TWENTY

–

Before heading back for water, we stop at the pier, since it will be out of the way once we move camp to the other side of Pripyat, and soon overrun with tourists. For now, before the lunch hours approach, the water is quiet and serene, but in a different way than the buildings were. 

This water doesn’t know the destruction. The water that ran through Chernobyl decades ago was long gone now. This water was just passing through, like we were, in a way. 

We all sit on the edge of the pier with crossed legs – the tide is high and our ankles would be soaked if we hung them over the edge – and enjoy the gentle lapping of the water against the wooden dock, the rustle of the trees around us. I lay back even, my tired body needing a rest desperately after running on fumes for so long, and with only the canopies and blue sky above me, it feels like floating on the river itself as the pier sways gently, carrying me away with the current to wherever it wants to take me.

Only a few days ago, that would have sounded like a scary thing. I grew up in a land-locked state, the ocean always a few days drive away, at least. I’d only seen it a few times in my life before moving to New York. It terrified me in a weird way when I first saw it as an adult. The ocean was a sleeping beast, always darker and deeper than I could imagine, nothing like the sparse rivers and lakes of glass back home. It scared me, the potential it had. The possibilities. What lies beneath. I was a child of the forest and the wide open nothingness of the sea was so vast and unknown, I would intentionally avoid it my first year living on the coast. 

There was always something that called to me from it though. Insatiable curiosity despite my fear. The mysteries it held from all of us measly land dwellers. Swimming was the closest thing to flying, a taste of being at the very top of a neverending existence below. To the fish, the dolphins, sharks, whales, was there even a below and above? When you could twist and turn, always suspended, didn’t up and down become subjective? I’ve heard that what kills people during accidents in water is often not even the accident or the impact, but rather the disorientation. Some people can’t tell up from down, and swim deeper when trying to find the surface. 

Imagine what we could do, who we could be, if we weren’t so desperate for air.

The nature of this adventure so far has been facing fears, so it makes sense to me when I sit up again and begin to remove my boots. I want to feel this water, and maybe have a glimpse of its secrets. What has it seen, where has it been, on its journey to join the mysteries of the ocean itself?

I remove my socks, intentionally stuffing them into my boots because I fear that they’re foul considering all the walking, sweating, and lack of showering. I roll my pants up then let my legs hang off the edge of the pier, sinking my feet up to the ankle into the abyss below.

It’s cold, colder than the river was, but a relief on my exhausted feet. I can’t help but sigh, leaning forward to rest my arms and head on the rusty guard railings and look out onto the lake. 

“Good luck with your reproductive problems,” Mikey jokes. I didn’t even realize that they were laughing at me. 

I pout with their teasing. “What? We’ve already swam in it.”

Lex explains, gently, though he’s clearly smirking at my behavior along with the others. “Sure, in the river. This water is full of old boats and discarded trash, the metal holds the radiation a lot more, and probably leaks into the water.” 

I reconsider my actions for a moment, but since we would be drinking water from this same contaminated place, I felt like foot cancer was the least of my concerns. And yes, I knew that all the Guided Tour precautions were because the radiation could be dangerous for that aspect; pregnant women were not allowed on the tour, and for many years women were advised against going all together, because of the potential risk in the future if they decide to get pregnant. 

That wasn’t me though.

“It’s fine. I don’t want kids anyway.”

For some reason, this seems to shock the boys, Mikey especially, who literally gasps.

“What?” 

He shakes his head. “That’s just, not what I’m used to from women. Isn’t having a kid every girl’s dream?” 

I shrug. “Not this one.”

He concedes, and changes the attention to himself. “I’d like kids. Maybe. One day.”

“A baby version of Mikey sounds terrifying,” Lex interjects, and we laugh, at Mikey’s expense this time.

“I’m pretending you meant adorable,” Mikey quips back, but we just laugh further. He continues, regardless. “You are all crazy. It’s the dream, right? A beautiful wife, a home to come back to every night, with these little people you’ve created together to dolt over. Kids are the only way to stay young forever.”

Next to me, I hear Lex hum, a skeptical note to it, and I turn to hear his opinion. He looks at me, clearly never intending to even share it, but maybe my attention gives him permission. Or confidence. “I think the only way to stay young forever is by not buying into manufactured dreams.” 

Mikey chuckles, a hint of hyena coming through. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

I catch Lex roll his eyes, so I nudge him with my shoulder, because I want him to explain. He looks at me again, then sighs and leans forward against the guard rail with me. “It’s like... When you were a kid, Mikey. What did you want to do?” 

He grins his Cheshire cat grin and lays back on the pier with his hands behind his head. “I wanted to be in a punk rock band,” he answers, and we take a moment to chuckle and express how much sense that makes. 

“But you stopped playing. Why?”

“It didn’t pay the bills.”

Lex sighs, out to the water. “That’s not why. You stopped because you got sick of just surviving, right?”

