Baywatch fic: Where My Demons Hide (1/3)
Title: Where My Demons Hide
Disclaimer: I got nothing.
Rating: M
A/N: With virtually no experience in the foster care system in the United States, I am sensitive to my portrayal of it in fic. What I do know about the system makes me try to represent it as a complicated system that is well intentioned and sometimes flawed. It’s my belief that a lot of good things can and do come from the foster care system. That said, it is also an innately challenging experience for all parties involved. I don’t want to make light of the difficulties children face while in foster care, but I also don’t want to paint such a negative portrait as to suggest that it is always bleak. It’s sort of a critical part of the character background I’m working with, so I can’t avoid it. I just hope I haven’t done the system an injustice one way or another.
A/N 2: Unbeta’ed. Fills my deals with demons square in hc_bingo. Starts with pre-movie spec.
Summary: Brody has a lot of demons. What the hell does it matter if he has one more?
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
-o-
Some kids in the system, they think they’re cursed. They think that’s why no one wants them. They think that’s why their parents gave up on them. They think it’s just bad luck, not their fault, and so on. They’ve got everybody to blame.
Brody knows better.
Brody knows that there’s no curse.
He’s just a shitty person.
It’s unclear to him how his parents saw this in him as an infant, but they probably dodged a bullet. Brody’s a walking disaster, a poor excuse for a human being. Give him two good choices, and he’ll make a third bad one just for shits and giggles. He’s an asshole to people who are nice to him, and he’ll take every opportunity and squander it.
Brody doesn’t believe in curses.
Just his own choices.
Each one shittier than the last.
-o-
At 13, his foster parents dump him. He’s been with them for, like, five years, and he can’t say that he likes them or anything like that, but they’ve got this pool in the yard that Brody loves, and he’ll share a room with three other idiot boys, one of whom actually drools all the time, just because all summer long he gets to stay in the water, swimming back and forth until he’s pruny. He can swim fast, you see. And that’s about the first thing he’s ever been good at, so he finds that he kind of loves it.
His foster parents don’t tell him why it’s not working out, just that it isn’t, and they tell Brody that he has to leave most of the clothes with them and that the toys in his room really aren’t his because, you know, they’re not. Just like this isn’t his home and they’re not his family. Honestly, Brody wants to tell them that drool boy doesn’t give a shit about his things, but whatever.
Brody makes the choice to give them the finger and walk away.
That’s how you make a bad choice, you see. That’s how you take a bad situation and make it ten times worse.
-o-
After that, Brody ends up in a group home for awhile. He gets a few temporary placements, but he swears around toddlers at one and then he breaks into the parents’ locked alcohol stash in the other, and then he is caught vandalizing a school locker room and they -- whoever they are in this situation -- decide he needs some remediation.
Whatever. One shitty placement is the same as the last, and Brody’s stopped caring a while ago. There’s no possible way to care, not when you’ve been bounced around as much as Brody has.
The part that Brody can’t stand -- the thing that still gets him -- is that the only time he swims for a year is when they take the kids at the group home to the Y every other Tuesday. Once, he sneaks out to a pond he knows is nearby, and he swims all night in the dark in water that smells like cow shit.
Probably because it’s filled with cow shit.
When they find him in the morning, he’s in so much trouble that it’s not even funny and they want him to learn his lesson, like, seriously. They heap on a ton of punishment and it’s hell for a while but here’s what Brody learns:
It was worth it.
-o-
They finally get him a placement with people that are supposed to be pros and they work with tough cases all the time. They aren’t scared by Brody’s language, and they’re really patient with Brody’s terrible attitude.
When you get right down to it, they’re pretty nice to him, and they make him this deal, you see. It’s a deal.
Do your homework; go to school; behave yourself.
And they’ll pay for private swim lessons.
Brody’s thinks they’ve got to be full of shit.
Private swim lessons are expensive, and Brody’s not worth a dime. These people are messing with him, lying to him, trying to coerce him into being a better person with no payoff.
Brody’s, like, almost sure of it.
Almost.
There’s a chance -- like, this tiny chance -- that they’re not.
That chance alone -- the chance to swim -- is the only reason why Brody takes the deal.
-o-
It works, for a while. Brody goes to school. He does his homework. He keeps himself in line.
And every week, three nights at a time, he gets to swim. In real pools. With actual coaches. He learns how to perfect his stroke. He learns how to advance his kick. He gets better; faster.
Brody loves it.
It’s the best deal of his entire life.
-o-
That could have been the happy ending. That could have been everything. Brody could have found his family, found his calling.
Please.
This is Brody, after all.
He’s not cursed.
Just really, really stupid.
-o-
Like, at first, it’s not Brody’s fault really. He did study for that English test, but he’s not a good reader and it’s, like, Shakespeare and he doesn’t know what the hell Hamlet’s problem is but as far as Brody is concerned the answer is not to be because anyone who talks like that all the time should just cease to exist in his opinion.
And then, see, there’s this party, and someone actually invites Brody, like specifically invites him, and Brody’s never had someone invite him anywhere before much less to an actual party with actual people. And okay, so Brody has like one small tiny drink because that’s what all the kids are doing and this is Brody’s first chance to be normal, and when the cops come, everyone gets taken in, not just him, and apparently that’s, like, a big deal.
His foster parents sit him down and they tell him how deeply disappointed they are in him. The report card is on the table with the police report on top.
“You broke the deal, Matt,” his foster mom tells him, and she’s doing that shitty thing that people do, like this hurts them more than it does him. “We told you there were consequences.”
Brody shakes his head. “I told you I read the play, I just had no idea what it was saying,” he says. “And the party -- okay, that wasn’t my best choice, but this kid from swim team invited me, and I was just going to hang out--”
But his foster dad is shaking his head. “You knew the rules, Matt.”
He gives a short, incredulous laugh. “I won’t do it again; I swear.”
“You leave us with no choice,” his foster dad says. “We’re going to have to suspend swimming lessons for a month.”
“At least until you get your grade in English back up,” his foster mom adds.
If Brody had taken the time to think, he might have seen that this wasn’t the end of the world. He might have even seen it as a reasonable measure, especially since there isn’t a meet coming up.
But Brody’s not that kind of guy.
He’s not someone who thinks.
He’s not calm or reasonable.
“This is bullshit!” he yells.
“Matt, your language--”
But Brody’s not listening anymore. “You guys are such assholes!”
“Matt, you need to calm down--”
Brody gets to his feet, kicking at the table. “I don’t need you shitty charity!”
“Matt, this behavior is unacceptable--”
Brody kicks the table again, harder this time, hard enough to send its content scattered. Five minutes later, after a profanity laden rant, Brody has been sent to his room.
Swim lessons have been cancelled indefinitely.
And Brody knows, even as he rages against his foster parents, that he has no one to blame but himself.
-o-
So, like, if the deal’s off.
Then, okay. The deal is off
Brody stops doing his homework. Sometimes, he stops going to school. Teachers give him detention, and he literally gives them the finger back. Now that he’s grounded, he makes a point to sneak out, and he doesn’t just take a drink or two at a party to be one of the crowd.
No, he goes and gets himself hammered.
He doesn’t try to hide it when he comes home late, dragging himself through the living room and knocking shit over because what the hell.
“Matt,” his foster mom says. “I know you’re better than this.”
Brody has to laugh at her.
Because this woman clearly doesn’t know him at all.
If she had, she would have kicked his ass to the curb just like every person who came before her.
-o-
That’s how he ends up at the party. In a manner of speaking.
Honestly, he doesn’t quite remember coming to this party. He doesn’t quite remember who drove him here or where he started. He’s not even sure where he is right now, but after several shots of something, Brody realizes he doesn’t know a single person.
This bothers him a little, and also, he’s going to hurl.
The bathrooms are all full and some couple is making out on top of the kitchen sink, so he stumbles outside. That’s when he realizes that he’s in the middle of the country and this is literally a single farmhouse among rows of corn. Now, Brody lives in Iowa, so you don’t have to go, like, super far for that, but that’s still weird.
Brody hurls for a while. Then he staggers a few more paces and hurls some more. He finds someone else hurling and he hurls in a different direction, and by the time he’s done, he just wants to go home and sleep.
The problem is, he doesn’t know how to get home. And there’s no one here he can ask for a ride. He tries to make his way back inside to find someone with a phone -- his has been confiscated, part of being grounded -- but he takes a wrong turn at the corn field and he’s a mile down a country road before he realizes that he’s lost.
He tries to turn around, but the stupid road comes to cross road, and Brody circles around it three times before realizes that this whole thing is pointless.
His whole life is pointless.
He probably should have recognized that by now.
He’s stupid, he’s not very nice, he’s willful and acts like a jerk. He can’t read; he gets drunk super fast, and it usually takes people about two weeks before they just can’t be bothered to give a shit.
As far as Brody can tell, that’s two weeks too long.
The only thing he is remotely good at is swimming and he doesn’t even have that anymore.
What the hell is he supposed to do without swimming?
Who the hell is he going to be?
How the hell is he supposed to amount to anything when his one skill has been snatched from him?
Who the hell is going to be there for him now?
“Hey, stranger,” someone croons.
Brody turns around, disoriented. He turns several times actually before he sees the girl. Long dark hair. Dark red lips. Dressed in ripped jeans and a cropped top. It’s red, too. And, like, sparkly. Really, really sparkly.
She smiles at him.
“You looking for something?” she asks.
Oh, Brody thinks, looking at her dumbly again.
That’s who.
-o-
This is pretty weird.
Not just the hot girl in the middle of a nowhere road in Iowa. Like, sure, that’s weird shit, but everything is weird. The whole night, it’s just kind of...off. The stars, for one thing, are way too bright, and they seem to be moving a lot more than stars should. And the moon is up there, but Brody thinks it looks like a basketball tonight, and he’s too short for basketball.
Then, he makes the mistake of trying to walk -- why, he’s not sure, it seemed like an idea at the time, though not a good one -- only the ground is not cooperative. It moves, it really moves, up and down and side to side, which makes taking an even step basically impossible.
After he stumbles enough times, he stops trying because hell yeah, Brody’s a quitter.
He can’t quit the corn, though. He’s heard that it’s supposed to be knee high by the fourth of July but this stuff, man, it towers over him. It’s at least as tall as a house, and Brody’s not sure what month it is to know if that’s normal or not.
Of course, normal is relative. Foster kids have their own normal, but super tall corn is not a part of that.
No, that’s all part of being drunk.
Drunk normal is this whole different thing, and usually Brody thinks that’s pretty cool because it makes it easier to hang out with people and make friends. This kind of drunk isn’t like that, though. This is not a normal drunk.
Brody’s not sure what kind of drunk it is, but it’s whacked.
He wonders if this is what it’s like to die of alcohol poisoning. Or if he somehow took some drugs in those large patches of time where he has no memory of actually existing.
These thoughts are all quite serious, and he’s so invested in them that he forgets about the weird girl decked out in sparkly red for a second.
It might be longer than a second.
For all Brody knows, it’s been five hours.
“Baby, you don’t look so good,” she says.
It takes Brody a few additional seconds to move his head in her general direction. It’s another couple of seconds before he can see her again.
She looks really good.
Red is totally her color.
Still standing in the crossroads, she fiddles with her pockets and watches him skeptically. “Can I help you out or something?”
She’s got this southern drawl, and it’s so unbelievably hot that Brody might just pass out right then and there.
Actually, he might pass out for other reasons.
But she is hot.
“Seriously,” she says, and Brody nods very seriously along with her. “I think you might need some help.”
That is, undoubtedly, an understatement. Brody, as a general rule, needs so much help that no one even knows where to start. He needs so much help that it’s impossible for anyone to provide it.
And here she is. Some hot chick at a crossroads, offering her help.
He laughs.
Loud and inappropriate. So hard that he almost falls over. When he manages to breathe again, he shakes his head. “No one can help me.”
