Not Waving

This is a true story...

Before I lost my friend, a demon, a thing call it what you will, took her from me. Every nightmare I've had since makes me question whether it was just a dream or my friend still crying for help.

When I was in middle school my best friend in all the world told me she'd been having nightmares ever since she came from summer camp. I didn't really care but I listened. She told me about that and Josh, who she could have kissed but chickened out. Just when I thought that was the end of it, she pulled me aside in second period.

"They're back." She whispered.

"What is?"

"The dreams." She said shaking a little as she spoke.

Now I admit in hindsight I should have been a better friend but I was young and too wrapped up in my own life to really empathize with my her. I didn't even remember what she was talking about.

"What dreams?" To this day asking that question haunts me.

She gripped my wrist hard, tears filling her eyes. "Forget it!"

I grabbed her by the shoulder until she'd look at me. "Seriously, what's wrong?"

Tears began running on her cheeks. "I'm gonna drown."

Now there's a lot of backstory to this. When my friend and I were about seven-years-old her dad died in a boating accident. He could steer a boat but he couldn't swim. I can't believe it either. When the boat sank off Lake Erie (they never did find the cause) they found my friend's dad four days later.

My friend knows how to swim but you couldn't get her within a mile of a lake or even a swimming pool. Probably the reason I thought her dreams were absurd.

I sighed rolled my eyes and reminded her we were going to be late to class, on the first day of school no less!

"Look you'll be fine. We're no where near water." Again I can't tell you how much of that I wish could take that back because less than two weeks later my best friend was dead.

Gradually my friend became more and more erratic. She constantly turned around and even sometimes yelled at no one there. Her mom told me she wasn't sleeping at night. She would pace and chew her nails none of which was like her. Her mom asked if something had happened at camp I said I didn't know but I also didn't tell her about the dreams.

I had a crush on a high school boy (don't we all at that age?) So I was over the moon when he asked if I'd come to his birthday party. He was only a year and a half older than me, but I was practically doing backflips. I didn't have the nerve to go the party by myself so I asked my best friend if she'd come with. I didn't want to be some weirdo with no friends. I sometimes think if I could have just been stronger things would have been different.

So the boy (who will remain nameless for this) was practically a Rockefeller. his house had a jacuzzi, BBQ grill, butler, and... an inground pool.

"We have to leave." My friend said gripping my arm just as we arrived.

"Don't embarrass me!" Were the last words I ever said to her.

Some time and some underage rum later I saw my friend on the diving board hopping up and down on the edge.

"She serious?" Said my crush whispering with a smile in my ear.

I shrugged trying to look cool. Then I heard her whisper. Not yell whisper because no one but me seemed to hear it.

"She's mine now."

Then she dove off into the pool.

"Oh my God!" screamed my crush as did many other party goers.

"What?" I asked as everyone ran over.

"Mom! Mom! call 911!" I heard my crush scream looking down into the pool.

"What the-" and then I saw her... and then I really saw her

Even if the EMT's had come the second she jumped it wouldn't have changed anything, or so I'm told. The pool had been drained to clean the scum. She was wrong... she didn't drown.

I still have nightmares of her whispering "You're mine now."

But the part that really scares me? I never learned how to swim either.