Cast Into The Sea

"Is it wrong to kill someone for profit, or revenge, or even out of love?"
That was the question that reminded me of him. The one person I could never get out of my mind, no matter how much I tried. His gawky face came back like a thunderbolt.
While I daydreamed, the professor yakked away nonsensically, talking in academic terms about "human-centered ethics," whatever that means.
The peons in this class sicken me more as the semester ambles down the closing stretch. They answer like they're Professor Mola's pets. It's disgusting, almost as if they have no conscious whatsoever.
A rude girl up front parrots his tone, even mimicking his annoying lisp, as she regurgitates his opinions with, "A true altruistic society never accepts the killing of its own citizens for any reason..."
What a moron!
Scratch under the surface of our holier-than-thou "true altruistic society" and you have murders galore. They're called by every other name in the book, and most are out of some form of apathy and neglect, but it all amounts to the same.
Accidental overdoses at hospitals and nursing homes. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (between ten to fifty percent are caused by an adult without justification, according to another professor, Dr. McDermott). Auto accidents due to texting, liquor or carelessness. Police officers shooting suspects after being overly afraid. So-called "self defense" in cases that are totally unjustified.
Leaving class noisily, I slammed open the double-doors. I felt the cold December air clutching at my asthmatic lungs outside. All I cared about was getting to the last ferry before it left for Brodie Island. There are no hotels out there, and I live on campus. I know this is stupid, but I have to be at the lighthouse before midnight.
It was where I calmly sailed my catamaran three years ago. That night, and the memory of him, my one and only friend, are all that I have left.
The lighthouse would be empty. Dark and quiet, it would also be too cold to stay in all evening. I'd figure out what to do later, but for now I had to get there on time.
I walked down the winding lane through what looked like a stretch of woods, but was in fact a lonely country road lined with trees. Lighted windows were in the distance, each house a manor filled with wealth, families enjoying their evening together in wholesome, child-friendly fun. Or, more likely, kids off in their rooms talking about their drug use, making perverse sex games with strangers on their computers and playing violent video games, while their parents drink in the "study" and spread rumors about innocent co-workers that could defame them for years.
Who knows? I don't, nor do I care anymore. Each house is probably filled with both the innocent and the treacherous, and half the residents aren't sure which side they truly belong on.
For me, that question was settled three years ago.
For my best friend, Ryan, it remains open.
He died that night. He should not have. I have no excuse for what I did. Or, technically, for what I didn't do.
I could have saved him. I tell myself I was afraid, cold. Sick. Ill. Unwell. Emotionally upset after finding out. All of that is true, but is that an acceptable excuse?
"Not hardly," Ryan would say. He was an all-or-nothing type of guy. The phony, cookie-cutter morality that's so popular on campus, that's spread like wildfire on the Internet in a society that loves to grant itself "forgiveness" for all the evil that it does, was not for him.
Not hardly for me either. Not anymore.
Reaching the top of the murky Brodie Island Lighthouse, I could see the spot where the catamaran reached shore.
Ryan Hex was an odd boy with an odd name. He had no other friends except me, and I was just as alone in this world until I met him.
He was an outcast. Reasons were never-ending in his case. He deserved to be bullied. Caught masturbating in the locker room shower during PE. Picked his nose waiting in the lunch line. Slipped on the ice three days in a row getting off the bus. The first day I seen him he was running into the mall restroom with diarrhea. Not a pretty sight, and varsity cheerleaders giggled atrociously when he walked out an hour later like a drowned rat (he fell in the toilet).
"I've never been regular," Ryan sheepishly tried to explain.
His face was marked by pimples, his dirty blond hair forever standing in all directions, and crooked teeth with a major overbite didn't help. That nasally voice, along with thick glasses that covered crossed eyes, got him sitting alone very quickly.
I looked just average. And I seldom humiliated myself. Until I hooked up with him, then it was all downhill from there. I thought my image would shield him. No one picked on me, even after we started hanging out. But, while my isolation became more intense, Ryan was still the subject of slurs and innuendo. He never got over it.
"It's okay. It's yellow, but I think it's just Mountain Dew," he said, wiping himself after some jocks drove by.