For all that, she doesn’t look remotely bothered. “I don’t know about that,” she muses. “You might be surprised.”
It’s not clear to Brody is she’s trying to be provocative or sincere or possibly both. In any case, Brody hasn’t got any nuance when he’s drunk. He’s just all stupid.
Some might argue that there’s not much difference when he’s sober. That’s not an argument Brody would attempt, but he merely would suggest that being sober increases his odds of not giving voice to said stupidity.
“You think you’re what?” he asks with a scoff that sounds over the top, even to him. “My guardian angel?”
This thought seems to make her genuinely amused and she sidles a step closer. Brody’s not sure if she’s flirting with him, but it seems like she’s flirting with him. “Never been called an angel before,” she says, and now that she’s closer, he can see that her shirt is cut just a tad too low and her jeans ride just a touch too low. She’s trying for something here. “Demon’s more appropriate.”
She’s looking at him now kind of like she wants to eat him.
Or, possibly, like she’s down for some action, right here in the middle of a cornfield.
Shit, how is Brody still in a cornfield?
She takes another step closer, all but demanding his wandering attention. “What do you think, baby?”
He thinks she looks the part, now that she mentions it. Like, it’s not just the clothes and stuff. Even her eyes glint red, and not because she’s drunk like him. She’s not drunk. That’s the weird part. How do you end up at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere and not be drunk.
He’s examining her head for evidence of horns when he forgets why he’s doing it at all.
She laughs, and Brody startles, realizing that she’s almost close enough to touch him now. “You and me might get along, I wager,” she says.
Brody’s not actually sure he knows the word wager. She bites her lower lip and blinks those possibly red eyes at him and he doesn’t care about vocabulary. Angel, demon, and everything in between: she hasn’t realized that she’s out of Brody’s league.
Everyone’s out of Brody’s league.
But then, he thinks, if she’s going to bet on him, she’s got to be a little stupid.
Huh, he does know what wager means.
“Aw, baby,” she says, and she looks sorry. “That’s a hell of a thing to say about yourself.”
Brody blinks, confused. Had he said that out loud?
She nods at him sympathetically. “I think so,” she says, commiserating. “Because I can hear you, loud and clear.”
That’s bullshit. Brody’s not even moving his mouth, and if he were, the words wouldn’t sound nearly this coherent.
Staring at her, he can’t help but be a little awed. She’s this sliver of perfect, like she’s part of the night itself. He has to momentarily reconsider the whole angel thing.
She rolls her eyes in response. “I really ought to just leave you here,” she murmurs.
Noticeably, she makes no move to leave. Instead, she’s staring back at him, eyes so locked on his that Brody doesn’t dare blink.
“You might as well,” Brody says finally, and his voice sounds smaller than it used to. “No one would blame you.”
“I didn’t come here for you,” she says, and she’s looking down her nose at him. She’s taller than him; everyone’s taller than him. She sighs. “But you are so hopeless.”
This sounds more accurate. This sounds like every other person who has ever known him, like, ever. It sounds like all the foster parents who got tired of him, all the caseworkers who wanted to pawn him off, all the friends he never managed to keep.
All the girls who kissed him and regretted it basically immediately.
“A lost cause,” he says, almost unbidden. Some people drink to forget, but there are parts of himself that Brody can’t forget, no matter how much he wants to.
She crosses the final distance between them, lifting her hand to cup his face. She tilts his head up to the moon and looks him over. Dumbfounded, he lets her. “What if I can help you?”
Her hand pulls away, and he drops his chin a little. “What could you possibly do?”
She’s a hot chick at a crossroads.
He’s a drunk moron without a family.
Nothing computes.
That doesn’t seem to deter her. “What do you want?”
Brody knows the right answer should be: sex. She’s a hot girl, and Brody’s horny and hasn’t been laid in a long time. There’s also the right answer: family. He’s a foster kid. That one’s a no brainer.
But he’s not that horny, and he’s tired of trying to want something he’s not going to get and the only thing he’s ever succeeded at is swimming, okay?
That’s it.
Swimming.
“I want to swim.”
She looks a little surprised. “Swim?”
That’s clearly not the answer she’s expecting.
Brody shrugs, making no attempt to gracefully recover. “Yeah,” is all he says. “I’m really good at swimming.”
“Everything in this world, and that’s what you want?” she clarifies. “You can say anything, you know. Anything.”
Her cleavage is heaving, basically in his face.
But yeah, he doesn’t notice now.
Or, he doesn’t notice a lot.
Because: “Water is a different world, you know? It keeps you afloat when you’re supposed to sink. It doesn’t matter how shitty or small you are on land; the water makes all things equal. I want to swim.”
He says it like he means it, and it’s a passion he’s not quite expecting. He knows how swimming changed him, and he knows that swimming is the entire catalyst for him being here tonight. He can’t make someone love him or want him or whatever.
But he can win a swimming race.
If he comes in first, he’ll have to belong.
He’ll have to.
She’s pressing her lips together, thoughtfully. “What would you give for it?”
He scoffs so hard that it actually hurts. “Anything.”
“What about your family, your friends,” she says.
Brody shrugs. “I haven’t got any of that shit.”
Her looks is almost reproachful. Which is a funny thing for anyone to be while in the middle of a crossroads with a drunk dude at night. “There are people who care about you, I’m sure.”
He thinks about his caseworker. He thinks about his swim coach. He thinks about his foster parents.
And he shakes his head. “There’s not.”
She looks quite serious now, and Brody realizes that she’s older than he is. At least by a few years; maybe by more. She looks timeless somehow; the most unbelievably perfect girl Brody’s ever seen. “So you’d sacrifice everything,” she says. “Even then.”
She says it like she wants to change his mind, but the more she says it, the more clear Brody is on this. “For the pool, hell yeah,” he said. “To win there? Without a doubt.”
“The success you’re talking about comes at a price,” she says, and she’s not flirting anymore. Somehow, she’s all business now. “If you win there, other parts of your life will lose -- and lose big.”
“So?” Brody asks. His life already sucks; he can’t imagine what it matters.
She actually chuckles in disbelief. “You would willingly pay that price?”
Brody curses loudly in his amusement. “A hundred times over.”
Looking him up and down, her expression is cool. “That’s a deal you’re willing to make?”
“Show me where to sign the contract,” he says, doing his best to enunciate the words so he doesn’t sound totally drunk.
And he is totally drunk.
Because he actually thinks there should be a contract.
Like she can actually make this happen.
Like she can snap her fingers and trade Brody’s pathetic life with one of actual success?
Like anyone can do that.
Her smile turns sweet, but her eyes glimmer dangerously. They look more red now than before, and Brody realizes he’s sweating. “I’ve got nothing for you to sign, baby,” she drawls. She draws closer to him, breathing against him. Part of him wants to pull away, but he’s transfixed now. She’s too alluring, too captivating, too everything. “But we can seal it with a kiss.”
He inhales, one last second of panic and regret. He thinks about his foster parents again, and he wonders if a month is as long as he thinks it is. He wonders what they would say if they saw him now. He wonders if they’d forgive him or kick him out. He thinks he knows the answer, but he can’t think anymore.
She’s drawing him in, and the breath leaves his lungs.
She’s no angel.
Brody has a lot of demons.
He closes his eyes as their lips meet.
What the hell does it matter if he has one more?
-o-
Brody has kissed girls before, though not as many as you might think. Girls will kiss him at parties when they’re both too drunk to think. Sometimes they kiss him because he’s new and pretty cute. Some of the kisses are pretty passionate, at least they seemed that way at the time because Brody had been horny and there had been lots of tongue.
None of those kisses are like this kiss.
This kiss is surreal. He feels it, pulling at his inside and wresting away all his inhibitions. But this isn’t a sexual sensation; it’s more encompassing than that. She she presses her lips into his, she tingles somewhere inside his soul
When he tries to pull away, she grabs his chin and holds him steady, as if she’s just not done yet. With a muted yelp, he has no choice but to comply, even as he feels the life ebbing out of him with each passing second.
Finally, she lets him go, and he feels his knees go week. He blinks, and he’s sprawled out on the ground with no memory of falling. He’s spent.
Like, he’s just done.
Above him, her head is haloed by the moon. She’s not smiling anymore. “Remember, you made the dea, baby,” she says. “And someone’s always got to pay the price.”
She turns abruptly, walking away from him. He tries to lever himself up to go after her, but he can barely lift his head. “But -- wait--”
She raises a hand, waving at him without looking back. “You made your choices! Time to live with the consequences!”
With another few paces, she’s gone, almost like she’s disappeared into the night.
Brody looks back at the sky, which is so wide and so clear. There are millions of stars.
Brody blinks.
Closes his eyes.
And then he’s gone, too.
-o-
When Brody wakes up, it’s morning.
Sitting up, his head throbs. He presses his palm to his eyes, squeezing them shut and swallowing hard while he tries to acclimate himself. It’s pretty obvious he’s hung over.
Blinking a few times, he dares to blearily open his eyes.
Shit, he’s still at the crossroads.
What the hell did he drink last night?
Grunting, he shakily tries to get to his feet. He only makes it a little ways before he has to fall to his hands and knees and vomit. It takes acrid in his mouth, and he spits into the dirt until he can finally breathe again.
This time, he makes it all the way to his feet and he takes a shaky few steps as he to remember more about the night before.
He remembers being pissed off at his foster parents, but that’s not so unusual. Brody’s spent the better part of his life being pissed off. He remembers a party, though he actually doesn’t remember anything else about the party. He thinks it’s possible that someone put something in his drink, because he still feels woozy and it’s been, like, eight hours at least.
But that’s not all.
There’s more.
Brody stops, fingers going to his lips.
The kiss.
The girl.
The crossroads.
He wrinkles his nose, wondering if it’s possible he imagined that bit. It seems plausible, but it doesn’t feel that way. Like, that kiss. That kiss was the most real experience of his entire life.
There’s no way in hell he imagined that.
It’s stupid, of course. What kind of girl hangs out in the middle of nowhere and kisses drunk boys?
Unless they happen to be demons in disguise, going around making deals? But it’s not like she asked him to give up his soul or something. And it’s not like Brody believes in deals with demons.
Even if he is at a crossroads.
And even if he can still taste her lips on his own.
Brody scoffs, as if to comfort himself. He reaches into his pocket before he remembers his phone has been confiscated. Out of instincts, he checks his back pocket.
Then he checks it again.
Then he checks his other pockets and he turns around, looking at the short distance he’s covered.
His wallet’s gone.
Like, gone gone.
Brody hadn’t had much, but he still had 20 bucks to pay for lunch for the rest of the week. And his ID and shit had been in there.
“Shit,” he says out loud, and he shakes his head. “You didn’t make a deal.”
It’s all bullshit. She’d just been waiting for him to pass out. She’s not a demon.
She’s a thief.
Either way, Brody’s got a hell of a long walk back.
And he has some epic apologies to make.
-o-
Back at the house, which has a few stragglers in no better shape that Brody, there’s no sign of his wallet but someone lets him borrow his phone. When he calls his foster parents, his foster mom answers and Brody can tell she’s been crying.
“You just stay right where you are,” she says, and she doesn’t sound mad for some reason. No, it sounds like she’s been crying. “Just stay where you are, and we’ll be there right away.”
As Brody waits, he can’t help but think of what the demon-thief said to him last night. That someone out there must care.
He wonders if some of it was the truth.
-o-
His foster mom’s not mad.
His foster dad is pretty pissed, though.
But it’s like that dangerous pissed, the quiet kind. There’s no yelling or ultimatums. No one tells Brody to pack his bags. Instead, they ground him in his room and tell him that they’ll talk to him later.
Brody lays on the bed, and it feels a little weird. He’s not sure why.
It’s, like, Brody knows he’s made a mistake this time.
He’s just not sure which part of last night he actually regrets.
