guarded the office. As we walked I noticed that Scott's limp was gone meaning that it's healing as he supposed to, just need to figure out how to get rid of the bullet.

"You know, I - I feel sorry for you, McCall, 'cause right now, you're thinkin', "how am I gonna explain this when it heals?" And the sad part is, you don't even realize how incredible it is that you actually are healing. 'Cause you know what happens to everyone else when they get shot? They die." He pointed out probably noticing too.

"Is that what happened to you?" Scott asked softly. I remember what Jackson had said at the rave. That they killed him first, as in Matt. Between that and the fear of water.

"You drowned, didn't you?" I concluded. Matt seemed caught off guard and quickly turned away.

"He shouldn't have let them drink." He mumbled under his breath.

"What - who - Matt, what do you mean?" Scott asked.

"Lahey!" He shouted over his shoulder. "He shouldn't have let them drink."

"What, who was drinking?"

"The swim team, you idiot!" Matt trudges back toward us swinging around his gun. We quickly took a step back raising our hands in surrender.

"I didn't know what was happening." He said softer. His eyes glazed over as if he's having a flashback. "I didn't know they had just won state, and Lahey, he's letting his favorites come over to have a couple drinks to celebrate. Who cares if they're 17, right?"

"Were you at Isaac's?"

"He had this first edition Spider - man, or was it Batman?"

"It was Spider-Man." I spoke up. They both looked at me confused on how I know that. "He got it the summer before freshman year, before I left. He saved all his money for it. He was so excited." I smile fondly at the happy memory of my best friend.

Matt nodded as if he was confirming my story. "And we were gonna make a trade. But then I'm over there and I hear music. And everyone's having a good time, and I see Sean. He throws Jessica in the pool. And then - and then Bennett goes in and -"

"Bennett? What - the hunter?" Scott asked recognizing the uncommon name from Allison's many rants on her family.

"And then Camden. Isaac's jarhead brother, he grabs me. He thinks it's funny." I feel a pull at my heart when I hear his name. Camden was Isaac's older brother and in many ways my brother too. He was always so nice to both of us. Hearing that he had died in combat was our of the hardest days of my life. Even harder that I couldn't be there with Isaac.

"They threw you in." Scott finishes for him. I see a single tear fall from Matt's eye but he quickly wiped it away.

"I - I yelled that I can't swim, but nobody listens. I go under and I swallow water, and no one cares. And I see these bodies underwater. I - I see Jessica's got her hands down Sean's board shorts. Tucker's grabbing Kara. And I'm drowning. I'm dying, and they're laughing. All of a sudden, I was just - I'm lying by the pool. And Lahey is right there, right above me, and he says-" Matt aggressively walks back over to us red faced and pointing the gun at Scott's chest. He tries to shield me with his body.

"He says, 'you tell no one! This, this is your fault! You don't know how to swim? What little bastard doesn't know how to swim? You say nothing! You tell no one! No one!' And I didn't. I didn't tell anyone. And I would see them at school, and they wouldn't even look at me. I'd wake up in the middle of the night. I'd gasp for breath. And my parents, they thought I was an asthmatic. They - they even gave me an inhaler. They didn't know that every time I closed my eyes, I - I was drowning. You know about that little white light that they talk about, you see when you die? Well, I didn't see anything. Just darkness. Everything was dark."