Undertow

By Emma Lindhagen

Orryn has spent her whole life running: from her parents, from lovers, from debts and unpaid bills. Running has kept her alive. Running has kept her alone.
She told herself she wouldn't do it this time. That she owed it to her sister to not just disappear again. But she never meant to end up here, in a community too warm and too kind for someone like her, where William’s love is so pure it could suffocate her, and Miranda’s eyes call to her with an intensity that could tear both hearts and marriages apart. She never meant for these people to look at her with love or expectations.
Orryn has spent her whole life running. But when she sees the end coming from far away, can she hold back the impulse to cut and run, collect her things calmly and simply go?

'Undertow' is the third book in the Orryn Novella series but can also be read as a stand-alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emma Lindhagen
• Release date: Feb 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9789198223583

Book preview

Undertow Copyright © 2021 by Emma Lindhagen

All Rights Reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All characters and events in this work are figments of the author’s imagination.

Cover photo by Sari Honkonen

Cover and wrap by Elizabeth Jeannel

ISBN 978-91-982235-8-3

Dedication

To Grace, as always

A special thank you to Skye Kilaen for all her help, and for making Undertow pretty on the inside

Content Notes

Content notes are intended to help readers avoid being surprised by content that may be triggering to them. As such, they allude to spoilers. If you have any comments on how to improve this page, please contact Emma directly at [e-mail]

Content notes can also be found on my website.

General note:

This book is set in a fictional, dystopian version of Earth wherein systemic oppression on all levels is a mostly-unchallenged status quo (even moreso, that is, than in our real world) kept in place by a strict system of political, legal, religious and economical checks and balances designed to make people strive for normality and consider deviancy from the norm a threat. As such, allusions to violence and oppression on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, religion, disabilities and other marginalizations will occur at intervals throughout the series.

Specific content notes:

- Self-harm: allusions to off-the-page events

- Sexual assault and rape culture: non-graphic mention in one scene

- Trauma disorder/PTSD: two on-page depictions of panic attacks, discussion and references in other scenes

- Water and drowning: one graphic depiction of a near-drowning with subsequent health effects

- Nonconsensual separation of parent from child: allusions throughout

UNDERTOW

The surface of the lake rippled for a moment as wind drew across it, sending a scattering of orange and yellow leaves down onto the water from the nearby trees. Orryn zipped her hoodie all the way up against the wind and pulled her hands into the sleeves, leaving only the two fingers that held her cigarette out in the open air. She sat, knees pulled up nearly to her chin, on a small wooden pier. In front of her, a towel was slowly drying in the cold November air, her bathing suit crumpled in a wet heap next to it.

Orryn had not been swimming.

Wiggling her fingers inside her sleeves, she tried to warm up her hands, chilled and stiff from dunking the towel and suit in the lake and wringing them out. She wasn’t sure when, exactly, things had gotten this silly.

In the beginning, Orryn really had gone swimming. Not during the group outings on hot summer days when they took the kids down to the shallow side of the lake. During those, she kept her clothes on and her scars nice and covered. This little pier was barely visible from their usual spot, no more than a glimpse of wood barely distinguishable from the many trees that grew on this side of the lake. On a particularly hot day, she had followed the shore all the way around to find it and take a dip. She’d stayed for hours that first time, swimming and then sitting on the pier smoking. She’d even napped in the half-shade provided by the thin saplings growing by the root of the pier and gone in for another dip before heading home. It had been the most at peace she’d felt in months.

Technically, the pier belonged to an old man who lived about a ten-minute drive from the commune in a rather rundown house with a border collie and a flock of sheep, and for whom Thea sometimes picked up groceries when they went into town. Orryn bumped into the man one day when she was taking Rex, the Gardeners’ Alsatian, for a walk. Once he found out she was the sister of that nice girl who always remembers to get me the lactose-free milk, he gave Orryn permission to use the pier any time she wanted.

She’d been doing just that even before the chance encounter. Once, twice, sometimes three times a week, week after week, she’d gone to the pier for a swim and a cigarette and a moment alone. Usually, she went in the early afternoon on the days when she didn’t have a shift at work. She rarely ran into the old man; he only really came down there in the early mornings. The fish bit the most at dawn, he said. It suited her just fine to have the spot all to herself. It was just so restful. No people, no talking. Just the wind in the trees and the birdsong. Sometimes, a quick dip was enough and then she would go back. Other days she would linger even after she got tired of swimming, lighting an extra cigarette on the pier to have a reason to stay.

Summer spun into fall. The air got colder, and the water followed. Orryn’s swims got shorter and harder to muster.

She never intended to start pretending. She’d done it on a whim one day when she sat on the pier dreading the thirty-second dip that she somehow felt was required to justify intentionally spending time away from those who, for reasons she didn’t quite understand, wanted her company. Cheeks pinched pink by the wind, she’d neither wanted to go home nor get out of her hoodie, and before she knew it, she’d dunked the towel and bathing suit in the water and left them to dry. She’d taken them home half dry, and when William asked how her swim was, she’d lied and said it was all right.

