Author’s Note: This is a short story I wrote for my MFA thesis. It’s part of my new Rejects series, featuring pieces I couldn’t get published. Waterlogged was rejected by roughly 20 lit journals.

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Her father called in the middle of the work day. Shannon ignored her buzzing pocket, figuring friends, figuring meet us at the bar later, as if she didn’t already know. Then another call. Then a text. Call me immediately. Shannon went outside, plugging the ear exposed to city traffic. 

Her father cleared his throat. His voice wavered. That was the worst part, hearing him waver. Knowing something was wrong. Hanging in that suspended space where she didn’t yet know what it was. Imagining the worst possible thing, hoping that when she heard the real thing, it would come as less of a shock because it couldn’t possibly be as horrible as the thing she imagined.

How do I tell you this, he said. Your sister, she was jet skiing and, she fell and, the motor…

He muffled the phone but she could hear him sniffling. Heaving. Breaking. Finally, he uncovered the mouthpiece. She’s gone.

The street blurred. The sound of traffic receded. People trudged down the sidewalk as though moving through water.

When they were little, Mia would beg Shannon to compete in water Olympics. Who could hold their breath the longest. Swim the farthest. Flip the fastest.

Shannon had preferred the sand, building towns and moats and little people, making up stories as she molded their heads with her hands. But Mia pouted when Shannon played in the sand too long. Her dark pigtails so little and curly, eyes so big and blue they looked like little oceans.

Do you want to stay the night, her father asked.

She didn’t.

Shannon returned to work. Smiled at guests. Showed them their seats. Floated around the theater tearing tickets, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping hallways without quite knowing what she was doing. As though in a trance. Consciousness burrowed somewhere far away while her body kept doing what it needed to do.

*             *             *

Shannon’s studio was hot and muggy. She turned on the fan. Ate a bowl of cereal for dinner. Watched Jaws because it was on. That stupid shark, she thought. That stupid fucking shark. At least there were no sharks in Lake Michigan. Unlike what she told Mia when she wouldn’t leave the beach. Hunkered down in the water. Shannon just wanted to go to the movies. You know sharks are in there, right? Shannon had said. Octopuses, too, just waiting to wrap their slimy tentacles around your neck.

Liar liar face. Octopuses live in oceans. So do sharks, Mia said, because unlike Shannon, she wasn’t gullible or easily scared. When a boy from school first told Shannon the same thing, she refused to go in the water for weeks, knowing even then sharks could maim worse than motors. Her father had to drag her in. See? You’re fine.

Shannon’s phone buzzed for hours. Family asking if she was okay. Friends asking why she wasn’t at the bar. She opened a cheap bottle of red, sweet and bitter. She killed it in twenty minutes. She opened another and killed that too.

*             *             *

There was Mia, locked away in their parents’ basement, pounding on the door.

Why’d you leave me here, why’d you leave me all alone?

She’d been down there for years, flesh gray, hair wet and tangled and stringy, standing on a dock, teetering on the edge, falling in, floating down, flesh peeling from bones, fish gnawing her eyes, sockets big and black and gaping, head swirling, spinning faster and faster, spinning right off.

There was Shannon, lying on the couch. At the foot was Mia’s spinning head, eyes no longer empty, but big and red and vicious, breath loud and rasping and angry. Shannon tried to scream, tried to jerk her legs but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t move.

Until suddenly she could, and Mia wasn’t Mia at all but the whirring floor fan. Her eyes the red numbers on the clock.

Shannon’s shirt clung to her skin. She kneaded her face. Bent her knees to prove she could. She got up and changed her clothes.

*             *             *

On her way to work, Shannon blindly followed a jeep right into a semi’s blind spot. Hovered at its rear. A remora on a shark. The truck veered into her lane, steel sides towering, ready to bash her, flatten her, batter her down to an unidentifiable mass of flesh and blood and bone.

She laid on her horn. Swerved right. Slammed the brakes. Mouth so dry she couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t breathe. Like when they were little, playing popcorn on the trampoline, flying into the air, landing on Mia’s knees. She gasped and gasped but couldn’t inhale.

Cars honked. Cut around her. Flipped her off.

That semi was five times the size of her sedan, she thought. It could have crushed her. Shred her to pieces. Just like that. Just like the motor.