-o-
When they talk to him later, Brody apologizes for sneaking out. He apologizes for going to a party and getting really drunk. He says he’s sorry for not coming back, for worrying them.
He doesn’t tell them that he’s sorry that he was willing to trade everything for swimming. He doesn’t say that he regrets sacrificing them to get what he wants in life.
Because that’s not real.
Brody believes that.
None of it was real.
-o-
Three days later, however, his foster parents call him in after school.
“We want to give you another chance,” his foster dad says.
“What?” Brody asks.
“Swimming,” his foster mom says, and she smiles a little. “We can see how good it is for you.”
“So we want to give you another chance,” his foster dad says again. “But we expect you to go to your classes and stop sneaking out.”
“And if you need help studying, ask us,” his foster mom adds.
Brody shakes his head, a little confused. “You’re -- I can -- what?”
“It’s what you want, isn’t it?” his foster mom asks.
“Uh, yeah,” Brody says. “It is.”
“Then show us you can do it, son,” his foster dad says. “Show us you can be a success.”
-o-
It’s a coincidence, of course. It has nothing to do with a drunken promise with a girl who robbed him in the middle of the night. It’s a coincidence that Brody gets everything he wants.
Brody believes that when he wins at his first meet.
He believes it at his second.
When he aces his third meet, he’s starting to think maybe it’s not a coincidence. Because Brody’s not just swimming well.
He’s swimming like he’s been blessed.
Or, quite possibly, cursed.
-o-
Here’s the thing: Brody doesn’t believe in curses.
Okay, he doesn’t.
He’s never been one of those kids who needs to blame everything bad in his life on other shit. He knows better. He knows that he’s shitty so shit follow him and shit, okay. Just shit.
The problem is, of course, that nothing is shitty right now.
And good things? Happy things? Success? Purpose? Meaning?
Brody’s got exactly no explanation for any of that. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit with his worldview. It doesn’t make sense for him.
So what’s he supposed to think?
That life just suddenly got good? That all of a sudden things starting going his way?
Or that he kissed a demon in a crossroad to get what he wants?
What the hell.
There’s the answer.
What the hell.
-o-
So, Brody’s made a deal with a demon. He knows there are consequences. Like, that had been one of those sticking points the hot demon girl had stressed to him. It’s a trade. She’ll give him success in the pool, and he gives up anything she wants in return.
In retrospect, those terms are a bit sketchy.
But honestly, Brody’s pretty impressed.
Because this is success like he can’t imagine.
Like, he’s suddenly popular at school. He’s on the swim team. There are articles about him in the newspaper, and he gets featured in the Des Moines Register. A few college scouts come to watch him swim.
And more than that, things are going really well. His grades are doing okay, better than before, because he’s going to school all the time. And his foster parents are pretty chill about it all. They take him to practices and go to his meets. And, like, they start relaxing his curfew a little bit. They give him a little extra spending cash.
It’s almost like they’re a family or something.
That isn’t what Brody asked for.
But it’s kind of cool anyway.
-o-
For a year, Brody thinks this is the best deal he ever made.
Maybe there are no consequences.
Maybe there’s just good.
Brody knows better than that; he just forgot.
Then, he remembers.
In the worst way possible.
-o-
This swim meet is local, and Brody’s a senior now, and his foster parents have been letting him drive the second car from time to time now that his grades are a holding steady. His foster dad’s out of town for the week on business, and his foster mom had said she’d try to make it but she never showed.
That’s a little weird, but they’ve got a good rhythm now, and Brody’s sure she’ll have dinner ready and that she’ll probably make brownies or something for dessert as he tells her all about the meet.
He came in first, of course. Five events, which is more than usual. He set a personal best in the 200, though, and that’s what he’s proudest of.
He bangs through the front door, dropping his keys on the table by the door. He takes the stairs two at a time, up to the kitchen where Brody can smell something burning.
His foster mom’s a loving cook.
Not always the most watchful one.
“Hey, I’m back!” Brody calls out. “And I’ve got great news--”
When he bounds into the kitchen, his big announcement all but dies in his throat.
Seriously.
Dies.
Because his foster mom is on the ground, pale, eyes closed, apron still on. Dinner’s half served on the table. Brody’s brownies are burning in the oven.
Brody’s heart stops, his stomach falls.
But his lips burn.
“You would willingly pay that price?”
It’s his own voice that echoes in his ears, louder than anything else.
“A hundred times over.”
-o-
She’s not dead.
Brody hears himself cry out, a guttural, panicked noise, and he’s calling her name as he crashes to his knees next to her.
“You’re not dead, you’re not dead, you’re not dead.”
He’s not sure if he’s telling her or asking her. Or if he’s possibly trying to convince the universe of this fact he needs to be true.
Because he needs it to be true.
She can’t be dead.
On his knees, Brody’s not even sure what to do. He’s a good swimmer, but he knows exactly zero first aid. Someone once tried to teach him CPR, but he’s pretty sure every time he tried it was more like the Heimlich, and mostly it shouldn’t matter because there’s no possible way that this woman is dead.
“You’re not dead,” Brody tells her, shaking her by the arm.
It’s a silly thing to say, maybe, but she’s always been cool about that stuff. She’s one of the few people who Brody actually feels like he can talk to, who he can tell stupid shit to and she listens. She never rolls her eyes when he reads like he’s in sixth grade, and she’s always asking him stuff about what strokes he’s working on or if there’s any girls he likes. She treats Brody like an actual person sometimes, and Brody likes that.
She wouldn’t mind him saying the first thing that comes to mind.
She’ll mind even less if she’s actually dead.
Brody’s breath catches with a sob, and he shakes his head. “You got to wake up,” he says, and he shakes her again. “Please.”
He’s asking because it’s cool to ask her stuff. It’s cool to ask her for brownies because sometimes she makes them. He can ask her for an extra five dollars because she’ll usually spot it to him. It’s totally normal to ask her what the hell the electoral college is even though he should know already.
Brody asks her things.
Brody tells her things.
Brody feels like she’s the closest thing he’s ever had to a mother.
This is the closest he’s ever come to family.
And he’s supposed to be all about swimming, but shit, he’s not sure anymore.
“You got to wake up,” he says again. “You got to wake up.”
She doesn’t, of course.
She doesn’t.
-o-
Brody remembers to call 911, and he sits numbly while he waits for the paramedics. They bang through the front door, and Brody’s still sitting here as they look her over. She’s not dead, at least, but she looks it, and when they ask him to come along, he tries to say no.
“Kid, you should be with your mom,” one of them says.
As if Brody doesn’t feel bad enough.
-o-
He’s silent the whole way to the hospital, and he gives the nurse his foster dad’s phone number. When she pats him on the shoulder, she says, “Your mom’s in good hands.”
“Foster mom,” he says, the words like stone as they fall from his lips.
“I’m sorry?” the nurse asks.
Brody nods, trying to steady himself. “She’s my foster mom.”
He says it again because maybe the distinction will matter. Maybe if he acts like she’s not the most important person in his life, then the demon won’t want her. Maybe she’ll leave his foster mom alone.
“They’re not family,” Brody lies, bracing himself against the way those words feel in his mouth. “They’re not my family.”
This is the consequences.
This is the price.
He’ll pay it in any way he can.
-o-
His foster dad takes the first flight home, and Brody sits by himself in the waiting room. The doctors explain that she’s had a heart attack but she’s doing okay now. They got to her in time. “Do you want to see her?” the doctor asks kindly.
Brody actually flinches, and he shakes his head quickly. “No.”
“It’s okay,” the doctor assures him. “She’s stable.”
“No,” Brody says again, his breathing quickening.
“I’m sure it’d do her good to see you,” the doctor tries.
“It will?”
“Come on,” the doctor says, smiling a little now.
Brody can only just bring himself to follow.
-o-
In the room, Brody’s not sure what to do with himself. His foster mom is a little conscious, but she fades in and out, mumbling nonsense. There are all these wires and monitors that freak Brody out, and he’s struck by the fact that he shouldn’t be here.
Like, here, standing.
He should be there, in that bed.
He made the deal.
He should face the consequences.
And he would, if he could. Unfortunately, the universe doesn’t give a shit about what he wants.
When she opens her eyes, she sees him and pulls him over. “Matt,” she breathes, and she’s smiling, sort of soft and wafty. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
The way she says that, not just like she means it but like it’s true. Like she’s looked at the universe and seen the bigger picture and determined right where Brody belongs. In truth, Brody can see it sometimes. He can see what it means to belong.
And he wants it, too.
He wants to smile and hold her hand and tell her of course he’s here, where else would he be? He’s not leaving; he’s never leaving.
But that’s not something he gets to say.
Not when a year ago he made a deal to sacrifice everything but the pool.
He gets it now.
There’s one way to save her.
Because the toll can only be paid by people who are close to Brody.
So Brody pulls his hand away and steps back. “Just feel better, okay?” he says, backing up toward the door.
Her hand is still stretched out to him. “Matt?”
“Just feel better,” he says again, and he’s almost relieved when he finds the handle and lets himself back out into the hall. He runs the whole way home, and when he’s on his bed, he lets himself cry.
Because she’s alive.
And nothing can ever be the same again.
-o-
It changes after that, but his foster parents have no idea why. His foster dad is visibly grateful to Brody, and he even says that Brody saved her life, but Brody says no, he doesn’t want to go to a baseball game, and no, he doesn’t need to go on a road trip together this summer to see as many stadiums as they can fit in to two weeks.
When his foster mom is released, she dotes on him, and she wants him to sit with her to tell her all the latest at school and swimming. She asks him about his races, and he answers his questions as evasively as possible, looking for any reason to slip away.
Part of him thinks it would be easier to go off the rails again. He thinks about going out and getting drunk, failing a few classes just because. He knows that won’t change things; it’ll only hurt them worse.
Not that he’s not already hurting them.
Because they want to be a family, and Brody makes it a foster placement again.
Foster placements don’t mean shit.
And if this deal is going to come due again, Brody refuses to let them suffer for it.
-o-
Brody makes it through the rest of the year without incident. He just keeps his head down, passes his classes and wins his races. He’s relieved when scholarship offers start rolling in, and Brody takes the one that takes him as far away from Iowa as he can.
California?
Brody’s never been.
But it’s a plane flight away, so it’ll do just fine.
All the same, his foster folks offer to take him, help him get settled in, but Brody says no.
“It was cool, you know, what you did for me,” he says, expressing as much vulnerability as he dares. He wonders if the demon is listening, if she knows. He hems inside in, just in case. “But you’re done with me now. You can get back to your lives or, you know. Take on the next lost cause.”
It’s worse than an angry rejection, because Brody’s feigned indifference makes it seem like this is nothing when they all know it could have been everything. That’s why it’s best to walk away, though. It’s best to hurt them like this.
So he doesn’t hurt them worse later.
-o-
Leaving Iowa is pretty hard. Honestly, it’s actually traumatic, and Brody cries himself to sleep a few nights before his roommate shows up and he has to stop acting like a girl. It doesn’t take him long to get used to it after that, though. He spent a lot of time in group homes, so bunking with other people isn’t that weird to him, even if his roommate does snore. And the food’s not great, but it’s good enough, and Brody’s got plenty of other stuff to distract him.
It’s tempting to get into the party scene, and it’s not like Brody doesn’t party. But Brody’s on scholarship and that means he has to make grades if he’s going to have a chance of making it here, and he knows if he flunks out, he’ll have no choice but to go back to Iowa and ask for help.
That gives him some incentive to, you know, not fail.
Classes are fine, then. His roommate is cool enough, and they scrape enough money together for season football tickets, which are a blast. And swimming practice is already a thing, and Brody’s the best on the team by far, but his coach still has things to teach him.
This is, as far as Brody can tell, perfectly according to plan.
Until he meets the girl.
