Watered Down
By Killari O’Donnell
April 3, 2026
Graphic by Samanvita Nalla
Walking ensues after a whiskey too many. His head hurt. His knees were bruised. With knuckles swollen, red, and warm, he traced the evidence of blood down the center of his bottom lip, the taste of metal splitting with every smile and tainting every breath. He whispered to himself on instinct. No longer innocent. In a rush of blue tumbling from the side of his heart and born from the cartilage of his ribs, the sweat on the tip of his nose, the shadow on his upper lip, there lie the memories of an almost. Seven boundaries close to broken. Sitting in a chair in a room on a ship, he asked her for more.
He fell out of bed for the third time. In this dream, he had found himself sitting with the girl he knew and otherwise could not talk to. Too much had passed between them; they had fought over and over about the heavens and the wind and the seas. At times he wondered why these dreams had even begun in the first place. He pressed forward in his seat, pretending not to see the way she dragged her fingers through the clouds in his mind. He could not touch her, still. They could not touch each other without burning.
Now much too awake to return to his prophetic slumber, he instead walked over to the bright orange loveseat and wearily sat down. He gave the girl a soft shove over, then let her settle her head into the hollow space between his neck and chest. His brother’s dog lay at his feet as he stroked the girls’ seaweed green hair, falling smooth as oil across her shoulders. He stared upon the greying ocean with hard eyes and an awful feeling at the base of his spine that he’d be at fault. They had a week before this dream would shift again and he’d have to forget everything. He closed his eyes and tried to remember why he’d fallen in the first place.
Graphic by Samanvita Nalla
Two nights later, and they were on the deck this time, a ribbon of wind tangling up his hair. He turned his head and found that she was already looking. He looked down at his hands gripping the railing, the scab on his left knuckle splitting from the tension of holding on. It stung. He smiled back in nervous relief. She turned her face skywards; the seaweed flailed, spraying him with water. She was beautiful, gleaming and turquoise, iridescent in the liquid light. He could feel the whiskey in his cheeks. He forgot about this dream, and this girl, and many months passed. Almost a year later, like clockwork, he finds himself standing beside her on the deck of his brother’s ship. He hasn’t had a drink in almost three weeks.
This time, it’s raining. He pinches himself as she offers him a hand, and together they easily step off the ship. Not a dream. The events of the night would be real this time. Concrete in determining their future.
They walked and walked, her heart leading them to a place he didn’t recognize, until they found themselves sitting somewhere tall, somewhere evening. The brightest light was the reflection in her eyes. Watching her sit on the edge with dangling feet, he was struck by her ease, and how unafraid of the world he felt sitting side by side with their shoulders and knees and elbows touching. Her affection was intentional, and he felt lucky to have earned this trust.
He comments something stupid about the wind in her hair and the billowing of his shirt, and she laughs. He had relished this privilege since the day they’d met; to be able to witness the way it burst out of her. It was like coming up for air. Blue eyes quizzically inquiring his soul before the joke clicked into place and a smile spread wide across her face. Impossible to look anywhere else. He scrunched the top of the girls’ head affectionately and held her closer in his mind.
The reality of the night hit him as they finally began to descend. She took him into an embrace, both arms around his neck, with murmurs of goodbye and a thank you for coming. The walls around his heart trembled; his feet were steady, though his knees felt numb with joy.
One night would not be enough. He wished to know as much as possible through her eyes.
They parted ways, and he ran the rest of the way home, the wind sharp and cooling his face as he dodged low-hanging trees and holes that would’ve sprained his ankles. The air tasted the same as the night they’d met, her falling on top of him with sandy feet and a smile so sweet it hurt your teeth. He looked up at a crescent moon and shook his head in disbelief. He hadn’t hoped in a long time. His stomach swooped at the bottom of the rollercoaster as he retraced every night they almost crossed paths. The dreams had foretold him this. ■
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