Fear of Falling

took me to a party when I was barely five years old. He said there would be other children there for me to play with. I was excited because he never took me anywhere. I usually stayed at home with my mother, breathing a sigh of relief whenever he was away. I got to watch television then. We didn’t have to cower in my room whenever he was feeling “playful.” It was the only time I didn’t see my mother cry.
    Yet, for some strange reason, my father took me along this time. I remember the loud music and the different colored bottles of strong smelling alcohol burning my small nose. I remember people staggering around in an intoxicated haze and the half-naked women gyrating on men’s laps. And I remember the swimming pool. I had never seen one, and I was in awe.
    Many of the adults kept disappearing inside to a back room. Then they would come back out, their eyes glazed and movements sluggish. My father told me he needed to go back in that room to “talk” to someone. I told him I wanted him to take me swimming.
    “You wait here and I’ll be right back,” he told me. Then he dropped me into the pool, fully dressed, and told me to hang onto the side. I was too short to reach the bottom, and he said if I let go, I’d be in big trouble. I wanted to listen to him. I wanted to be good. I didn’t want to do anything to ruin this experience for me. I was actually happy.
    But I was five. And my 5-year-old intentions did not win out over my curiosity.
    I let go of the edge. And I nearly drowned, finding just a slice of that peace at the bottom of the swimming pool.
    I don’t remember being pulled to the surface. I have no clue how long I was submerged. But when I finally regained consciousness, vomiting on the concrete as oxygen tried to combat the water in my lungs, I stupidly fought for my life. I battled for every breath, thinking that my life had to be better than the alternative.
    I feared death when all along I should have feared life.

    I sat on my bed cross-legged, dozens of tiny stars tickling my bare feet, as I put them back in the jar one by one. I had counted them over and over again since I broke down at Dive Thursday night. I could feel the cracks in my mask broadening into large fissures, splitting to reveal the little girl hidden underneath. The one that was so scared that it crippled her. The one that was afraid of someone finding out just how damaged and unlovable she really was.
    “Knock, knock.”
    I looked up to find Dom standing in my doorframe, smiling his usual boyish grin full of mischief. I was one of the few people who ever got to experience this smile. It was him . Unmasked, free and real. It wasn’t laced with pain or deceit. There was no anger in it.
    “Hey you. What are you doing up so early on a Saturday morning? I thought you had a date,” I said, scooping the stars in my hand to hide them away. Of course, Dom had seen them before, but this was a personal process for me. It was something I could never share with anyone. No one would fully understand why I needed to count every single one.
    Dom flopped back onto my bed, folding his hands behind his head. “Yeah. But I sent her home last night. Felt like sleeping alone.”
    I detected the affliction in his voice, prompting me to abandon my task. “Nightmare?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Same as always?”
    He nodded. “Yup.”
    I let my hand cup his cheek, hoping my warmth would soothe him. “Wanna talk about it?”
    “Nope.”
    I wasn’t offended. I knew he would decline; he always did. If I had to battle that caliber of pain and anger daily, I’d want to keep it bottled up too.
    Dominic divulged his level of fucked-up-ness to me soon after we met. He was a known man-whore on our campus, and once we had established that we liked being around each other, he tried to sleep with me. I turned him down, and it wounded him. Deeply. He cared for me, and he thought that sex signified affection, both friendly and romantic.
    “It’s just… you’re my best friend, Kam,” he said to me, betrayal written on his handsome face after my rejection. “I love you more than anything else in this world. And this is the only way I know how to show how much you mean to me.”
    “Dom, do you love me like that ? Like more than a friend?” I asked, grasping his hand. It was our thing. Dom needed constant affection, and I only found it acceptable with him.
    “Well…no. I mean, I know I love you, but honestly, no. Not like that.”
    “Then you