-o-
Her name is Monica. Which is like a super ridiculous name but she’s not a super ridiculous girl. She’s cute but not like some bombshell, and she wears jeans and t-shirts that are always a little too big. She’s in his Rhetoric Class, and she’s wipes his ass across the floor in a mock debates, and he’s so turned on by her passion for public funding for tree that he asks her out to coffee right then and there.
She’s the reason he passes Rhetoric, not because she helps him study, but because being around her makes everything so much better.
When swimming season really starts, she’s really cool about it. They plan dates around his schedule, and she rolls her eyes but drags her friends to all his home meets. During the final meet, the one for the championship, she drives herself all the way up the coast to see him perform.
With Monica in the crowd, he sets a meet record.
Afterward, he kisses her, tells her that he’ll see her back on campus.
“Of course!” she says. “I love you!”
He beams at her. “I love you, too.”
-o-
Except while Brody’s on the bus with the team driving home, she’s in the car by herself. Someone crosses the middle lane and hits her head on.
Brody’s nowhere near the scene, and the other driver’s drunk.
It’s still Brody’s fault.
-o-
She’s transferred to the university hospital for the best care, and her parents drive in from Sacramento. Monica’s messed up in every possible way with internal bleeding, broken bones, the whole thing. She’s down a kidney, and she’s breathing through a tube. They have to shave her hair to relieve pressure in her brain, and she’s in a coma.
She might still die.
Like, really.
She could never wake up. She could never be the same.
Everyone tells Brody he should go, sit with her, take time off from classes, take a break with training. She needs him.
But Brody sits in Monica’s room and he knows what she needs.
-o-
Everyone hates him after that. Seriously, he’s branded as an asshole, and no girl will even talk to him, not even when they’re drunk. His roommate tells him it takes balls to do that shit, and his coach pulls him aside and asks if everything is really okay.
Apparently, everyone thinks that the worst thing you can possibly do is break up with your girlfriend when she’s still in traction.
Whatever, Brody will take that hit.
Because she’s awake now. She’s getting better. Her recovery has improved in leaps and bounds since Brody told her that it was over.
He’ll be the asshole.
At least she’ll be alive.
Besides, she won’t miss Brody long.
No one ever does.
-o-
He takes a job over the summer, staying local and training with his coach. With a fresh year, at least people will talk to him again, and with his success in the pool, he’s kind of a big man on campus his sophomore year. Still, it’s all one-night stands after than, and he tries not to learn their names or to hook up while sober. That makes it easier not to actually care about any of them.
The problem is that classes are getting harder. Brody has to declare a major or something, and he picks something pointless like fitness training, but there’s like way more math and biology in that degree than he bargained for.
Fortunately, his new roommate is a genius. Grant is officially a computer science major, but he dabbles in basically everything. He is genuinely entertained by Brody’s biochemistry homework, and he does Brody’s math like he’s doing some stupid Suduko puzzle on his iPhone.
At first, this is all a matter of convenience for Brody, but Grant’s actually pretty cool. He lets Brody play with his gear, and they have similar taste in movies. Brody doesn’t have to go out and party very much, not when he and Grant can pull an all nighter on World of Warcraft just because.
When he does party, he drags Grant along, and since Brody’s not looking to hook up, he finds it somewhat fun to play wingman for Grant. He takes great pride in the fact that Grant gets laid twice since they started hanging out together.
Brody pulls out a C in biochemistry and buys Grant two pizzas.
Grant thinks this is the best deal ever.
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” he says.
That’s kind of what Brody is afraid of.
-o-
And yet, there are practicalities. Brody doesn’t want to do the dorms again, and Grant’s got a sweet apartment lined up with a spare room.
“It’ll be awesome,” Grant promises. “You and me and bachelor pad.”
“I don’t know,” Brody hesitates. Because he remembers Monica. He remembers his foster mom. He remembers the damn girl in the damn crossroads and the kiss that changed his life.
“Sure you do!” Grant says. “I mean, are you really going to live in the dorms again? This is a business decision.”
“You think?” Brody asks.
Grant pats him on the arm. “I’m sure, man. I’m totally sure.”
-o-
Brody signs a lease.
It’s a business arrangement.
-o-
For two days.
If that.
It’s like a business arrangement for two minutes before Grant shows up and they start talking. They get along well together, and Grant helps Brody study and Brody helps Grant make friends. They make their rent, just like they’re supposed to.
The fact that they have fun together means nothing at all.
-o-
For a year, Brody is terrified.
But Grant’s fine. Nothing bad happens to Grant.
By his senior year, Brody starts to wonder if the curse has been lifted. Maybe the price had already been paid. Maybe it’s a contract that’s been satisfied.
When his foster parents email him to check in, this time Brody takes the time to reply. “Things are going really well, actually. I was thinking maybe I’d make a trip back to Iowa later this year. You know, maybe stop by for Christmas.”
Because, you know. Why not?
-o-
Because the deal was why not.
The stupid thing is -- and this is so stupid, because Brody’s so stupid -- is that it still takes him by surprise when the whole thing falls apart.
-o-
Brody comes back from swim practice, tired and, you know, wet. He’s ready to devour some food, and he’s got the number up for Chinese take out when he comes inside the apartment and collapses on the coach.
“You want some Chinese?” Brody asks, barely glancing at Grant who is at the desk, poised over his open books. “I so want Chinese.”
Grant doesn’t answer, and Brody’s finger hesitates over the call button. “We can do pizza, too,” Brody offers. “Or, like, that burger place with the really good fries.”
When Grant doesn’t answer again, Brody puts down his phone. His stomach is twisting. His heart is thudding.
He remembers his foster mom on the floor of the kitchen.
He remembers Monica in a coma.
“Grant?”
Grant shudders and turns toward Brody. “I just got a call from my mom,” he says.
“Okay,” Brody says, not sure what to say, not sure what to think. This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. He’s not still stuck on that crossroads. He’s not still kissing a demon girl. He’s not still making this deal. He’s not.
Grant meets his gaze, shaken and shocked. “My dad,” he starts and he stops. He’s been crying; he’s still crying. “My dad is dead.”
-o-
At first, Brody’s relieved.
He’d been so terrified that Grant was dying, that he had cancer or some other horrible and incurable disease. But Grant’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with Grant.
Except everything’s wrong with Grant.
Feeling like this is still somehow his fault, Brody agrees to go with Grant back to his family’s farm in central California. It’s a long drive, and they pass it quietly. Brody listens when Grant wants to talk, and he’s there for him at the funeral, when people give eulogies about a man Brody’s never met.
After a week there, Brody knows he’s missed too many classes. He tells Grant that he’s bought a bus ticket back.
“I’ll hold down the place until you’re ready, you know,” Brody says. “And I can go talk to your teachers if you want, pick up some of your homework or, you know. Whatever.”
But Grant looks at him strange.
That’s when Brody realizes.
Shit, that’s when he knows.
Grant’s dad isn’t the price to pay for Brody’s success.
No, what comes next is.
“I’m not going back,” Grant says.
Brody wants to not know what he means. He wants to not know. “Not right away,” he says. “Maybe you can take a semester off--”
Grant shakes his head, and he looks weary. Like he’s aged 20 years in a week. “I’m not going back at all.”
Brody’s heart starts to pound a familiar rhythm. “But you’re close to graduating,” he says, as if that’s going to matter. “You have the internship at Google all lined up.”
Grant sighs, visibly deflating. “The farm is all the family has,” he says. “And my mom can’t run it alone. If I don’t stay, then it’ll go bankrupt. I can’t let my dad’s legacy die.”
Brody hears him, but he can’t make sense of it. “But what about your legacy? Dude, I know you don’t love farming. You love computers. That’s you, man.”
“It’s not that easy, Matt,” Grant says. “I mean, you get to do whatever you want, no strings attached, okay. For you, it’s just swimming. But I have responsibilities, okay? I can’t run from this. I mean, I knew it was coming sooner or later, but I thought I’d have 30 years before I had to come back. I thought I’d get my life first.”
But Grant doesn’t get his life. Grant doesn’t get his internship in Silicon Valley. He doesn’t get to graduate with honors. He doesn’t even get a dad.
Because Brody made a deal.
A stupid, careless deal.
And he was too selfish to remember not to make friends.
“I’m sorry, man,” Brody says. “I really am.”
Grant musters up a smile somehow. “Just swim your heart out, man,” he says. “At least one of us can live the dream.”
Brody doesn’t have the heart to disagree.
He doesn’t have the guts to admit that he rigged the game in favor of himself.
No, Brody doesn’t have anything as he takes the bus back to school alone.
-o-
That season, Brody bests everyone and he starts racing internationally. He’s an instant success, and there’s already talk that he’ll be ready for the next Olympics.
Brody doesn’t go back to Iowa for Christmas, and when Grant drops him a line to ask how he’s doing, Brody stops responding.
It’s all swimming now.
It’s all swimming.
-o-
All swimming.
Brody barely eeks out a degree. Without Grant there, it’s not as easy to stay focused, and he really does spend all his time in the pool now. He doesn’t even bother with the ceremony. His coach agrees to stick with him, to see how far they can take this thing, and Brody knows it’ll be a hell of a quick turnaround if he’s going to make the games in Rio.
That’s the plan, of course.
If people are going to get hurt for Brody’s dream, then he better make something of it.
That’s what Brody tells himself.
And if he trains until he’s exhausted, then at least he can’t remember any truth to the contrary.
-o-
Brody trains hard, and it pays off. He wins races; he breaks records. As talk of him qualifying starts to pick up, the sponsors start calling. Before he knows it, Brody’s starting to make real money. It’s enough to pay his rent and pay for his coach to be with him full time. Pool rental fees are nothing to shrug at either, but Nike puts him on their roster and things get easier.
Not everything is easier, of course. Life on the road is harder than he expects, even for a foster kid like him who made a life of never being in one place. Still, it’s been years, like, actual years, and he’s out of practice. He hadn’t realized it until faces with it again, until he’s living out of a duffle bag, wondering where he’ll be tomorrow. Worse, he finds the nonstop training to be isolating. He misses Grant and his jokes, Monica and her passionate defense of environmental causes, his foster mom and her brownies.
That’s how bad it gets. Not that Brody’s lonely but that he’s letting himself admit to being lonely.
Thank God for the pool.
His only solace.
His coach is super helpful in this. The guy knows his strokes, and he always knows what Brody needs to tweak to get a little more speed.
Actually, the way things go, Brody comes to depend on his coach for everything, more than just the dolphin kick that he’s still losing fractions of a second on. This is inevitable, the natural order of things. Brody literally talks to no one else. Ever. Of course he’s going to be close to his coach.
Because, as it turns out, the guy knows about more stuff than swimming. Like, he’s got a life and interests outside the pool, and sometimes that stuff just comes up in the course of training. And, like, they eat meals together, and the dude fields some of Brody’s calls while he’s in the pool.
So when Brody has no idea about sponsorship deals, his coach has a little advice. Then, when Brody gets bored in hotel rooms, he helps Brody finds things to do, to keep his mind active and stuff. Plus, he’s got great tips for eating right, and he makes this amazing breakfast smoothie.
Then, he has an opinion about the best suit, and the next thing Brody knows, they’re talking about what color look best with his eyes.
It sounds weird, and Brody knows that, but it’s not weird. It’s not weird at all. This is what you talk about with a coach. It is.
It just so happens that back in California, training is going so well that his coach just invite ps him back to his place for dinner to, you know, talk and stuff. It’s coincidence that the guy has a wife and kids at home, too.
That’s a different sort of thing, a family that’s not quite his but welcomes him all the same. Brody is polite but keeps his distance. He won’t stay for dessert, and he doesn’t play with the kids, but he likes to listen to his coach tell stories about them. He asks about his daughter’s first day of preschool, and he reminds the man not to neglect his anniversary, a big meet the next day be damned.
Brody tells himself this is all about swimming.
