Jumping Into Lakes

This is the story of women jumping into lakes, driven by sorrow and giving up their humanity for an eternity outside of mortality. Slavic legend calls them rusalka. Water witch. At night, they return to the human world to dance. However, once the sun rises, they must jump into the water once again for they are, and forever will be, spirits of the lake.

This is the story of a girl who jumped into a lake. 

~

We were at the park. Sitting on the same bench we’ve sat on together since forever. I was on the left, her on the right. My best friend. Throughout all our lives – schools, relationships, jobs, change – we have always found each other. Stuck together. Been there for one another. 

So there we were. Sitting on the bench. After all our lives together. The same blue lake, same grass, same playground, same bench. Me on the left. Her on the right. We talked about everything. And nothing. Just sitting next to each other, watching the water still and ripple with the ducks and wind. I realized maybe this was how the rest of our lives would be. Me on the left. Her on the right. The same bench we’ve sat together on since forever until we were old and gray. That didn’t sound so bad. It’s been the two of us against the world since the beginning. I would’ve been completely happy fighting the world at her side for the rest of our lives. 

We looked on at the lake. Neither of us talked. Words we’ve said to each other echoed in our minds: the I-love-you’s, I hate-you’s, and I’m-sorry’s in that comfortable silence and when we wanted to, we’d choose to fill it again. Today, I did. 

“Did you hear about that discovery?” I asked her.

She turned to me. Eyes misty, deep in thought.

“Well, I wouldn’t call it a discovery. More like a theory. I don’t really know much about it, but apparently, ever since the meteor crash, the properties of water have changed. Like the capacity of it.” I shifted my weight towards her to meet her eyes. “Some scientists sent probes down into lakes, like the one here, and found underwater space large enough for oceans. Something about the explosion changed how water holds air and elements and whatever. Every body of water seems to have expanded. New aquatic life, a literal other world. Crazy.”

She nodded at me. 

“Yeah?” She asked. I nodded back, settled back into my seat facing the lake.

“Yeah. Just imagine. Beneath the surface of a lake as small as this is a whole other world. I wonder what it must be like. Underneath the surface of our lake.” I thought about us growing up with this lake. Chasing ducks and turtles into the water, getting scolded by our parents that we ‘d drown. We’d laugh and make plans to swim with the fish and ducks someday. “It’s certainly different from the lake we’ve always known, isn’t it? I, for one, am excited about what kind of life they might discover.”

I looked towards her and saw her looking into the water. 

“Did you know my husband died last month?” Her voice said quietly.

“No,” I grasped her hand. “I didn’t, I-”

Sam met her sophomore year of high school, and from then on, never let her go. Through the dances, fights, formals, move-ins, their wedding, he was hopelessly in love with her. She was the same. They were a part of each other. 

I should know. I was there. They wanted me to name their second-born child, Sam and I drank beer together at Thanksgivings, and I helped him draft his vows the night before their wedding. He loved her more than anything. Every look, every conversation. They were going to have a family, buy a house, and everything else. 

Instead, she’s telling me the love of her life is dead. I knew nothing could comfort her. “I’m so sorry” was all I could muster. 

“I know you are,” she replied. “Thank you.”

Her eyes watered. I turned her face towards me, using my sleeve to wipe her tears off her cheek. I held her face as she sobbed, cried, then wailed about her husband.

“He-he’s g-gone,” She stuttered out. “I-I can’t ima-imagine a world without him in it. And-and now, that is all-all I-I have left.”

I hugged her, held her, until sunset. Me on the left, crossing my arm into the right to keep her from shaking. It broke my heart to see her like this. I always envied her for being able to love someone so wholly, without condition or doubt. Yet here, now, as she’s crumbling in my hands, I am not envious anymore. Seeing one of the strongest people I know fall apart...I could never wish her kind of pain upon anyone, myself included. 

Once we separated, we went back to staring at the lake. Me on the left, her on the right, silent. The moon rose, the stars followed. The lake looked like a painting, curving and grooving with the light of the sky, the ducks, and wind. Every I-love-you and I’m-sorry hung in the air, and this time, I didn’t want to break it. She did.

“The water…” Her voice cracked. Like shattered glass. “I think the world below must be something wonderful. Far from here. I think…there’s much to explore.”

“But it’ll be new.” I paused. I thought about excitement, the beauty of the new, and the girl sitting beside me who loved adventure. “Like paradise.”

Her smile was soft and delicate, gentle as the light rippling on the water. “Yes. I imagine it must be something like paradise.”

I turned away to reach my water bottle. 

I turned back. My left to her right.

I see an empty seat.

Where did she go?