Mia had gone jet skiing a thousand times. She probably started the motor never thinking something bad could happen. Thinking the next day, she’d do it again. Thinking on the weekend, she’d go to Shannon’s. Shannon had promised to take her boating on Lake Michigan. Mia had promised to see her theater’s production of Steel Magnolias.

Finally, the air came back. Shannon made sure to check her blind spot this time and pulled over to the shoulder.

She called her boss.

When she tried to say her sister died, the words got stuck.

My dad had a bad fall, she said instead. He’s in the hospital.

I’m so sorry, her boss said. Keep me posted.

If Mia could have gone back two seconds, could have imagined all the bad things that could happen, maybe that would’ve changed something.

*             *             *

There were a million things to do, her mother said. A million relatives to call. A million arrangements to make. A million caskets to choose from. Mahogany. Brass. Ebony. Oak. Nearly hysterical now.

That’s three million things, Shannon wanted to say.

The phone was hurting her ear.

What am I supposed to bury her in, her mother said. What am I supposed to bury my baby in?

Her father got on the phone. Come help your mother, he said. What do you think it’s like, going through Mia’s clothes?

Mia was always leaving to swim and waterski and tube off the back of a boat. The last time Shannon saw her, her hair was darker from the lake and bigger from the tangles. She ran upstairs to change from her wet palm-tree bikini to a dry one, the one with the purple seashells, because Mia always wore a bathing suit beneath her clothes. 

Bury her in that, Shannon said.

In what, her father said.

The bikini with the purple seashells.

Don’t be ridiculous, her mother said.

Instead of underwear. 

Her father said he didn’t want to think about his daughter’s underwear, but dammit, she was going to wear underwear that he didn’t have to think about. 

*             *             *

The only things in Shannon’s fridge were an old onion skin, a jar of mayonnaise.

It was Saturday. She was supposed to be ordering deep dish with Mia. A bottle of red. Sharing a cab to the play.

She shuffled through takeout menus, trying not to think about the delivery guy shoving his way inside and pinning her to the floor.

She never used to order takeout alone. She saved that money for Mia. Friends. Her ex. He used to take her to this kitschy bar with a carousel on the ceiling. A red pony there, a purple one there. Mia said he was a keeper. But he was furious when he found out Shannon didn’t really like heavy metal or camping. Why would you lie about that?

If she kept ordering takeout, she wouldn’t have enough money for rent. She’d get evicted. Be stranded on the street. Sleeping in a dark corner by a dumpster where anyone could strangle her. 

*             *             *

She took a dusting cloth to the baseboards, scuttling around her apartment like a crab. She’d never noticed how filthy they were, covered in a thick layer of dust, mysterious strands of hair.

Grime covered the floorboards behind the couch. Beneath the curtains. Places she’d long ignored.

She sprayed the shower curtain with bleach and the pink ring circling the drain, like their mother used to before baths. Mia pushing rubber tugboats back and forth, Shannon gently washing her sister’s back, her hair, her little toes, pretending she was her baby. Mia too happy to care.

The bathroom floor was gross too. More dust. More hair. More bleach.

*             *             *

When Shannon tried to go back to work, her back wouldn’t stop tingling. She kept looking behind her, like someone was about to grab her. Tie her up. Stuff her in a trunk.

 She checked her sedan’s backseat for lurking strangers. She triple-checked her blind spot. Only one car was approaching. She had plenty of time to merge, but still, what if she had to wiggle back and forth out of her parking spot and the driver wasn’t paying attention? Was texting his girlfriend like an idiot. Making dinner plans like it couldn’t wait and plowed right into her. Anyone could plow right into her.

She could take the El, but the conductor could be drunk or sleep deprived or suicidal. There could be a crazy passenger with a knife. A gun. A bomb.

If Mia could’ve gone back two seconds, walked away from the water, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Maybe she would’ve tripped and bashed her head on a rock. Been pulverized in a car crash. Swallowed by a sinkhole.

*             *             *

Shannon felt lightheaded. The whole apartment smelled like bleach. She opened the window and leaned her forehead against the screen.           