Until the day that he knows it’s not.
Disclaimer: I got nothing.
Rating: M
A/N: With virtually no experience in the foster care system in the United States, I am sensitive to my portrayal of it in fic. What I do know about the system makes me try to represent it as a complicated system that is well intentioned and sometimes flawed. It’s my belief that a lot of good things can and do come from the foster care system. That said, it is also an innately challenging experience for all parties involved. I don’t want to make light of the difficulties children face while in foster care, but I also don’t want to paint such a negative portrait as to suggest that it is always bleak. It’s sort of a critical part of the character background I’m working with, so I can’t avoid it. I just hope I haven’t done the system an injustice one way or another.
A/N 2: Unbeta’ed. Fills my deals with demons square in hc_bingo. Starts with pre-movie spec.
Summary: Brody has a lot of demons. What the hell does it matter if he has one more?
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
-o-
Some kids in the system, they think they’re cursed. They think that’s why no one wants them. They think that’s why their parents gave up on them. They think it’s just bad luck, not their fault, and so on. They’ve got everybody to blame.
Brody knows better.
Brody knows that there’s no curse.
He’s just a shitty person.
It’s unclear to him how his parents saw this in him as an infant, but they probably dodged a bullet. Brody’s a walking disaster, a poor excuse for a human being. Give him two good choices, and he’ll make a third bad one just for shits and giggles. He’s an asshole to people who are nice to him, and he’ll take every opportunity and squander it.
Brody doesn’t believe in curses.
Just his own choices.
Each one shittier than the last.
-o-
At 13, his foster parents dump him. He’s been with them for, like, five years, and he can’t say that he likes them or anything like that, but they’ve got this pool in the yard that Brody loves, and he’ll share a room with three other idiot boys, one of whom actually drools all the time, just because all summer long he gets to stay in the water, swimming back and forth until he’s pruny. He can swim fast, you see. And that’s about the first thing he’s ever been good at, so he finds that he kind of loves it.
His foster parents don’t tell him why it’s not working out, just that it isn’t, and they tell Brody that he has to leave most of the clothes with them and that the toys in his room really aren’t his because, you know, they’re not. Just like this isn’t his home and they’re not his family. Honestly, Brody wants to tell them that drool boy doesn’t give a shit about his things, but whatever.
Brody makes the choice to give them the finger and walk away.
That’s how you make a bad choice, you see. That’s how you take a bad situation and make it ten times worse.
-o-
After that, Brody ends up in a group home for awhile. He gets a few temporary placements, but he swears around toddlers at one and then he breaks into the parents’ locked alcohol stash in the other, and then he is caught vandalizing a school locker room and they -- whoever they are in this situation -- decide he needs some remediation.
Whatever. One shitty placement is the same as the last, and Brody’s stopped caring a while ago. There’s no possible way to care, not when you’ve been bounced around as much as Brody has.
The part that Brody can’t stand -- the thing that still gets him -- is that the only time he swims for a year is when they take the kids at the group home to the Y every other Tuesday. Once, he sneaks out to a pond he knows is nearby, and he swims all night in the dark in water that smells like cow shit.
Probably because it’s filled with cow shit.
When they find him in the morning, he’s in so much trouble that it’s not even funny and they want him to learn his lesson, like, seriously. They heap on a ton of punishment and it’s hell for a while but here’s what Brody learns:
It was worth it.
-o-
They finally get him a placement with people that are supposed to be pros and they work with tough cases all the time. They aren’t scared by Brody’s language, and they’re really patient with Brody’s terrible attitude.
When you get right down to it, they’re pretty nice to him, and they make him this deal, you see. It’s a deal.
Do your homework; go to school; behave yourself.
And they’ll pay for private swim lessons.
Brody’s thinks they’ve got to be full of shit.
Private swim lessons are expensive, and Brody’s not worth a dime. These people are messing with him, lying to him, trying to coerce him into being a better person with no payoff.
Brody’s, like, almost sure of it.
Almost.
There’s a chance -- like, this tiny chance -- that they’re not.
That chance alone -- the chance to swim -- is the only reason why Brody takes the deal.
-o-
It works, for a while. Brody goes to school. He does his homework. He keeps himself in line.
And every week, three nights at a time, he gets to swim. In real pools. With actual coaches. He learns how to perfect his stroke. He learns how to advance his kick. He gets better; faster.
Brody loves it.
It’s the best deal of his entire life.
-o-
That could have been the happy ending. That could have been everything. Brody could have found his family, found his calling.
Please.
This is Brody, after all.
He’s not cursed.
Just really, really stupid.
-o-
Like, at first, it’s not Brody’s fault really. He did study for that English test, but he’s not a good reader and it’s, like, Shakespeare and he doesn’t know what the hell Hamlet’s problem is but as far as Brody is concerned the answer is not to be because anyone who talks like that all the time should just cease to exist in his opinion.
And then, see, there’s this party, and someone actually invites Brody, like specifically invites him, and Brody’s never had someone invite him anywhere before much less to an actual party with actual people. And okay, so Brody has like one small tiny drink because that’s what all the kids are doing and this is Brody’s first chance to be normal, and when the cops come, everyone gets taken in, not just him, and apparently that’s, like, a big deal.
His foster parents sit him down and they tell him how deeply disappointed they are in him. The report card is on the table with the police report on top.
“You broke the deal, Matt,” his foster mom tells him, and she’s doing that shitty thing that people do, like this hurts them more than it does him. “We told you there were consequences.”
Brody shakes his head. “I told you I read the play, I just had no idea what it was saying,” he says. “And the party -- okay, that wasn’t my best choice, but this kid from swim team invited me, and I was just going to hang out--”
But his foster dad is shaking his head. “You knew the rules, Matt.”
He gives a short, incredulous laugh. “I won’t do it again; I swear.”
“You leave us with no choice,” his foster dad says. “We’re going to have to suspend swimming lessons for a month.”
“At least until you get your grade in English back up,” his foster mom adds.
If Brody had taken the time to think, he might have seen that this wasn’t the end of the world. He might have even seen it as a reasonable measure, especially since there isn’t a meet coming up.
But Brody’s not that kind of guy.
He’s not someone who thinks.
He’s not calm or reasonable.
“This is bullshit!” he yells.
“Matt, your language--”
But Brody’s not listening anymore. “You guys are such assholes!”
“Matt, you need to calm down--”
Brody gets to his feet, kicking at the table. “I don’t need you shitty charity!”
“Matt, this behavior is unacceptable--”
Brody kicks the table again, harder this time, hard enough to send its content scattered. Five minutes later, after a profanity laden rant, Brody has been sent to his room.
Swim lessons have been cancelled indefinitely.
And Brody knows, even as he rages against his foster parents, that he has no one to blame but himself.
-o-
So, like, if the deal’s off.
Then, okay. The deal is off
Brody stops doing his homework. Sometimes, he stops going to school. Teachers give him detention, and he literally gives them the finger back. Now that he’s grounded, he makes a point to sneak out, and he doesn’t just take a drink or two at a party to be one of the crowd.
No, he goes and gets himself hammered.
He doesn’t try to hide it when he comes home late, dragging himself through the living room and knocking shit over because what the hell.
“Matt,” his foster mom says. “I know you’re better than this.”
Brody has to laugh at her.
Because this woman clearly doesn’t know him at all.
If she had, she would have kicked his ass to the curb just like every person who came before her.
-o-
That’s how he ends up at the party. In a manner of speaking.
Honestly, he doesn’t quite remember coming to this party. He doesn’t quite remember who drove him here or where he started. He’s not even sure where he is right now, but after several shots of something, Brody realizes he doesn’t know a single person.
This bothers him a little, and also, he’s going to hurl.
The bathrooms are all full and some couple is making out on top of the kitchen sink, so he stumbles outside. That’s when he realizes that he’s in the middle of the country and this is literally a single farmhouse among rows of corn. Now, Brody lives in Iowa, so you don’t have to go, like, super far for that, but that’s still weird.
Brody hurls for a while. Then he staggers a few more paces and hurls some more. He finds someone else hurling and he hurls in a different direction, and by the time he’s done, he just wants to go home and sleep.
The problem is, he doesn’t know how to get home. And there’s no one here he can ask for a ride. He tries to make his way back inside to find someone with a phone -- his has been confiscated, part of being grounded -- but he takes a wrong turn at the corn field and he’s a mile down a country road before he realizes that he’s lost.
He tries to turn around, but the stupid road comes to cross road, and Brody circles around it three times before realizes that this whole thing is pointless.
His whole life is pointless.
He probably should have recognized that by now.
He’s stupid, he’s not very nice, he’s willful and acts like a jerk. He can’t read; he gets drunk super fast, and it usually takes people about two weeks before they just can’t be bothered to give a shit.
As far as Brody can tell, that’s two weeks too long.
The only thing he is remotely good at is swimming and he doesn’t even have that anymore.
What the hell is he supposed to do without swimming?
Who the hell is he going to be?
How the hell is he supposed to amount to anything when his one skill has been snatched from him?
Who the hell is going to be there for him now?
“Hey, stranger,” someone croons.
Brody turns around, disoriented. He turns several times actually before he sees the girl. Long dark hair. Dark red lips. Dressed in ripped jeans and a cropped top. It’s red, too. And, like, sparkly. Really, really sparkly.
She smiles at him.
“You looking for something?” she asks.
Oh, Brody thinks, looking at her dumbly again.
That’s who.
-o-
This is pretty weird.
Not just the hot girl in the middle of a nowhere road in Iowa. Like, sure, that’s weird shit, but everything is weird. The whole night, it’s just kind of...off. The stars, for one thing, are way too bright, and they seem to be moving a lot more than stars should. And the moon is up there, but Brody thinks it looks like a basketball tonight, and he’s too short for basketball.
Then, he makes the mistake of trying to walk -- why, he’s not sure, it seemed like an idea at the time, though not a good one -- only the ground is not cooperative. It moves, it really moves, up and down and side to side, which makes taking an even step basically impossible.
After he stumbles enough times, he stops trying because hell yeah, Brody’s a quitter.
He can’t quit the corn, though. He’s heard that it’s supposed to be knee high by the fourth of July but this stuff, man, it towers over him. It’s at least as tall as a house, and Brody’s not sure what month it is to know if that’s normal or not.
Of course, normal is relative. Foster kids have their own normal, but super tall corn is not a part of that.
No, that’s all part of being drunk.
Drunk normal is this whole different thing, and usually Brody thinks that’s pretty cool because it makes it easier to hang out with people and make friends. This kind of drunk isn’t like that, though. This is not a normal drunk.
Brody’s not sure what kind of drunk it is, but it’s whacked.
He wonders if this is what it’s like to die of alcohol poisoning. Or if he somehow took some drugs in those large patches of time where he has no memory of actually existing.
These thoughts are all quite serious, and he’s so invested in them that he forgets about the weird girl decked out in sparkly red for a second.
It might be longer than a second.
For all Brody knows, it’s been five hours.
“Baby, you don’t look so good,” she says.
It takes Brody a few additional seconds to move his head in her general direction. It’s another couple of seconds before he can see her again.
She looks really good.
Red is totally her color.
Still standing in the crossroads, she fiddles with her pockets and watches him skeptically. “Can I help you out or something?”
She’s got this southern drawl, and it’s so unbelievably hot that Brody might just pass out right then and there.
Actually, he might pass out for other reasons.
But she is hot.
“Seriously,” she says, and Brody nods very seriously along with her. “I think you might need some help.”
That is, undoubtedly, an understatement. Brody, as a general rule, needs so much help that no one even knows where to start. He needs so much help that it’s impossible for anyone to provide it.
And here she is. Some hot chick at a crossroads, offering her help.
He laughs.
Loud and inappropriate. So hard that he almost falls over. When he manages to breathe again, he shakes his head. “No one can help me.”