It was just going to be that one time, but the water was no warmer on her next visit, and before she knew it, the whim was a routine. Once, twice, sometimes three times a week. Week after week, she’d say she was going swimming and not swim at all, just sit on the pier and smoke and be away from everything. On good days, she’d only stay a little while. On bad days, she’d stay until she was stiff from sitting on the cold wood and only head back in time for dinner. On really bad days, her lighter did double duty and she used the cold lake water to take the sting out of the burns.

Orryn wiggled her toes inside her trainers. It was time to head back. The sun was starting to dip behind the trees, and soon the table would be set in the communal dining hall on the floor below her bedroom. She got up, her left knee clicking as she straightened her legs, and picked up her things. Her towel was still wet, too wet, but it didn’t matter. She’d throw it straight in the dryer when she got back, and no one would be the wiser.

As she turned and left, another gust of wind chased more leaves into the lake.

***

I’m back! Orryn called as she started up the stairs.

Hello, Orryn!

She started at Miranda’s voice coming from the dining hall downstairs, her pulse speeding up suddenly as a surge of nervous energy exploded in her stomach. She had expected the downstairs to be empty. It was usually quiet enough to hear a pin drop in the hours between when the schoolroom, which took up half the floor, emptied of its tiny class of four and when the dining hall, which took up the other half, filled up as all the neighbors at the commune came together for dinner. The Gardeners were cooking tonight, but could it really be set-the-table-o’clock already? She’d obviously been out longer than she’d thought...

H-heya! she called back, trying to shake off the disproportionate reaction her body was having. As Orryn reached the top of the stairs and kicked off her shoes, she spotted William by the kitchen table, a smattering of sketches on pages ripped from notepads spread out in front of him. She was so used to seeing him like that, relaxed but with that look of intense focus that only working on his art brought forth. It should have made her smile, but instead her stomach knotted in that way it always seemed to when she came back from the lake these days. It wasn’t just that she was lying, but that the truth–that sometimes his love, her sister’s love, suffocated her–wasn’t one that could ever be spoken out loud.

William looked up slowly, tucking a strand that had escaped his ponytail behind his ear. Hey. He smiled, brown eyes glittering in the sunlight that came in through the window.

Hey, she replied.

Did you have a nice afternoon? he asked.

It was fine, she replied, shrugging. Not too windy today. The phrase sounded rehearsed, one in a set of commentaries that she now regurgitated automatically. She marched over to the washer-dryer, chucked her towel inside, and shot him a defiant look over the open hatch, as if it was a shield protecting her from his perceptiveness.

He held her gaze just a little too long, not saying a word. When he looked down, she thought–by the way the loose strands that hung about his face moved–that he shook his head very slightly. 

Orryn bristled, crossing her arms. What? 

Nothing, he replied. 

No, come on now, she insisted. You sound like you have something to say. His silence aside, in moments like this, she felt sure he knew exactly what she was doing. He must’ve realized that someone who wore hoodies indoors from September to April wouldn’t go swimming when it was 10 degrees outside. He must’ve seen her hair was never wet when she came back. Some part of her wanted him to call her bluff, to let it all finally blow up, but he wouldn’t. His insistence on respecting what she didn’t want to talk about, on not pushing when she pushed back, made it that much harder not to tell him things.

He looked up at her again, but he didn’t look annoyed or angry, just tired. I really don’t, babe. He drew a deep, slow breath. But I’ve been wondering lately whether you have something you want to say… 

If I had something to say, I’d just say it. 

Would you? The corners of his eyes crinkled, his voice so sincere that something twisted inside her chest. Orryn shifted her gaze toward the window. She’d been ready to bite his head off a moment ago, but now she just felt deflated. How could she address her reflexive desire to run in words? How could she tell him, face to face, that she knew he deserved better than her, deserved someone who could give him the sort of unreserved affection he gave freely to everyone he cared about? 

Fuck you… she mumbled. Marching into her bedroom, she barely held back the instinct to slam the door. Dropping down on the bed, she leaned her head in her hands, fingernails digging into her scalp just past her hairline. Only then did she realize she’d never started the washer-dryer.

Fuck’s sake… She didn’t want to go back out there, didn’t want to start a fight with Miranda just downstairs. More than that, she didn’t want to hurt him. Lately, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this thing between them was much deeper, much heavier, than she’d ever intended. It stressed her out. She didn’t regret what she’d started that night in his room, but she’d never meant for it to become... whatever this was. They didn’t call it a relationship. She didn’t want one of those, didn’t want the hundreds of small things that were implied by it but never stated. She’d said so from the start. William hadn’t objected, not then and not now, but eventually, that would change. How could it not? It was just how things were.

On lighter days than this, days when her tongue wasn’t thick with lies, she liked what they had. She just couldn’t shake the feeling she’d taken a wrong turn at some point, and she was