8. Over a barrel

"Gosh what a mess," Susan grumbles as she tries to clean up.

"Alex, how can you live in this pigsty?" she doesn't ask, she condemns. I shrug. My head feels messy. I'm still trying to get a handle on everything. And cleaning up is very low on the priority list.

"Don't clean up for me, I'll do it myself when I get back,” I hope to reinforce my words by taking the things from her hands and putting them back in the clutter.

She looks startled, "Back? Where are you going?”

I mumble softly, “To the lake …”

"The lake again?!" ignites Susan, "You can't be serious! I don't understand why you keep going there. And I don't think it's good for your grieving process. Get your life in order here first!” She crosses her arms and looks at me sternly. I lower my eyes, I don't know what to say.

After a moment of silence, her voice softens when she asks, “Alex, why do you keep wanting to go to the lake? What's there?” For a moment I toy with the idea of telling her, but something stops me.

So I mumble awkwardly, “There um ... I can do something I need.”

“What do you need there?”

“Him,” I blurt out. She looks at me in silence. She tries to read in my eyes what I actually mean.

Finally she says, “He's gone, and he never will be there …” With a shrug I end the conversation. Tomorrow I will leave.

***

The rainbow colours lift me from the boat bench by the lake. The colours sparkle around me like sunlight in the water. It's like I'm breaking free from my body, as it floats in the spaceless space.

The Past

“So you never go near water?” he asks me, surprised. It's our first date. He wanted to surprise me, with a picnic, on the waterfront …

“No, sorry, I can't get any closer," I answer while looking anxiously at the pond in the distance. He takes my hand and stands in front of me so that I can no longer see the water.

“You are trembling with fear. How come you're so scared?” he says in such a loving voice that I melt away.

“I don't know what caused it exactly, I've always had it,” I begin my history full of fear of water. He listens intently, caressing my hand gently with his thumb as he holds it. Never before have I exposed myself so quickly. Only when I say the last words of my story do I suddenly feel very insecure. Would he think I'm too difficult?

“Don't feel uncomfortable, Alex. I think it's brave of you to tell me this.” He looks at me with such care, I feel so safe with him.

A wrinkle of thought appears on his forehead and he finally says, “You have never worked in a safe environment with someone you trust to see how far you could go and test your limits.” I shrug in confirmation.

“Would you dare to do that with me?” he asks almost as if he is making me a naughty offer. He takes a step back, one step closer to the water's edge. Hand in hand, our arms are stretched out from each other. His black, short, afro-textured hair shines in the sunlight. He is so handsome. With those beautiful happy brown eyes that sparkle, and his long black eyelashes. He looks so tough with his black muscular body. Next to him, I consider myself such a skinny, pale boy. Standing this distance from me, his mouth catches my eye the most. His lips are so full, and kissable …

I think all the blood has drained from my head because I can't think anymore. I close the distance between us, I'm attracted to him like a magnet. But before I reach him, he takes another step backwards. I try to catch him, but he takes more and more steps back. He looks into my eyes teasingly. I feel a crazy kind of joy in my heart that I've never felt before. I burst out laughing and take a big dive towards him. Apparently he hadn't counted on that because with a step back he loses his balance due to my extra force. We roll on top of each other on the grass. He also laughs out loud. His body feels so wonderful against mine. Tingling ripples through me. We smile and look at each other as I lie on top of him. As if we only then realize how intimate we are, we both fall silent in one fell swoop. Our heads bow to each other and our lips touch for the first time.

Our first kiss. And wow what a kiss that is. Suddenly everything seems to fall into place. It feels great. The kiss tells that he belongs to me, and I belong to him. His tongue slides into my mouth. The kiss is so passionate but at the same time so loving. He turns me on. Yet this kiss is enough, for this is love, not lust. And indeed we can kiss for hours. Lying in the grass, enjoying each other. Forgetting the whole world around us.

My lips still tingle when we finally let go of each other. I peek around, at first so unabashedly and now suddenly I’m so aware of the surroundings. Then I freeze. Not because we have indeed been watched, but because the pond is suddenly much closer than I would ever think I would dare. He sees my fear, and again presses his lips to mine. I feel the fear drop, his touch feels so magical, so safe.

My present-self hates to disturb this moment. But this is when I started to lose my fear of water. If it hadn't happened I would never have been in the boat, he would never have died ... My fear of water could save his life. I have to undo this moment.

I free myself from his arms despite my immense desire to stay there forever. I walk back to a distance from the waterfront that I used to feel okay with, so far away.

