Page 45 of Black Waters

He swore he’d never tell

I left it for safe-keeping

I’ll pick it up in Hell

All I could do was wish Whitney Summers well, and love her again, from afar.

I, on the other hand, stayed, visited Constance whenever I could, and went to Yale as planned. It wasn’t being scared to branch out. It was being brave, stubborn, and becoming the man I wanted—needed—to be. It was the beginning of becoming a powerful lawyer to defend victims of human trafficking. A fight for laws to protect them was a quest emerging from my soul.

My mother fought it, but my biological father, Harold Thompson, came and retrieved his son he’d inadvertently murdered the day Crash was born. Soon, we learned my brother’s body was found in the ashes of his home. Home… Crash never had a true home. Maybe that meant Crash’s death ultimately saved him—released him from a cruel, cruel life. Maybe his secret was in hell all right, hell on earth.

My biological father’s wife was among the dead in the unexplained house fire. Harold Thompson, drug lord extraordinaire— his body had not been seen since the day he took Crash’s, but I had my suspicions that my father would, someday, reappear.

School was not like I’d imagined it, with wild parties and endless good times. I didn’t feel young or that I belonged in that crowd. I had lost a girl I’d loved all along. I had lost a brother I didn’t know I had, and with him went an innocence I was never to encounter again. I felt I had experienced a thousand years of life and seen more than any one human should and had too many responsibilities on my shoulders to allow myself the fun-filled activities the other young students flourished in.

Slowly, I realized I wasn’t afraid anymore. Clarity of all the good that could come from such bad gave me the courage and strength to make every sacrifice worth it. Every man who’d used my mother, every sale Crash was forced to make, every part of Whit that was lost, every life—like my Connie’s—that had been sacrificed, I would make it my mission to help, and possibly save, the next victims. I had been spared. Possibly not spared of all the gruesome leftovers, but still better off than most. Why not have hope for others? Their past doesn’t have to govern their future. There is no need for shame to lead the way because there is simply no need for shame. That message would soon meet the world through a singer named Dereck Hamilton, a young man from Austin, Texas. A young man who would someday be a dear friend of mine.

A year had passed with no word from Whit. There was also no word from her parents that harm had come to her. I knew Whit didn’t want to have anything to do with them but also wanted them to stay off her back. Occasionally communicating with her parents was a small price to pay for freedom. I figured she was probably living out some dream in another country.

After visiting Constance during a break from school, I sat on my parents’ dock thinking I was happy for Whit. I missed her with every cell in my body but loved her too much not to be glad she was out in the world with the freedom she had dreamed of for so long.

The waters that were once blue, once black, suddenly seemed tainted to me. They had seen too much. The waters had seen and felt happiness, seen sorrow, and then felt despair. The innocent waters of time now had no possible chance of changing the past. I didn’t realize until that moment that I hadn’t let her go—I mean really let her go. Like the waters, I couldn’t change the past until I simply let that past float away.

And that’s how the end of this story came. I was the guy who had to let the girl go—in my heart—so I would no longer be tainted. It hurt, but it was the truth, and like it has been said, “Sometimes the truth hurts.”

I looked up to see her home one more time, to say good-bye and do the same—move on.

As the sun set, I saw her silhouette, her petite body frame standing at the end of her boat dock, looking directly at me. Her red curls were shorter, yet freer. She looked freer. Whit looked like a confident, free woman.

I slowly stood up and said the only thing I could think of. “Hi.”

“Hi.” I could hear her slight smile and a nervous tremble in her voice.

“Taking a hiatus from your world travels?” I tried to sound casual.

“Something like that.”

“How’s the adventure been so far?”

“Uh, interesting,” she said, clearly having many stories to tell.

“Oh, good.” I wondered if I would ever get to hear them.

“How’s school?”

“Hard. Been real hard, but I’m not giving up.”

“You never do, Link. You never do.”

“How about you? Happen to find what you were looking for?”

“Yes, I did.” She sounded pleased with herself.

“What was it?” I had to know what it was that kept her from me.

“Me. And… the beauty in living. I found a beauty in living, Link.”

Her words stole my breath.

“That’s fantastic, Whit. I really mean that. I—I’m really happy for you.” No matter how it ended for me, her being content and joyful was enough to sustain the rest of my life.

“I know you are. That’s why I had to come back.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?” I asked with hope.

Her giggle echoed over the lake. “See, sometimes finding yourself leads you into a whole other direction—one you may have never seen coming, even if it’s been in front of you all along.”

I felt the change happening between us. I could sense that she had held on to and let go of, as I had. I grinned. “What’s been in front of you, Whit?”

“You,” she said with a smile of the century. “You, my friend and the man I’m in love with.”

That was all I needed. My body leapt from my dock.

Through muffled distorted sounds, I heard her splash as she joined me in the water. I found the softened noises serene and uniquely beautiful. We swam toward one another through the black waters of despair, reaching for each other until the tainted waters became crystal-clear blue once more.