He was not someone I could imagine being friends with. Why it worked, I don't know. It was mainly on my part. He was so much of a social misfit, someone who seemed to have little connection to the people around him, that he needed someone like me to make him more normal. He desired normalcy in the extreme.
I taught him how to play video games (he couldn't shoot worth a damn regardless of whether it was aliens or terrorists he gunned for), and got him riding a skateboard reasonably well.
"I'm bleeding from the back of my head again," Ryan grunted after a nasty spill in the church parking lot.
We became closer to where we emailed and texted daily, he grew on me despite his strange loner qualities. It also helped that his family was so warm and affectionate towards me. The stony silence in my own house of emotional sterility, awkward stares, and paranoid interrogations was so far removed from Ryan Hex's daily life.
He was an only child, while I had a house with several brothers and sisters (some full- and half- and step-), and an assortment of our cousins, other relatives, or their friends constantly running amok day and night. It was nice to be someplace quiet and appreciated for a change.
I hated my family. He didn't really like his either. It's one of the things that bonded us together. Of course, having someone to look at porn with also helped. But, there was so much more, like a warm body to eat lunch with even without conversation, that it's hard to begin. In fact, I don't fully understand it myself.
I had taken him out on my catamaran several times that autumn. We were not supposed to go out when a storm was coming, but he was so bad at everything, never tilling correctly, being unable to tie any knots no matter how simple, that I decided an extra hour of practice couldn't hurt.
After going out nearly a mile, Ryan was clearly too tired to get us safely back to shore. Clouds overhead gave us shade, and the wind died down for a moment.
I decided to tell him one of the reasons I really liked him, a feeling I never suspected I would have for someone else, especially someone like him. It was quiet, and he couldn't run or reject me, at least not as bad as I thought he would. Like a bad habit, he became a part of me. We had been inseparable for more than a year, and I told myself that deep down he felt the same way, even if only a little. I could tell. Or, I thought I could.
"You freak!," he yelled. "You got to be kidding me? Is that what I am to you?"
A plethora of expletives flowed effortlessly out of his mouth. He loved to cuss, and this time he got so intense, he was shaking the catamaran as violently as ever I saw him.
Ryan Hex, the boy with the odd name that fit his even stranger personality, told me I was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. He had said just the opposite only last night. Now he told me he felt dirty, especially since we watched videos of girls together on my computer. Throwing himself into the ocean, he vowed to swim back rather than stay one more minute in my presence.
I thought there was a sliver of a chance he might feel differently, but never in my wildest dreams did I guess he would react this badly. In our long talks, he never seemed uncomfortable with the idea. Needless to say, I misjudged him terribly. I wanted to rectify the situation. In my emotional state, I was on the verge of tears, yet I still wanted to be friends. Ryan was all I had, all I knew I would ever have.
Following him back to shore closely, doing my best to coax him back into the catamaran by writing it off as a joke or misunderstanding, he screamed at me like an injured dog.
"Stay away. I never want to see you again," Ryan shouted, more sad than angry.
When he cramped up, like I knew he would, he begged for help. I sailed on, not looking back even when the splashing ended.
That was the worst mistake I ever made.
It was raining heavily as I docked at the Brodie Island Lighthouse that evening, and with Ryan being so accident prone, there was practically no police investigation at all. I got away with it.
It was fast. Sudden. Unexpected. And explained away without any punishment.
Or so I thought.
A few hours at the top of the lighthouse was supposed to help. It's why I do this on the anniversary of Ryan's death. I remember little else about that night. I'm not sure if I was afraid, or even wet from the rain.
"What am I doing here? He's not coming back, you know," I whispered. I wondered if that was true of me as well.
Would I ever truly come back myself? I feel as if I am stuck out there. Still on my catamaran, my tiny two-seater, in the cold darkness of an unforgiving storm, waiting for Ryan to forgive me. Maybe I am, and maybe he never will.
Irregardless, I can't stand the cold for very long. With my weak lungs, I walked out of the lighthouse after little less than an hour and waited the rest of the evening in a shed near where the ferry docks. I broke open the rusty door, and thankfully found a space heater that works. The ferry came, I returned to the dorms where I skipped class to sleep in.
No one would notice I was AWOL again. No one ever notices.

Word Count: 1900