The fact that Elliot is a foot in front of me, grunting and puckering his lips, trying to do everything he can to contain his laughter pisses me off even more. I lurch toward him, my heart beating with a vengeance and sneer, “You think this is funny?”
“Funny,” he blurts out, finally letting the laughter he’s been holding in for the last three minutes. “It’s freaking hilarious!” Elliot chokes on a chuckle. “You should have seen your face.” Elliot mimics the way he thought I looked in mid-air, puffing out his cheeks and flapping his arms. “I thought you were going to crap yourself.”
I feel a smile pulling on my lips and I fight it off, frowning. But as hard as I try to keep a straight face, I just can’t and as laughter explodes from my lips, I trudge through the luke warm water and lunge for Elliot’s waist, circling my arms around it and yanking him down into the water with me.
I push his head under, still laughing and back away waiting for him to come up for air. A few seconds pass and Elliot doesn’t come up. I spin around in my spot, eyes on the water, trying to find air bubbles in the dark. Then a minute passes and I start panicking. “Elliot!” I go under and open my eyes and they sting from the salt and I can’t see anything but blackness surrounding me.
Breaking the surface I call his name again. “Elliot!” The panic inside me has escalated into full blown fear and I can feel it working its way through my veins. “Elliot!”
My heart is pounding. Constricting. Racing. I need to get help. What if something happened when I pushed him under? What if I was too forceful and I slammed my hand into the side of his head too hard?
I start for the shore, panting, and a warm puddle of tears flood my eyes. And just as I’m about to step foot on the wet sand Elliot breaks the surface like a dolphin out of water and growls playfully. He slaps his fists against his chest like Tarzan and I turn slowly, facing him.
Elliot howls with laughter and if he thought I was mad before he hasn’t seen anything yet. “You asshole!” I walk back toward him and point my finger. “You had me scared half to death! I thought you drowned or something!”
“Easy,” Elliot says finally able to control his laughing. “Look at me.” He places his hands flat on his abs. “I’m fine.”
I shake my head, growl, and scoop up an armful of water, splashing him in the face. “That wasn’t funny.” Then I pivot on heel and walk back toward the sand.
“Come on!” Elliot calls after me. “I thought we were having fun!”
Obviously Elliot and I have different ideas on how to have fun. “We were!” Then you had to go and ruin it.
I’m out of the water and making my way back toward my house. Elliot’s legs kick up water and a loud splashing sound throbs in my ears. I want him to leave me alone—no—I hope he leaves me alone because realistically, I know Elliot leaving me alone for the rest of this vacation is a delusional fantasy.
“Robin! Wait up!” I listen to the thud of Elliot’s footsteps against the sand and he sprints toward me.
“No.”
“Seriously. Would you cool it?” Elliot appears next to me. “I was just trying to have a little fun. It was only a joke.”
“It was a sick joke.” The fear and hysteria he brought on in me still feels too fresh, too recent.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me. “Is that what you want me to say? Because I mean it, I’m sorry.”
I don’t want to hear his apology right now. There’s still some a
nger surging through me, pumping blood into my heart and the only thing I can think about is crashing for the night. I exhale. “It’s fine, Elliot.” I hope that maybe he can sense the exhaustion in my voice and will give it a rest for now.
“Are you sure?” There’s an apprehensive tone to his voice. “Really, Robin. I thought you’d know I was joking.”
What person in their right mind would think that was a joke? Yes, we were having fun, playing around in the water, but when a person goes under and doesn’t come up for minutes that automatically goes from horsing around to a serious situation. A life or death situation. I’d been there once myself, so maybe that’s why I’m not taking his so-called joke lightly. “Look, Elliot,” I say. “I’m tired. I’m just going to turn in for the night.”
I expect to hear his footsteps behind me, but he’s stopped following me and I’m glad. I’m too angry and too tired to deal with this trifecta of a triangle between the Robertson brothers that I’ve gotten myself into.
“Are we still on for tomorrow?” I hear Elliot shout.
“What’s tomorrow?”
“You know?” he calls. “Sailing?”
“Maybe,” I shout back, distancing myself further from him.
The fact that Elliot isn’t following me anymore fills me up with more happiness than I’ve had on this entire vacation. There’s one thing that I know for sure; Elliot without a doubt irks me. He gets under my skin like an annoying rash that hasn’t oozed, bubbled or broke through the top layer of my epidermis and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing…
Yet.
****