Mikey sighs also, getting tired of the thought experiment. “Sure, I got sick of sleeping in my car every night, alone. Decided I wanted a bed to sleep in. To take a girl to sometimes. Is that a crime?”

“Of course not,” Lex responds, trying to temper his tone since Mikey was getting irritated. “But did you dream of the white picket fence when you were young, or did you just replace a dream that wasn’t sustainable in society, that society designed to be unsustainable, with a dream that was easier, more comfortable, more attainable? A ‘dream’ designed to fit perfectly into the norm?”

The silence sits, heavier than before, until Mikey finally exhales, exasperated.

“Bozhe, you’re such a buzzkill.”

Nico giggles, though there’s a nervous note to it. So Lex offers a tilt of his head, surrendering. To brush off the comment further, he adds with a lick of sarcasm, “I’m a fucking orphan so, take my opinions of family matters with a grain of salt.”

I look down at my feet, kicking them back and forth in the water a little, adding a thought to the conversation. “I’m not sure I ever had dreams. Not like that. When I was a kid all I wanted was to be just like my father.” He was gone now though, and I was alone without a dream or someone’s footsteps to follow in. Maybe I had also settled, for the dream that fit the norm. Get a good job in a city where the successful live, meet someone, someone I love, maybe, but at least, who holds the same values. Have kids, maybe, if that person wants them and I love them enough. A comfortable, normal life. Like following a paved road. “Maybe that’s what having kids should really be about, though. Becoming the person your kid dreams of being.”

The boys hum in unison this time, and I’m glad I’ve managed to bring them together again after the moment of disagreement. Then, Lex asks, “What would your dad do right now?”

I smile as I consider, picturing him there at my flank, listening silently to the conversation because he only ever spoke when he had something very intentional to say. He wouldn’t judge me for my choice of companions, for the decision to take this trip in the first place. I’m not sure he’d even judge me for admitting I didn’t want children. Actually, he might call that smart, considering his situation. Kids aren’t the problem, he might say, but maybe all the other stuff that comes with them. 

“He’d be in the lake right now, just to show me it was safe. He hated seeing me afraid.”

Lex nods, looking out onto the water with me, before shifting and unlacing his boots. I watch him carefully, kicking them off, removing his socks and gloves, placing his hat down, then he rises and I’m forced to look away when he begins to peel his shirt off. 

“Last one in’s a rotten egg.” 

I’ve clued in the moment I look back to the water though, and I’m on my feet before he can finish, undoing my pants and yanking off my shirt also, shedding down to my bra and underwear. Nico and Mikey are gawking, and I give them a glare that forces them to shake out of their shock, but Nico is the only one that averts his eyes. Mikey cackles like a hyena instead.

Lex has shed his layers and scaled to the other side of the guard rail in my distraction though, about to beat me into the water, so I slink through the middle of the bars and launch into the lake, praying there isn’t anything lurking beneath the surface to impale myself on.

It’s even more silent under the water. Just the echo of the gentle waves hitting off the banks, bouncing around into muffled ambiance. I stay below for a while, as long as my breath will last, to get a taste of what it’s like to not need air, before surfacing with a gasp. 

On the pier, Mikey is still laughing, and Lex is at my side, immediately splashing at me in punishment. “I thought you hit your head on the bottom, I was getting ready to dive down there and get you.” He can’t hide his relief, even behind his bone dry mask. 

I brush off his concern and tease instead. “Should have stayed under longer. Finally force you take off that fucking mask. It’s really going to take a near death experience to see your face?”

He shrugs. “Yours or mine.” 

He had said last time that I’d have to kill him first. Maybe that could still be arranged, if he kept doing crazy shit for my sake. Instead of verbalizing that thought, I make an exasperated noise. “And here I was, about to thank you.”

“For what?”

I pause, treading water with him, and find that I can’t articulate the reason. Especially when he looks at me like that, expectantly, his full attention, those dark eyes feeling like they are trying to bore into my brain. I turn away, back to the pier where Mikey is still coming down from his giggles, and I scowl instead, “I’m going to pull him in.”

Lex has my wrist under the water though, and keeps me from fleeing his question, yanking me back until I have to hold my other arm out between us to keep from drifting too close to him. He hasn’t touched me with a bare hand since the river, and I’m embarrassed by how aware I suddenly am of our flesh. To fight him from pulling me closer I have to push a slippery fist against his chest, our legs sliding past each other under the murky water. 

When he gets a hold of my other wrist he poses the question again, a bit of a taunt this time. “Thank me for what?”

I don’t dare kick him, so I do the only other thing I can think of, and instead sink completely under the water again, watching him roll his eyes before I submerge. 

Eventually, he releases me, and I’m glad because I can’t hold my breath anymore. When I surface, he’s not looking at me though. Instead he’s turned to the pier, where Mikey has whistled with his fingers to his mouth. In a muted yell, I make out, “Tour!”