For all that, she doesn’t look remotely bothered. “I don’t know about that,” she muses. “You might be surprised.”
It’s not clear to Brody is she’s trying to be provocative or sincere or possibly both. In any case, Brody hasn’t got any nuance when he’s drunk. He’s just all stupid.
Some might argue that there’s not much difference when he’s sober. That’s not an argument Brody would attempt, but he merely would suggest that being sober increases his odds of not giving voice to said stupidity.
“You think you’re what?” he asks with a scoff that sounds over the top, even to him. “My guardian angel?”
This thought seems to make her genuinely amused and she sidles a step closer. Brody’s not sure if she’s flirting with him, but it seems like she’s flirting with him. “Never been called an angel before,” she says, and now that she’s closer, he can see that her shirt is cut just a tad too low and her jeans ride just a touch too low. She’s trying for something here. “Demon’s more appropriate.”
She’s looking at him now kind of like she wants to eat him.
Or, possibly, like she’s down for some action, right here in the middle of a cornfield.
Shit, how is Brody still in a cornfield?
She takes another step closer, all but demanding his wandering attention. “What do you think, baby?”
He thinks she looks the part, now that she mentions it. Like, it’s not just the clothes and stuff. Even her eyes glint red, and not because she’s drunk like him. She’s not drunk. That’s the weird part. How do you end up at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere and not be drunk.
He’s examining her head for evidence of horns when he forgets why he’s doing it at all.
She laughs, and Brody startles, realizing that she’s almost close enough to touch him now. “You and me might get along, I wager,” she says.
Brody’s not actually sure he knows the word wager. She bites her lower lip and blinks those possibly red eyes at him and he doesn’t care about vocabulary. Angel, demon, and everything in between: she hasn’t realized that she’s out of Brody’s league.
Everyone’s out of Brody’s league.
But then, he thinks, if she’s going to bet on him, she’s got to be a little stupid.
Huh, he does know what wager means.
“Aw, baby,” she says, and she looks sorry. “That’s a hell of a thing to say about yourself.”
Brody blinks, confused. Had he said that out loud?
She nods at him sympathetically. “I think so,” she says, commiserating. “Because I can hear you, loud and clear.”
That’s bullshit. Brody’s not even moving his mouth, and if he were, the words wouldn’t sound nearly this coherent.
Staring at her, he can’t help but be a little awed. She’s this sliver of perfect, like she’s part of the night itself. He has to momentarily reconsider the whole angel thing.
She rolls her eyes in response. “I really ought to just leave you here,” she murmurs.
Noticeably, she makes no move to leave. Instead, she’s staring back at him, eyes so locked on his that Brody doesn’t dare blink.
“You might as well,” Brody says finally, and his voice sounds smaller than it used to. “No one would blame you.”
“I didn’t come here for you,” she says, and she’s looking down her nose at him. She’s taller than him; everyone’s taller than him. She sighs. “But you are so hopeless.”
This sounds more accurate. This sounds like every other person who has ever known him, like, ever. It sounds like all the foster parents who got tired of him, all the caseworkers who wanted to pawn him off, all the friends he never managed to keep.
All the girls who kissed him and regretted it basically immediately.
“A lost cause,” he says, almost unbidden. Some people drink to forget, but there are parts of himself that Brody can’t forget, no matter how much he wants to.
She crosses the final distance between them, lifting her hand to cup his face. She tilts his head up to the moon and looks him over. Dumbfounded, he lets her. “What if I can help you?”
Her hand pulls away, and he drops his chin a little. “What could you possibly do?”
She’s a hot chick at a crossroads.
He’s a drunk moron without a family.
Nothing computes.
That doesn’t seem to deter her. “What do you want?”
Brody knows the right answer should be: sex. She’s a hot girl, and Brody’s horny and hasn’t been laid in a long time. There’s also the right answer: family. He’s a foster kid. That one’s a no brainer.
But he’s not that horny, and he’s tired of trying to want something he’s not going to get and the only thing he’s ever succeeded at is swimming, okay?
That’s it.
Swimming.
“I want to swim.”
She looks a little surprised. “Swim?”
That’s clearly not the answer she’s expecting.
Brody shrugs, making no attempt to gracefully recover. “Yeah,” is all he says. “I’m really good at swimming.”
“Everything in this world, and that’s what you want?” she clarifies. “You can say anything, you know. Anything.”
Her cleavage is heaving, basically in his face.
But yeah, he doesn’t notice now.
Or, he doesn’t notice a lot.
Because: “Water is a different world, you know? It keeps you afloat when you’re supposed to sink. It doesn’t matter how shitty or small you are on land; the water makes all things equal. I want to swim.”
He says it like he means it, and it’s a passion he’s not quite expecting. He knows how swimming changed him, and he knows that swimming is the entire catalyst for him being here tonight. He can’t make someone love him or want him or whatever.
But he can win a swimming race.
If he comes in first, he’ll have to belong.
He’ll have to.
She’s pressing her lips together, thoughtfully. “What would you give for it?”
He scoffs so hard that it actually hurts. “Anything.”
“What about your family, your friends,” she says.
Brody shrugs. “I haven’t got any of that shit.”
Her looks is almost reproachful. Which is a funny thing for anyone to be while in the middle of a crossroads with a drunk dude at night. “There are people who care about you, I’m sure.”
He thinks about his caseworker. He thinks about his swim coach. He thinks about his foster parents.
And he shakes his head. “There’s not.”
She looks quite serious now, and Brody realizes that she’s older than he is. At least by a few years; maybe by more. She looks timeless somehow; the most unbelievably perfect girl Brody’s ever seen. “So you’d sacrifice everything,” she says. “Even then.”
She says it like she wants to change his mind, but the more she says it, the more clear Brody is on this. “For the pool, hell yeah,” he said. “To win there? Without a doubt.”
“The success you’re talking about comes at a price,” she says, and she’s not flirting anymore. Somehow, she’s all business now. “If you win there, other parts of your life will lose -- and lose big.”
“So?” Brody asks. His life already sucks; he can’t imagine what it matters.
She actually chuckles in disbelief. “You would willingly pay that price?”
Brody curses loudly in his amusement. “A hundred times over.”
Looking him up and down, her expression is cool. “That’s a deal you’re willing to make?”
“Show me where to sign the contract,” he says, doing his best to enunciate the words so he doesn’t sound totally drunk.
And he is totally drunk.
Because he actually thinks there should be a contract.
Like she can actually make this happen.
Like she can snap her fingers and trade Brody’s pathetic life with one of actual success?
Like anyone can do that.
Her smile turns sweet, but her eyes glimmer dangerously. They look more red now than before, and Brody realizes he’s sweating. “I’ve got nothing for you to sign, baby,” she drawls. She draws closer to him, breathing against him. Part of him wants to pull away, but he’s transfixed now. She’s too alluring, too captivating, too everything. “But we can seal it with a kiss.”
He inhales, one last second of panic and regret. He thinks about his foster parents again, and he wonders if a month is as long as he thinks it is. He wonders what they would say if they saw him now. He wonders if they’d forgive him or kick him out. He thinks he knows the answer, but he can’t think anymore.
She’s drawing him in, and the breath leaves his lungs.
She’s no angel.
Brody has a lot of demons.
He closes his eyes as their lips meet.
What the hell does it matter if he has one more?
-o-
Brody has kissed girls before, though not as many as you might think. Girls will kiss him at parties when they’re both too drunk to think. Sometimes they kiss him because he’s new and pretty cute. Some of the kisses are pretty passionate, at least they seemed that way at the time because Brody had been horny and there had been lots of tongue.
None of those kisses are like this kiss.
This kiss is surreal. He feels it, pulling at his inside and wresting away all his inhibitions. But this isn’t a sexual sensation; it’s more encompassing than that. She she presses her lips into his, she tingles somewhere inside his soul
When he tries to pull away, she grabs his chin and holds him steady, as if she’s just not done yet. With a muted yelp, he has no choice but to comply, even as he feels the life ebbing out of him with each passing second.
Finally, she lets him go, and he feels his knees go week. He blinks, and he’s sprawled out on the ground with no memory of falling. He’s spent.
Like, he’s just done.
Above him, her head is haloed by the moon. She’s not smiling anymore. “Remember, you made the dea, baby,” she says. “And someone’s always got to pay the price.”
She turns abruptly, walking away from him. He tries to lever himself up to go after her, but he can barely lift his head. “But -- wait--”
She raises a hand, waving at him without looking back. “You made your choices! Time to live with the consequences!”
With another few paces, she’s gone, almost like she’s disappeared into the night.
Brody looks back at the sky, which is so wide and so clear. There are millions of stars.
Brody blinks.
Closes his eyes.
And then he’s gone, too.
-o-
When Brody wakes up, it’s morning.
Sitting up, his head throbs. He presses his palm to his eyes, squeezing them shut and swallowing hard while he tries to acclimate himself. It’s pretty obvious he’s hung over.
Blinking a few times, he dares to blearily open his eyes.
Shit, he’s still at the crossroads.
What the hell did he drink last night?
Grunting, he shakily tries to get to his feet. He only makes it a little ways before he has to fall to his hands and knees and vomit. It takes acrid in his mouth, and he spits into the dirt until he can finally breathe again.
This time, he makes it all the way to his feet and he takes a shaky few steps as he to remember more about the night before.
He remembers being pissed off at his foster parents, but that’s not so unusual. Brody’s spent the better part of his life being pissed off. He remembers a party, though he actually doesn’t remember anything else about the party. He thinks it’s possible that someone put something in his drink, because he still feels woozy and it’s been, like, eight hours at least.
But that’s not all.
There’s more.
Brody stops, fingers going to his lips.
The kiss.
The girl.
The crossroads.
He wrinkles his nose, wondering if it’s possible he imagined that bit. It seems plausible, but it doesn’t feel that way. Like, that kiss. That kiss was the most real experience of his entire life.
There’s no way in hell he imagined that.
It’s stupid, of course. What kind of girl hangs out in the middle of nowhere and kisses drunk boys?
Unless they happen to be demons in disguise, going around making deals? But it’s not like she asked him to give up his soul or something. And it’s not like Brody believes in deals with demons.
Even if he is at a crossroads.
And even if he can still taste her lips on his own.
Brody scoffs, as if to comfort himself. He reaches into his pocket before he remembers his phone has been confiscated. Out of instincts, he checks his back pocket.
Then he checks it again.
Then he checks his other pockets and he turns around, looking at the short distance he’s covered.
His wallet’s gone.
Like, gone gone.
Brody hadn’t had much, but he still had 20 bucks to pay for lunch for the rest of the week. And his ID and shit had been in there.
“Shit,” he says out loud, and he shakes his head. “You didn’t make a deal.”
It’s all bullshit. She’d just been waiting for him to pass out. She’s not a demon.
She’s a thief.
Either way, Brody’s got a hell of a long walk back.
And he has some epic apologies to make.
-o-
Back at the house, which has a few stragglers in no better shape that Brody, there’s no sign of his wallet but someone lets him borrow his phone. When he calls his foster parents, his foster mom answers and Brody can tell she’s been crying.
“You just stay right where you are,” she says, and she doesn’t sound mad for some reason. No, it sounds like she’s been crying. “Just stay where you are, and we’ll be there right away.”
As Brody waits, he can’t help but think of what the demon-thief said to him last night. That someone out there must care.
He wonders if some of it was the truth.
-o-
His foster mom’s not mad.
His foster dad is pretty pissed, though.
But it’s like that dangerous pissed, the quiet kind. There’s no yelling or ultimatums. No one tells Brody to pack his bags. Instead, they ground him in his room and tell him that they’ll talk to him later.
Brody lays on the bed, and it feels a little weird. He’s not sure why.
It’s, like, Brody knows he’s made a mistake this time.
He’s just not sure which part of last night he actually regrets.