“I'm sorry, I think it's super sweet of you to help me, but I can't,” I explain to him with downcast eyes, “It's better if I stay away from water …” I feel sad that what so magically connected us, I must prevent developing. But I'm also proud of my strength to stand for what I believe in because I know that this change in history can make the difference. Proudly I look up, I made a change. This didn't happen in the past. Then, we stayed closer to the water's edge.

But then I see that Paul is still exactly where I left him.

“Alex, I'm so proud of you for daring to be here,” I hear him say. He looks up when he says it, as if I'm still on top of him. In my shock I don't understand what exactly happens. Suddenly I look him straight in the eye, I'm back on him again. He kisses me. And I can do nothing but surrender to the moment again. Again I tried to make a change in history with him, but everything continued as it originally happened. I feel a deep disappointment, but the kiss is so delicious, that everything slips off me. It's the rainbow colours that yank me out of the moment, I could have stayed in it forever.

The Here and Now

I keep trying. Again and again. But when I make changes on that day, the exact same thing as originally continues to happen. I try to meet at a different location, I try not to kiss, I try to roll away from the water. But nothing helped, nothing changed the past. More and more despondent, I return to the boat bench by the lake. I can't stop him from taking away my fear of water. I don’t get it. Why can I change things in my history with Tim, but not with him? After the last failed attempt I feel so down that I decide to go back to another moment in the past.

The Past

The beach has always been our place to feel a little better. We have been there at the craziest times, because if necessary, time is never a reason to not go.

And so, in the middle of the night Susan and I plop down on the cold sand in the dark. It is a cloudless night, and the stars are clearly visible. Fierce waves crash into the surf. Susan shivers, she was clearly not dressed for a beach night and I put an arm around her protectively. We sit in silence next to each other. It feels nice and familiar to be here with Susan, even though we just broke up. Everything is okay again at this moment. Here I feel like myself again. That's why present-I chose this moment again. Also because I’m detached from my history with him whom I have not yet met. Finally I can let go of the fact that I can only save his life if I manage to change something in the past.

"Good news, they said, their lead singer is back," Susan starts to sob, "They were so full of praise for his musical talent and his good looks." It surprises me, why would men label each other as attractive that way? But Susan quickly explains that that was really just Tim. And as Susan keeps going on about how she was likely to lose her place in the band to the old lead singer, all I can think about was Tim and his take on that guy’s appearance.

Present-I remembers that something strange happened later that night. Susan had come home from the beach relaxed, but in the middle of the night her restless tossing woke me up. She kept repeating "Shawn, Shawn...". I softly shook her awake to free her from an apparently bad dream.

"Is Shawn the old lead singer of your band?" I asked her when she awoke.

She looked at me startled and stuttered, "No, no, his name is Paul, not Shawn. I don't know a Shawn!” Come to think of it, I've never figured out who Shawn is or why that name made her so upset.

I stare at the waves with Susan as the wind plays happily with her hair. I have to ask her this time, and strangely I feel no resistance to change the past by asking the question.

"Sus, who's Shawn?" I break the silence between us. Susan continues to look straight ahead, clearly avoiding my gaze. Her jaws clench and her breathing quickens,

"I have no idea. How did you come up with that name?"

“It's okay, you can tell me everything, we're not together anymore ...” I try to catch her eye. She turns and looks at me, "We're not together anymore because I'm not good enough for you.”

“Huh, no, it's not like that!” I am shocked by her comment, “I've found out that I'm only into guys.”

Her voice breaks as she says "And I'm not man enough for you ..." I give her a hug. Sweet Susan, how can she think she's not good enough for me? I love her, but I can't love a woman like I love a man, I'm gay. I had hoped that our love would be enough to stay in a relationship, but it just didn't make sense. First I feel her resistance, then she sinks into my arms. I can't let it go, somehow I feel it's important that I know who he is.

So I ask again, "Please tell me, who's Shawn?"

Susan crawls deeper into my arms, "Just someone I know." For a moment, I think she won’t say more, but she knows me too well, and knows that I will keep asking anyway.

So she continues, "He's someone close to me. He's having a hard time, and I'm trying to help him.” I feel relieved, Susan has someone in her life besides me. I've been so afraid for so long that she would cling to the dream we had of being together forever. But apparently she has someone else now. Too bad she always attracts such problem cases.

I try to keep the mood light, "how lucky for you, two men to worry about." She sighs deeply, but decides not to respond.

I'm amazed that present-me can now apparently change so much in the past that I've had a whole new conversation with Susan ... But the rainbow colours don't give me much time to think about that.