The TV was blaring The Little Mermaid, Mia’s favorite when they were kids. Ursula terrified Shannon with her big black tentacles thick and long as pythons. It’s just a cartoon, silly, Mia had said. Duh, I know, Shannon said, rolling her eyes. Later, in bed, she tried not to call for her parents when she saw those big tentacles in the shadows marring her walls.           

Shannon leaned harder against the window screen, willing herself not to puke.

Close your eyes. Breathe deep.

The screen buckled. She felt like she was falling through the window, onto her head, cracking skull, cracking brain, blood blooming and pooling along the sidewalk.

She jerked back. Pressed herself against the wall. If she died from the fumes, she wouldn’t be found for days.

*             *             *

The funeral came fast. Shannon stood in front of her door for a long time. Her hand squeezed the knob but wouldn’t turn, no matter how many times she told herself to open it. She’d always been able to make her body move without thinking. Instinctively lifting knee, lifting foot, propelling body forward. How come now, when she was telling herself to move, she couldn’t?

She returned to the couch. Lay in the black dress she always wore on dates. Wore just last week. Before Mia. He’d taken her to a restaurant with linen tablecloths and low lighting and high prices. An obvious attempt to screw her. So she screwed with him. Told him she did improv with Second City. Wore a prosthetic leg. He peeked under the table. Her kid sister died when she was three. Drowned in a pool. There’d been a tarp and it enveloped her. He was so horrified she felt like a jerk. Later, she peeled back that black dress to make up for it.

*             *             *

She texted her mom that her car broke down. If she took the train, she would be too late for the funeral.

Her mother called and told her to take a goddamn cab.

It’s too expensive.

She’s your sister!

Silence.

You’re coming. End of discussion. 

*             *             *

Shannon called her boss.

My dad can’t walk, she said. I have to look after him.

Take all the time you need, her boss said. If there’s anything I can do.

She imagined her boss driving a casserole to her parents. Her mother saying what are you talking about? Her boss saying why would you lie about that? Her mom saying why would you lie about that?  Them both saying get out of here. Throwing her in a dumpster. The dumpster is bottomless. The dumpster is infinite. The dumpster opens to fire.

*             *             *

If Mia were here, she’d drag Shannon to the beach. Laugh as she pushed her into the icy water. Shannon would chase her but she’d be too fast. There’d be two guys. Mia would say hey. Lead one behind the boathouse. Bold. Confident. Fearless. Shannon would catch it. Grab the other’s hand. Stand beside Mia and kiss him, push his head down, panting hard, panting loud, not caring who could hear because she could breathe feeling like somebody else, feeling fearless, feeling like Mia.

*             *             *

A knock on her door. Who would be knocking on her door? A slick serial killer preying on the naive who believed someone who knocked had a good reason to knock.

Shannon buried her head beneath a throw pillow. The doorknob twisted and rattled. She pressed her body harder into the couch, willing it to absorb her.

Shannon, it’s me!

Her father. 

She let him in. What are you doing here?

I was in the city.

She had no choice but to follow him outside. They walked past her sedan.

So you’re having car trouble, he said.

He looked at her with such disappointment.

Then he tripped. He crashed into the pavement, cracking skull, cracking brain, blood blooming and pooling around his body. She’d done it again. Killed the people she loved with her lies.

Shannon! he yelled. Help your father up, dammit.

There was no blood. He was fine. He was fine.

*             *             *

It was a closed casket funeral.

Shannon could almost pretend the casket was empty. That the whole funeral was her sister’s elaborate scheme to disappear to the ocean.

The reverend called on people to speak about Mia. Her mother tried to coax her, but she couldn’t make herself stand.

Her father coughed. Like he was trying to propel himself up and forward. He leaned heavily against the podium.

Mia just graduated college, he said. She was going to save the whales. My baby was going to save the whales.

No she wasn’t, Shannon thought. Mia never wanted to go to college. She wanted to go West and become a pro water skier, ever since they were kids. When the boat tugged too hard, Shannon’s skinny legs shook and buckled. Her hands slipped and she crashed back into the wake. The water rushed over her, pushing her down, too strong for little limbs, before her life vest shot her back up like a cork. Mia was only five but she glided behind the boat. Her pigtails flew like ribbons in the wind. Even then, Shannon couldn’t believe this fearless human was her litter sister. That it wasn’t the other way around.