I look around. No sign of her. 

Where could she have gone?

I look at the lake. 

The moon’s reflection appeared on the water. A ripple. Deep and silent waves at the center of the lake swinging smoothly and deliberately. Comfortably. Not even the ducks were alarmed.

No. 

She couldn’t have. Pounding realization was meant with ice-cold, stubborn denial. 

I sat at that bench until sunrise. Waiting for the water to un-ripple, for her to sit back down beside me. 

I sat on that bench until there were kids playing again. 

~

And I waited.

Through the missing persons reports, police manhunts and deep water searches. The bright yellow suits and thick black goggles. I waited through the caution-taped trucks and siren cars, the empty nets and shaking heads. I waited through the funerals, memorials, the candlelight vigils and newspaper obituaries, and kept waiting

She couldn’t be gone.

She couldn’t have just disappeared like that. She couldn’t have simply jumped into the lake. She couldn’t have chosen that. No. She couldn’t have.

I still needed her. With me. Without her, it was just me against the world and the world would win. I would lose everything. She was my everything and I lost her. She couldn’t have just left me here with no one. No. Please, no.

~

Waiting took months. Then years. 

I was back on the bench, on the left. As if there was someone on my right. There wasn’t anymore. For me, time paused after she jumped. For the rest of the world though, time forged ahead. Left us behind. 

I was staring at the lake, at the water stilling and curving with the ducks and wind. That night, the waves seamlessly subsided after she jumped. The lake didn’t change then. It was still the same. The same park, same bench, playground, ducks and fish and everything except her. Her. 

Where was she now? Replaying our conversation, all she wanted to do was escape her grief. Find a paradise from this hell that was without Sam. In the beginning, I hoped she found a better life under the lake. Truly, I did. 

But later on, maybe even now, I resented her. So much. How dare she leave me? Take the coward’s way out? Leave me with nothing while she searched for paradise? I’ve tried following her, but taking her path never led me to her. All those attempts and all I’ve learned is just how alone I was. 

I wanted to blame her so much. I did. 

But deep down, I knew I couldn’t. I loved her.

So, I came back to the bench. On her left.. I sat until sunset, and watched as the moon’s light shone on the water’s surface. The stars and moon lit up the sky bountifully by the time I decided to leave.

Just as I was about to get up, I heard something. The sound of water swishing. 

I turned around, expecting to see some duckling flapping its wings. Instead, I see a figure. Rising out of the water, swimming towards the bench. Towards me. 

My first instinct was to run. But something told me to stay. When the figure emerged from the water, I understood why. It was her.

She looked so different from who she was. Her skin was pale, almost translucent. Under the light of night, it glittered like shimmers sprinkled atop her skin. Her hair was white, the color of the stars, flowing as softly as water in a stream. Her eyes. Where deep brown was, now lay pale blue. Her face was still hers though. I knew instantly who she was. 

“Is…” I lost my voice for a blink. It didn’t seem real. “Is that really you?”

She floated up from the water. The rest of her body glowed with the same luminescence of her face. She sat next to me on the bench to my right. When she spoke, her voice had not changed. 

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” 

I was speechless. I didn’t know what to think, or say, or believe. I didn’t know what to do. What I did know was she was here again. She came back, and somehow everything was bearable again. Even if this was a dream, or a hallucination or anything, I didn’t want to wake from it. Not yet. Please.

I pulled her into my arms. Hugged her so hard, made sure she was real. I expected her to be wet and cold from the water but she wasn’t. She was dry and warm and hugged me back just as tight. I could take another breath again. All was right with the world. Everything was a thousandfold brighter because she was here. 

“I have so many questions,” I said.  “What’s it like down there? How are you? What have you been doing all these years?”

“I’ll answer all your-”

“No. Wait.”

I have rehearsed this moment so many times. Beyond my wildest hopes and dreams, she is here. And yet, I cannot forgive her for leaving me and I cannot understand why she left in the first place. I must understand for any chance at forgiving her.

“Please. Just answer this one question.” She nods. “Why did you jump?” Why did you leave me? 

There was silence. But so unlike the silence I was so comfortable sharing with her long ago. The absence of her voice now sent me in a panic. I think she isn’t real, that this is all a dream. As selfish and foolish as I am, I desperately wish this wasn’t a dream. That she really was here, even if for one fleeting moment.

“Because I had to,” she replied. What was left of her mouth, a thin line with light pink borders, curved into a smile. “Please understand that what I found down there is more amazing, more fulfilling than anything on the surface.”

What about me? I am here. I have been here this whole time, and I have been here for you. Was I not enough to make you stay? 