-o-
When they talk to him later, Brody apologizes for sneaking out. He apologizes for going to a party and getting really drunk. He says he’s sorry for not coming back, for worrying them.
He doesn’t tell them that he’s sorry that he was willing to trade everything for swimming. He doesn’t say that he regrets sacrificing them to get what he wants in life.
Because that’s not real.
Brody believes that.
None of it was real.
-o-
Three days later, however, his foster parents call him in after school.
“We want to give you another chance,” his foster dad says.
“What?” Brody asks.
“Swimming,” his foster mom says, and she smiles a little. “We can see how good it is for you.”
“So we want to give you another chance,” his foster dad says again. “But we expect you to go to your classes and stop sneaking out.”
“And if you need help studying, ask us,” his foster mom adds.
Brody shakes his head, a little confused. “You’re -- I can -- what?”
“It’s what you want, isn’t it?” his foster mom asks.
“Uh, yeah,” Brody says. “It is.”
“Then show us you can do it, son,” his foster dad says. “Show us you can be a success.”
-o-
It’s a coincidence, of course. It has nothing to do with a drunken promise with a girl who robbed him in the middle of the night. It’s a coincidence that Brody gets everything he wants.
Brody believes that when he wins at his first meet.
He believes it at his second.
When he aces his third meet, he’s starting to think maybe it’s not a coincidence. Because Brody’s not just swimming well.
He’s swimming like he’s been blessed.
Or, quite possibly, cursed.
-o-
Here’s the thing: Brody doesn’t believe in curses.
Okay, he doesn’t.
He’s never been one of those kids who needs to blame everything bad in his life on other shit. He knows better. He knows that he’s shitty so shit follow him and shit, okay. Just shit.
The problem is, of course, that nothing is shitty right now.
And good things? Happy things? Success? Purpose? Meaning?
Brody’s got exactly no explanation for any of that. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit with his worldview. It doesn’t make sense for him.
So what’s he supposed to think?
That life just suddenly got good? That all of a sudden things starting going his way?
Or that he kissed a demon in a crossroad to get what he wants?
What the hell.
There’s the answer.
What the hell.
-o-
So, Brody’s made a deal with a demon. He knows there are consequences. Like, that had been one of those sticking points the hot demon girl had stressed to him. It’s a trade. She’ll give him success in the pool, and he gives up anything she wants in return.
In retrospect, those terms are a bit sketchy.
But honestly, Brody’s pretty impressed.
Because this is success like he can’t imagine.
Like, he’s suddenly popular at school. He’s on the swim team. There are articles about him in the newspaper, and he gets featured in the Des Moines Register. A few college scouts come to watch him swim.
And more than that, things are going really well. His grades are doing okay, better than before, because he’s going to school all the time. And his foster parents are pretty chill about it all. They take him to practices and go to his meets. And, like, they start relaxing his curfew a little bit. They give him a little extra spending cash.
It’s almost like they’re a family or something.
That isn’t what Brody asked for.
But it’s kind of cool anyway.
-o-
For a year, Brody thinks this is the best deal he ever made.
Maybe there are no consequences.
Maybe there’s just good.
Brody knows better than that; he just forgot.
Then, he remembers.
In the worst way possible.
-o-
This swim meet is local, and Brody’s a senior now, and his foster parents have been letting him drive the second car from time to time now that his grades are a holding steady. His foster dad’s out of town for the week on business, and his foster mom had said she’d try to make it but she never showed.
That’s a little weird, but they’ve got a good rhythm now, and Brody’s sure she’ll have dinner ready and that she’ll probably make brownies or something for dessert as he tells her all about the meet.
He came in first, of course. Five events, which is more than usual. He set a personal best in the 200, though, and that’s what he’s proudest of.
He bangs through the front door, dropping his keys on the table by the door. He takes the stairs two at a time, up to the kitchen where Brody can smell something burning.
His foster mom’s a loving cook.
Not always the most watchful one.
“Hey, I’m back!” Brody calls out. “And I’ve got great news--”
When he bounds into the kitchen, his big announcement all but dies in his throat.
Seriously.
Dies.
Because his foster mom is on the ground, pale, eyes closed, apron still on. Dinner’s half served on the table. Brody’s brownies are burning in the oven.
Brody’s heart stops, his stomach falls.
But his lips burn.
“You would willingly pay that price?”
It’s his own voice that echoes in his ears, louder than anything else.
“A hundred times over.”
-o-
She’s not dead.
Brody hears himself cry out, a guttural, panicked noise, and he’s calling her name as he crashes to his knees next to her.
“You’re not dead, you’re not dead, you’re not dead.”
He’s not sure if he’s telling her or asking her. Or if he’s possibly trying to convince the universe of this fact he needs to be true.
Because he needs it to be true.
She can’t be dead.
On his knees, Brody’s not even sure what to do. He’s a good swimmer, but he knows exactly zero first aid. Someone once tried to teach him CPR, but he’s pretty sure every time he tried it was more like the Heimlich, and mostly it shouldn’t matter because there’s no possible way that this woman is dead.
“You’re not dead,” Brody tells her, shaking her by the arm.
It’s a silly thing to say, maybe, but she’s always been cool about that stuff. She’s one of the few people who Brody actually feels like he can talk to, who he can tell stupid shit to and she listens. She never rolls her eyes when he reads like he’s in sixth grade, and she’s always asking him stuff about what strokes he’s working on or if there’s any girls he likes. She treats Brody like an actual person sometimes, and Brody likes that.
She wouldn’t mind him saying the first thing that comes to mind.
She’ll mind even less if she’s actually dead.
Brody’s breath catches with a sob, and he shakes his head. “You got to wake up,” he says, and he shakes her again. “Please.”
He’s asking because it’s cool to ask her stuff. It’s cool to ask her for brownies because sometimes she makes them. He can ask her for an extra five dollars because she’ll usually spot it to him. It’s totally normal to ask her what the hell the electoral college is even though he should know already.
Brody asks her things.
Brody tells her things.
Brody feels like she’s the closest thing he’s ever had to a mother.
This is the closest he’s ever come to family.
And he’s supposed to be all about swimming, but shit, he’s not sure anymore.
“You got to wake up,” he says again. “You got to wake up.”
She doesn’t, of course.
She doesn’t.
-o-
Brody remembers to call 911, and he sits numbly while he waits for the paramedics. They bang through the front door, and Brody’s still sitting here as they look her over. She’s not dead, at least, but she looks it, and when they ask him to come along, he tries to say no.
“Kid, you should be with your mom,” one of them says.
As if Brody doesn’t feel bad enough.
-o-
He’s silent the whole way to the hospital, and he gives the nurse his foster dad’s phone number. When she pats him on the shoulder, she says, “Your mom’s in good hands.”
“Foster mom,” he says, the words like stone as they fall from his lips.
“I’m sorry?” the nurse asks.
Brody nods, trying to steady himself. “She’s my foster mom.”
He says it again because maybe the distinction will matter. Maybe if he acts like she’s not the most important person in his life, then the demon won’t want her. Maybe she’ll leave his foster mom alone.
“They’re not family,” Brody lies, bracing himself against the way those words feel in his mouth. “They’re not my family.”
This is the consequences.
This is the price.
He’ll pay it in any way he can.
-o-
His foster dad takes the first flight home, and Brody sits by himself in the waiting room. The doctors explain that she’s had a heart attack but she’s doing okay now. They got to her in time. “Do you want to see her?” the doctor asks kindly.
Brody actually flinches, and he shakes his head quickly. “No.”
“It’s okay,” the doctor assures him. “She’s stable.”
“No,” Brody says again, his breathing quickening.
“I’m sure it’d do her good to see you,” the doctor tries.
“It will?”
“Come on,” the doctor says, smiling a little now.
Brody can only just bring himself to follow.
-o-
In the room, Brody’s not sure what to do with himself. His foster mom is a little conscious, but she fades in and out, mumbling nonsense. There are all these wires and monitors that freak Brody out, and he’s struck by the fact that he shouldn’t be here.
Like, here, standing.
He should be there, in that bed.
He made the deal.
He should face the consequences.
And he would, if he could. Unfortunately, the universe doesn’t give a shit about what he wants.
When she opens her eyes, she sees him and pulls him over. “Matt,” she breathes, and she’s smiling, sort of soft and wafty. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
The way she says that, not just like she means it but like it’s true. Like she’s looked at the universe and seen the bigger picture and determined right where Brody belongs. In truth, Brody can see it sometimes. He can see what it means to belong.
And he wants it, too.
He wants to smile and hold her hand and tell her of course he’s here, where else would he be? He’s not leaving; he’s never leaving.
But that’s not something he gets to say.
Not when a year ago he made a deal to sacrifice everything but the pool.
He gets it now.
There’s one way to save her.
Because the toll can only be paid by people who are close to Brody.
So Brody pulls his hand away and steps back. “Just feel better, okay?” he says, backing up toward the door.
Her hand is still stretched out to him. “Matt?”
“Just feel better,” he says again, and he’s almost relieved when he finds the handle and lets himself back out into the hall. He runs the whole way home, and when he’s on his bed, he lets himself cry.
Because she’s alive.
And nothing can ever be the same again.
-o-
It changes after that, but his foster parents have no idea why. His foster dad is visibly grateful to Brody, and he even says that Brody saved her life, but Brody says no, he doesn’t want to go to a baseball game, and no, he doesn’t need to go on a road trip together this summer to see as many stadiums as they can fit in to two weeks.
When his foster mom is released, she dotes on him, and she wants him to sit with her to tell her all the latest at school and swimming. She asks him about his races, and he answers his questions as evasively as possible, looking for any reason to slip away.
Part of him thinks it would be easier to go off the rails again. He thinks about going out and getting drunk, failing a few classes just because. He knows that won’t change things; it’ll only hurt them worse.
Not that he’s not already hurting them.
Because they want to be a family, and Brody makes it a foster placement again.
Foster placements don’t mean shit.
And if this deal is going to come due again, Brody refuses to let them suffer for it.
-o-
Brody makes it through the rest of the year without incident. He just keeps his head down, passes his classes and wins his races. He’s relieved when scholarship offers start rolling in, and Brody takes the one that takes him as far away from Iowa as he can.
California?
Brody’s never been.
But it’s a plane flight away, so it’ll do just fine.
All the same, his foster folks offer to take him, help him get settled in, but Brody says no.
“It was cool, you know, what you did for me,” he says, expressing as much vulnerability as he dares. He wonders if the demon is listening, if she knows. He hems inside in, just in case. “But you’re done with me now. You can get back to your lives or, you know. Take on the next lost cause.”
It’s worse than an angry rejection, because Brody’s feigned indifference makes it seem like this is nothing when they all know it could have been everything. That’s why it’s best to walk away, though. It’s best to hurt them like this.
So he doesn’t hurt them worse later.
-o-
Leaving Iowa is pretty hard. Honestly, it’s actually traumatic, and Brody cries himself to sleep a few nights before his roommate shows up and he has to stop acting like a girl. It doesn’t take him long to get used to it after that, though. He spent a lot of time in group homes, so bunking with other people isn’t that weird to him, even if his roommate does snore. And the food’s not great, but it’s good enough, and Brody’s got plenty of other stuff to distract him.
It’s tempting to get into the party scene, and it’s not like Brody doesn’t party. But Brody’s on scholarship and that means he has to make grades if he’s going to have a chance of making it here, and he knows if he flunks out, he’ll have no choice but to go back to Iowa and ask for help.
That gives him some incentive to, you know, not fail.
Classes are fine, then. His roommate is cool enough, and they scrape enough money together for season football tickets, which are a blast. And swimming practice is already a thing, and Brody’s the best on the team by far, but his coach still has things to teach him.
This is, as far as Brody can tell, perfectly according to plan.
Until he meets the girl.