She was a beautiful gift, her father said.

No, she wasn’t. Shannon didn’t mean to say it aloud.

Everyone stared at her.

Mia was a person, not a thing, Shannon tried to say. She didn’t belong to us. But the words got stuck again. She stared at her useless legs.

Finally, everyone stopped staring. Turned back to her father. The service went on.

*             *             *

Someone screamed. High-pitched and shrill. Then someone else screamed, and someone else too, one scream knocking another loose until everyone in the water was charging toward shore.

The breaking story interrupted The Perfect Storm. Shannon stopped mopping to watch the reporter at Lake Michigan, the water behind her empty now. Beside her, a woman in a bathing suit holding a little girl, saying they saw an octopus at Loyola Beach.

Less than a mile from Shannon’s studio. Whenever Mia came over, she insisted on going.

Shannon turned up the TV.

The creature was spotted that morning, the reporter said. Dozens of eyewitness accounts. The little girl saw it first, wrapped around the buoys. When she reached for it, it flashed bright red. Expelled a big black cloud. Vanished into the depths of Lake Michigan.

All Chicago beaches are closed until further notice, the reporter said.

When Shannon told Mia octopuses lurked in lakes, Mia wished it were true. I bet you don’t even know how smart they are, she said, because Mia had always been smarter than Shannon. 

It was like they’d willed it into being.

*             *             *

They sunk beneath the water, beneath the buoys, plunging deeper and deeper, until Shannon lost all sense of how far they’d gone, how long they’d held their breath, but her lungs didn’t hurt at all. Schools of fish tickled their arms and legs, fins so big they could hold on and float along until they reached a glowing coral reef pulsing red. Mia touched it. The red leeched onto her fingers, crawling up her arms and neck, her face and hair, all the way down to her toes until every inch of her glowed. The red split her arms, her legs into eight long magnificent limbs. Mia rippled before Shannon, beaming like a star beneath the water.

*             *             *

Finally, she could open the door.

*             *             *

Caution tape wrapped around the trees as far as Shannon could see. It was her first time at Loyola Beach since before Mia. Small waves lapped the sand. Beckoning her. It was eighty-five degrees, but she knew the water would be frigid. That wouldn’t have bothered Mia though.

Shannon ducked beneath the tape, moving closer to the water. She took off her shoes and scrunched sand beneath toes. Waiting for a long red tentacle to reach up from the vast expanse of Lake Michigan.

When they’d grown too big for the buoys, they started playing this game. They snuck past the sun-bleached lifeguard atop the tall white tower. Mia held a finger to her lips as she dipped beneath the water. When she resurfaced, she was on the other side of the buoys, the wrong side. She beckoned Shannon to follow. They stifled giggles, swimming as far as they could until some kid, some tattletale kid, ratted them out. The lifeguard yelled, flipping floppy hair out of his eyes as he climbed down, but they were back before he could touch them.   

Shannon was the only one on the beach, but boats patrolled the water. Searching for the magnificent creature. She would never surface with all those motors.

*             *             *

Shannon returned at midnight, a canoe strapped to the roof her car. She struggled to get it down, pushing and pulling until finally, it crashed to the ground.

When they were little, she and Mia would beg their dad to let them steer. Shannon pushed too hard, Mia too light, and they’d go in circles until finally he’d say, enough, and take back the paddles.

She paddled farther and farther, until she lost all sense of how far she’d gone. She set the paddle across her lap and waited. Stared into the water, but she couldn’t see beneath the bright reflection of the moon. A breeze prickled her skin.

The water was still for so long.

Suddenly, a huge wave. The canoe swayed, nearly flipped over.  

Shannon dropped the paddle, fell to her knees, nearly tumbled out. She gripped the edges. 

Something was climbing inside. Wrapping her up, squeezing her tight, pulling her below the icy water.

They plunged deeper and deeper, far from the moonlight, until her lungs felt like they would burst. She inhaled without meaning to, but somehow, she could breathe. She could breathe. She could breathe beneath the water.

Her eyes began to adjust to the dark. She saw arms long and red. A giant head. A giant pair of eyes. Big and blue like little oceans. Watching her like they knew her.

A wonderful radiant warmth filled her body, tingling her skin. She wasn’t scared at all.