Heavy Steps

We sat on the dock, feeling the splintered wood beneath our fingertips. My eyes were drawn to the school of fish that swam against the current. Down the stairs, I heard heavy steps. We weren’t suppose to be down here, just as I was not supposed to want to be with her. 

            I felt eyes on me, on us. I looked out and saw the water ripple, one away from the pack of schooled fish. She was swimming with the current.

            The steps behind me made me wonder what it was to have someone’s knee on my neck for eight minutes and fourty six seconds. At dinner that night, I was told, I was “way out, too liberal to see truth.” I hated that I wanted his approval. For him to listen to my views with the same amount of respect that he had listened to my brother’s. People in my generation were swimming against the current. They were schooled and taught to see the world differently than the sharks that patrolled the water. The sharks that laughed at the rioters on TV. They laughed at Trump’s words. But, those words caused hate and maybe heavy step’s teeth and mouth would hate me just as much.

            Heavy steps and deep breaths suffocated me. Was I going to be brave enough to let myself be who I was, or was I going to cave, and follow my predetermined current?