“You have so much on the surface. With me.”

She shook her head. Her luminescent hair swerved, like a waterfall.

“Not since Sam died. After that, I emptied. I lost meaning. I was void. I needed escape. Please tell me you understand.”

I nodded. 

If she truly knew me at all, she’d know I was faking it. I didn’t understand. Not even a little bit. At the lowest of lows, how does someone simply choose to leave? 

“I had to go, and when we were sitting on the bench that day, I never felt safer to leave. You were right there, and suddenly everything was so clear.” She laughed to herself. “You made me realize I had to go. Go on this adventure.”

“No. Don’t you dare blame this on me.”

How could she try justifying this by saying it was my fault?

“Don’t you dare try and tell me that I helped you leave.” How far from the truth did she stray? How deep in the water did she travel? “Damn it, the last thing I wanted was for you to leave!” A thousand reunions in my head. None of them accounted for this anger I buried so deep. She dug up these emotions so easily, like she was picking a flower up from the ground. Only to smash it beneath her foot. 

“I’m not blaming –”

“Then why are you saying that you left because of me? Or Sam? I just- I knew you were hurting. I knew how much he meant to you. I saw it. The kind of pain you must have gone through when he died is unimaginable, but –”

You fix that pain by running away, and hurting me? Is that how you treat your bestest friend? Counter hurt by hurting?

“But you left me,” I whispered. “Are you coming home?”

“The lake is my home now.” She said it confidently. 

“Then why are you here?” To rub it in my face? Remind me of what I lost that day, how unreachable it is, was, and always will be even though it is sitting right across from me?

“I’m here to say I’m sorry. I know I left you without explanation. I wasn’t trying to blame you for anything, and please know that me leaving was not your fault. I wanted to make amends with you. You are my one loose end on the surface. My anchor.”

Years ago, I would’ve been honored to hear those words. I was her anchor. She was mine too. We anchored each other, kept each other close to remind us of the strong and unbreakable bond we shared. She was my anchor in the way an anchor guides a ship home. She was my home. And then she left.

“Why can’t you stay? Don’t go.”

“I can’t. Please understand, no matter how sorry or guilty I feel about leaving, leaving changed my life. The world down there in the lake saved me from despair. The lake spared me of my heartache. I had never experienced such enlightenment anywhere else. I found purpose again. Without Sam.”

“Why can’t you find it here? Without the lake?”

Why can’t you stay? The lake is her home. Bullshit. She ran away. And left me in the dust. Why can’t she stay? Why can’t she be done running?

“It doesn’t work like that.” She pointed to her face. Ran her hands over her body. Her body that looked like coral, sparkling and colorful. “I can’t just leave anymore. I can’t even stay until the sun rises.”

“Wha-what?” 

I glanced at my watch. Sunrise was soon. “No. No. I have so many more questions to ask you. When can I see you again?”

“It also doesn’t work like that. There’s no way to know when I can come back, if I can come back at all.” She looked around. “It’s nice to see nothing in the park has changed. Beautiful as ever.”

“Can’t you choose to stay? The same way you chose to leave? I’ll help you.” Please. Just give me a reason to not let you go. I don’t want to. 

“I am choosing to stay. Just not here.” Just not with me. “This is something I have to do.”

“Why? What else do you have to do? Aren’t you happy now? Why can’t you be happy here? Sam may be gone, but I’m still here. And I can’t go down there. I’ve tried. I have a life here. You can too. Like you did before.”

“I’m staying. Too much on the surface reminds me of Sam. I couldn’t take it. Besides, I’m happy there. The lake is my paradise. I can’t just let it go.”

Paradise. Hearing that was acid. She found a paradise in a crucible. She made that crucible a home, and she won’t leave for me. She won’t leave with me. My heart was breaking all over again. Old cracks shattered and somehow kept shattering.  

I was pleading with her. Hapless attempts grabbing at a kite already flying out of my reach. I’m fighting a war that wants to be lost. “Please. Just don’t go.”

The sky lightened. The sun was rising. 

“I’m sorry I left you the way I did. You made the surface beautiful. Made me see it as beautiful. I will always remember you. I will dance with our memories as long as I have them. I will dance with you as long as I remember. Thank you for everything.”

And she was gone. Vanished into the water. The bench was empty. Me on the left. Her gone. The silence was over. I’ve wasted everything on someone who never wanted to come home to me. 

It was supposed to be us against the world. The world turned on us both, yet I alone sit betrayed. Heartbroken as the morning rose into the sky and kids began playing, as the beauty of the park reminded me that beneath the lake was a world I could never reach and did not want to reach me. 

“Goodbye.”