-o-
Her name is Monica. Which is like a super ridiculous name but she’s not a super ridiculous girl. She’s cute but not like some bombshell, and she wears jeans and t-shirts that are always a little too big. She’s in his Rhetoric Class, and she’s wipes his ass across the floor in a mock debates, and he’s so turned on by her passion for public funding for tree that he asks her out to coffee right then and there.
She’s the reason he passes Rhetoric, not because she helps him study, but because being around her makes everything so much better.
When swimming season really starts, she’s really cool about it. They plan dates around his schedule, and she rolls her eyes but drags her friends to all his home meets. During the final meet, the one for the championship, she drives herself all the way up the coast to see him perform.
With Monica in the crowd, he sets a meet record.
Afterward, he kisses her, tells her that he’ll see her back on campus.
“Of course!” she says. “I love you!”
He beams at her. “I love you, too.”
-o-
Except while Brody’s on the bus with the team driving home, she’s in the car by herself. Someone crosses the middle lane and hits her head on.
Brody’s nowhere near the scene, and the other driver’s drunk.
It’s still Brody’s fault.
-o-
She’s transferred to the university hospital for the best care, and her parents drive in from Sacramento. Monica’s messed up in every possible way with internal bleeding, broken bones, the whole thing. She’s down a kidney, and she’s breathing through a tube. They have to shave her hair to relieve pressure in her brain, and she’s in a coma.
She might still die.
Like, really.
She could never wake up. She could never be the same.
Everyone tells Brody he should go, sit with her, take time off from classes, take a break with training. She needs him.
But Brody sits in Monica’s room and he knows what she needs.
-o-
Everyone hates him after that. Seriously, he’s branded as an asshole, and no girl will even talk to him, not even when they’re drunk. His roommate tells him it takes balls to do that shit, and his coach pulls him aside and asks if everything is really okay.
Apparently, everyone thinks that the worst thing you can possibly do is break up with your girlfriend when she’s still in traction.
Whatever, Brody will take that hit.
Because she’s awake now. She’s getting better. Her recovery has improved in leaps and bounds since Brody told her that it was over.
He’ll be the asshole.
At least she’ll be alive.
Besides, she won’t miss Brody long.
No one ever does.
-o-
He takes a job over the summer, staying local and training with his coach. With a fresh year, at least people will talk to him again, and with his success in the pool, he’s kind of a big man on campus his sophomore year. Still, it’s all one-night stands after than, and he tries not to learn their names or to hook up while sober. That makes it easier not to actually care about any of them.
The problem is that classes are getting harder. Brody has to declare a major or something, and he picks something pointless like fitness training, but there’s like way more math and biology in that degree than he bargained for.
Fortunately, his new roommate is a genius. Grant is officially a computer science major, but he dabbles in basically everything. He is genuinely entertained by Brody’s biochemistry homework, and he does Brody’s math like he’s doing some stupid Suduko puzzle on his iPhone.
At first, this is all a matter of convenience for Brody, but Grant’s actually pretty cool. He lets Brody play with his gear, and they have similar taste in movies. Brody doesn’t have to go out and party very much, not when he and Grant can pull an all nighter on World of Warcraft just because.
When he does party, he drags Grant along, and since Brody’s not looking to hook up, he finds it somewhat fun to play wingman for Grant. He takes great pride in the fact that Grant gets laid twice since they started hanging out together.
Brody pulls out a C in biochemistry and buys Grant two pizzas.
Grant thinks this is the best deal ever.
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” he says.
That’s kind of what Brody is afraid of.
-o-
And yet, there are practicalities. Brody doesn’t want to do the dorms again, and Grant’s got a sweet apartment lined up with a spare room.
“It’ll be awesome,” Grant promises. “You and me and bachelor pad.”
“I don’t know,” Brody hesitates. Because he remembers Monica. He remembers his foster mom. He remembers the damn girl in the damn crossroads and the kiss that changed his life.
“Sure you do!” Grant says. “I mean, are you really going to live in the dorms again? This is a business decision.”
“You think?” Brody asks.
Grant pats him on the arm. “I’m sure, man. I’m totally sure.”
-o-
Brody signs a lease.
It’s a business arrangement.
-o-
For two days.
If that.
It’s like a business arrangement for two minutes before Grant shows up and they start talking. They get along well together, and Grant helps Brody study and Brody helps Grant make friends. They make their rent, just like they’re supposed to.
The fact that they have fun together means nothing at all.
-o-
For a year, Brody is terrified.
But Grant’s fine. Nothing bad happens to Grant.
By his senior year, Brody starts to wonder if the curse has been lifted. Maybe the price had already been paid. Maybe it’s a contract that’s been satisfied.
When his foster parents email him to check in, this time Brody takes the time to reply. “Things are going really well, actually. I was thinking maybe I’d make a trip back to Iowa later this year. You know, maybe stop by for Christmas.”
Because, you know. Why not?
-o-
Because the deal was why not.
The stupid thing is -- and this is so stupid, because Brody’s so stupid -- is that it still takes him by surprise when the whole thing falls apart.
-o-
Brody comes back from swim practice, tired and, you know, wet. He’s ready to devour some food, and he’s got the number up for Chinese take out when he comes inside the apartment and collapses on the coach.
“You want some Chinese?” Brody asks, barely glancing at Grant who is at the desk, poised over his open books. “I so want Chinese.”
Grant doesn’t answer, and Brody’s finger hesitates over the call button. “We can do pizza, too,” Brody offers. “Or, like, that burger place with the really good fries.”
When Grant doesn’t answer again, Brody puts down his phone. His stomach is twisting. His heart is thudding.
He remembers his foster mom on the floor of the kitchen.
He remembers Monica in a coma.
“Grant?”
Grant shudders and turns toward Brody. “I just got a call from my mom,” he says.
“Okay,” Brody says, not sure what to say, not sure what to think. This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. He’s not still stuck on that crossroads. He’s not still kissing a demon girl. He’s not still making this deal. He’s not.
Grant meets his gaze, shaken and shocked. “My dad,” he starts and he stops. He’s been crying; he’s still crying. “My dad is dead.”
-o-
At first, Brody’s relieved.
He’d been so terrified that Grant was dying, that he had cancer or some other horrible and incurable disease. But Grant’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with Grant.
Except everything’s wrong with Grant.
Feeling like this is still somehow his fault, Brody agrees to go with Grant back to his family’s farm in central California. It’s a long drive, and they pass it quietly. Brody listens when Grant wants to talk, and he’s there for him at the funeral, when people give eulogies about a man Brody’s never met.
After a week there, Brody knows he’s missed too many classes. He tells Grant that he’s bought a bus ticket back.
“I’ll hold down the place until you’re ready, you know,” Brody says. “And I can go talk to your teachers if you want, pick up some of your homework or, you know. Whatever.”
But Grant looks at him strange.
That’s when Brody realizes.
Shit, that’s when he knows.
Grant’s dad isn’t the price to pay for Brody’s success.
No, what comes next is.
“I’m not going back,” Grant says.
Brody wants to not know what he means. He wants to not know. “Not right away,” he says. “Maybe you can take a semester off--”
Grant shakes his head, and he looks weary. Like he’s aged 20 years in a week. “I’m not going back at all.”
Brody’s heart starts to pound a familiar rhythm. “But you’re close to graduating,” he says, as if that’s going to matter. “You have the internship at Google all lined up.”
Grant sighs, visibly deflating. “The farm is all the family has,” he says. “And my mom can’t run it alone. If I don’t stay, then it’ll go bankrupt. I can’t let my dad’s legacy die.”
Brody hears him, but he can’t make sense of it. “But what about your legacy? Dude, I know you don’t love farming. You love computers. That’s you, man.”
“It’s not that easy, Matt,” Grant says. “I mean, you get to do whatever you want, no strings attached, okay. For you, it’s just swimming. But I have responsibilities, okay? I can’t run from this. I mean, I knew it was coming sooner or later, but I thought I’d have 30 years before I had to come back. I thought I’d get my life first.”
But Grant doesn’t get his life. Grant doesn’t get his internship in Silicon Valley. He doesn’t get to graduate with honors. He doesn’t even get a dad.
Because Brody made a deal.
A stupid, careless deal.
And he was too selfish to remember not to make friends.
“I’m sorry, man,” Brody says. “I really am.”
Grant musters up a smile somehow. “Just swim your heart out, man,” he says. “At least one of us can live the dream.”
Brody doesn’t have the heart to disagree.
He doesn’t have the guts to admit that he rigged the game in favor of himself.
No, Brody doesn’t have anything as he takes the bus back to school alone.
-o-
That season, Brody bests everyone and he starts racing internationally. He’s an instant success, and there’s already talk that he’ll be ready for the next Olympics.
Brody doesn’t go back to Iowa for Christmas, and when Grant drops him a line to ask how he’s doing, Brody stops responding.
It’s all swimming now.
It’s all swimming.
-o-
All swimming.
Brody barely eeks out a degree. Without Grant there, it’s not as easy to stay focused, and he really does spend all his time in the pool now. He doesn’t even bother with the ceremony. His coach agrees to stick with him, to see how far they can take this thing, and Brody knows it’ll be a hell of a quick turnaround if he’s going to make the games in Rio.
That’s the plan, of course.
If people are going to get hurt for Brody’s dream, then he better make something of it.
That’s what Brody tells himself.
And if he trains until he’s exhausted, then at least he can’t remember any truth to the contrary.
-o-
Brody trains hard, and it pays off. He wins races; he breaks records. As talk of him qualifying starts to pick up, the sponsors start calling. Before he knows it, Brody’s starting to make real money. It’s enough to pay his rent and pay for his coach to be with him full time. Pool rental fees are nothing to shrug at either, but Nike puts him on their roster and things get easier.
Not everything is easier, of course. Life on the road is harder than he expects, even for a foster kid like him who made a life of never being in one place. Still, it’s been years, like, actual years, and he’s out of practice. He hadn’t realized it until faces with it again, until he’s living out of a duffle bag, wondering where he’ll be tomorrow. Worse, he finds the nonstop training to be isolating. He misses Grant and his jokes, Monica and her passionate defense of environmental causes, his foster mom and her brownies.
That’s how bad it gets. Not that Brody’s lonely but that he’s letting himself admit to being lonely.
Thank God for the pool.
His only solace.
His coach is super helpful in this. The guy knows his strokes, and he always knows what Brody needs to tweak to get a little more speed.
Actually, the way things go, Brody comes to depend on his coach for everything, more than just the dolphin kick that he’s still losing fractions of a second on. This is inevitable, the natural order of things. Brody literally talks to no one else. Ever. Of course he’s going to be close to his coach.
Because, as it turns out, the guy knows about more stuff than swimming. Like, he’s got a life and interests outside the pool, and sometimes that stuff just comes up in the course of training. And, like, they eat meals together, and the dude fields some of Brody’s calls while he’s in the pool.
So when Brody has no idea about sponsorship deals, his coach has a little advice. Then, when Brody gets bored in hotel rooms, he helps Brody finds things to do, to keep his mind active and stuff. Plus, he’s got great tips for eating right, and he makes this amazing breakfast smoothie.
Then, he has an opinion about the best suit, and the next thing Brody knows, they’re talking about what color look best with his eyes.
It sounds weird, and Brody knows that, but it’s not weird. It’s not weird at all. This is what you talk about with a coach. It is.
It just so happens that back in California, training is going so well that his coach just invite ps him back to his place for dinner to, you know, talk and stuff. It’s coincidence that the guy has a wife and kids at home, too.
That’s a different sort of thing, a family that’s not quite his but welcomes him all the same. Brody is polite but keeps his distance. He won’t stay for dessert, and he doesn’t play with the kids, but he likes to listen to his coach tell stories about them. He asks about his daughter’s first day of preschool, and he reminds the man not to neglect his anniversary, a big meet the next day be damned.
Brody tells himself this is all about swimming.
Until the day that he knows it’s not.