OUR LAKE

A woman remembers her past involving love, sex and murder.

Seems funny being back here at The Lake. It’s called Hudson Lake really after someone from the past that no one remembers but to me it’s just The Lake. Can’t think of it any other way really, not after what happened here. This is where I learnt to love, it is also where I learnt to hate………
I still don’t know what he saw in me, in that awkward, plain schoolgirl with horrible glasses and her scraggly hair that wasn’t really any sort of proper colour, with my flat chest and the long skirt that I wore when all the other girls wore short, figure hugging skirts but then I had no figure to hug! I told myself that he saw something inside me, a beautiful person struggling to get out perhaps? Can it be that he just saw someone he could use? Was that all there was to it? Even now I tell myself that there must have been more!
I didn’t need much seducing! I was so flattered by the attention, by his kind words, his charm! I liked too other girls looking at me enviously when he met me outside school and we walked off, his arm around me! He would always kiss me right there in front of everyone and I could feel the eyes of the other girls boring into me!
It was my idea to go to The Lake because dad used to take us there years ago because no one else ever went there. It was too far out of town for the kids and they had lots of other places to go. He said the place would now be our place and indeed that’s what it became. We would swim naked without shame, I hated undressing, even at school with the other girls because I wasn’t very well developed but he said I looked great! When he undressed I looked away at first because I’d never seen a naked man before but I soon overcame my inhibitions and soon we were swimming around and throwing water over each other. He would playfully push my head under water and then he would part my wet hair from over my eyes and kiss me. Back on dry land we would lie in the sun (was that summer really as hot as I remember?) Afterwards he would take me in his arms and we would surrender to each other and make love with a passion which I have never felt since, not even with my late husband Charlie. It felt with him as if our very souls and not just our bodies were joined together! After he would hold me gently and stroke my hair and kiss me. Charlie always got out of bed straight after and was off doing something as if eager to be away! I know he didn’t mean it like that but that’s how it felt!
I remember clearly that day when it all fell apart, the day that I overheard the two girls talking about how one of them had been down to The Lake with him! Our Lake! She talked about swimming with him, about how they’d “done it” afterwards and it had been great and how the were going again next week and she couldn’t wait! I remember the feeling as the blood rushed to my head and I felt ill! I remember walking out of the school and just walking and walking and walking! I walked all the way to The Lake, threw off my clothes and walked in and kept walking till the water came over my head! Water rushed into my mouth and I felt myself drowning! It felt restful, peaceful and I closed my eyes and began to drift away…………
Then I was rising fast and there was the sun, hot and fierce and searing into my eyes as the daylight returned and I was being pulled towards the bank by someone…..it was he! He had come to rescue me! It must have all been a mistake after all!
He pulled me onto the bank and leaned over me with that handsome face. I spat out what seemed like gallons of water while he told me that he’d heard I’d gone missing and he’d though I would be here. What was I doing? Was I crazy? I began to tell him what I’d heard, that a girl had been telling her fiend that she was his girlfriend and that he should put a stop to it quickly! I knew now that it couldn’t be true because he’d come to save me and that proved he loved me!
It was then that his handsome face changed! He began to shout! Was I that stupid? I didn’t think I was the only one did I? Angrily he got up and he began wringing out his wet t-shirt. He said that I should get myself dressed and get home and never mention this to anyone, that it would be better if we didn’t see each other again! He hadn’t realised how unstable I was! He didn’t need the hassle! He didn’t need the………..
I don’t know what it was he didn’t need because he didn’t say any more after that! I don’t remember picking up the rock! I just remember that expression on his face! Surprise? Shock? Why do I want to know so much? I don’t remember hitting him again but I must have done because the next thing I remember is staring down at that face, not the handsome face I knew but a battered and bloody face, not the face of my lover surely?
Funnily enough I remember the rest of it well enough, remember dragging him into The Lake! Our Lake! Remember him sinking like the stones that I tied to his feet! Remember washing myself in The Lake, washing myself of him! Remember dressing calmly. Remember the long walk home! Remember talking to my mother and telling her the tale but without mentioning Our Lake and without mentioning what had become of my love. I remember her holding me; remember something about fish and the sea! I nodded and smiled and then went to bed where I dreamed I was swimming in Our Lake and he was there but not the handsome lover I remember but a rotting corpse! I remember waking up screaming!
The dreams got better as time went on, especially after we moved away! I don’t remember anyone ever missing my love. A girl at school was pregnant and she said it was his so I suppose everyone assumed that he’d run off! My mum was just glad that I wasn’t in the same situation!
Why have I come back here now? What good can it do? The dreams have never stopped altogether and I don’t think coming back here will help them! I think it’s just that with Charlie gone and the children too that I need to remember a time when someone made me feel loved, when someone made me feel special! Standing here by Our Lake I remember that time!

Author's Note

Just interested in opinions please.