litlinks 2022

Louis

by Ruby O’Hara-Dewhurst, Mt Stromlo High School

Louis, here I am again. 

I have made my way back down to the lake. The familiar whisper of the tide against the dock, the cooing of the trees as they echo back all I have confessed to them. You call my name from that dark centre you were always too scared to paddle out to. 

Have you been waiting for me? Or do you dread my arrival? 

Louis, I remember that first day we went down to the lake. 

Your eyes gleamed and you ran to the shore like a child, kicking your shoes off, followed by your shirt, your trousers, until you were bare skinned; your clothes creating a perfect trail leading me to you. I followed. Our naked bodies floated in the shallows, the lake hugging us lightly.

Swimming out towards the centre, I wondered why you didn’t follow. You stood, your body stiff, ashamed.

“Louis, the water is so much deeper out here!” Clueless, I was. “You can’t even feel the weeds on your feet.”

“If I go out there, past where I can feel the weeds, I’ll drown. I’ll scream and I’ll flail and I’ll never come back up.” 

I could barely distinguish your embarrassed flush from your sunburn. You seemed so natural in the lake, as if you were a ripple in the soft tides. It was strange to me that you couldn’t swim.

Louis, I remember when we took the boat.

Old and rusted, just big enough for two. It had settled into the neighbours’ front yard, overgrown grass masking the peel of white paint, a cardboard sign labelled ‘FREE’ in desperate lettering lounging lazily on its side.

“Oh, please, please, please, can we take it?” You remember my excitement, don’t you? “You’ll be able to go out on the lake! And you’ll never have to turn into sand or sway with the weeds.”

Your hesitant shrug was all I needed. 

Louis, I remember when you came home with her lipstick smeared across your neck. 

Four years of you and me. Half past ten. Three hours I had been waiting. 

I remember my relieved final pace to the door. Your tired shoulders slumped as you brushed past me. While my world stopped, the fire continued to snap, mocking what we had become.

And in the morning, your eyes grazed over me, like the pebbles we used to skip on the lake. They didn’t sink the way they used to, like an anchor that kept me from floating away. Now you were floating away, to a different ocean, a different woman. 

Louis, my love for you remained. 

Even when you would return home later every night, your mouth tasting more like hers than it did your own. 

Louis, I remember our last night together. 

The sky was heavy as we lounged in the boat. The lake rocked angrily. How could it do otherwise? I had told it everything. 

We faced each other like strangers.

I loved you Louis, but you were a labyrinth, a complicated maze where I had lost myself. Your paths only led to dead ends. The only way out was to kill the loathsome beast at its centre.

All it took was a push. 

Louis, you have to understand that I was angry. I remember your pleading expression, your muffled screams as the lake put its hands over your mouth.

I watched blankly as you begged for my help. I did nothing as the lake consumed you.

Louis, you told me so many lies. 

Lies about where you were. Lies about what you did. Lies about how you felt. 

But when you told me that you couldn’t swim, that you would scream and flail and never come back up, Louis, you told me the truth.