Breathing Underwater

The following week during family violence class, Nick notices Mario is worked up and thinks about Leo, who has been trying to reach Nick. Nick has ignored his messages asking for help because Neysa left him. When Mario leaves to take a phone call from a newspaper, Nick knows something is wrong and pulls out his journal to write.

He writes about the day he and Caitlin broke up for good. It was the day of the Winterfest carnival after a decisive football game in which Nick had fumbled the ball, costing them the game. People, including Elsa, teased Nick for his fumble. As Nick and Caitlin got on a ride at the carnival, Derek implied Caitlin was still doing the concert solo even though she denied it; her name was still in the program. Nick told her she had better not do it. At the end of the entry, Nick admits he was probably looking for a fight that day because he was so upset.

After class, Nick waits for Mario to come back from his phone call. Mario reveals that Leo is dead, having killed Neysa and then himself. Nick struggles to believe it and wonders if he could have prevented what happened by returning Leo’s voice messages. Nick admits that Leo refused to believe he belonged in the class, and Mario says he cannot help someone who does not want to be helped.

Nick runs out, struggling to breathe. He tries to picture Neysa’s face but can only see Caitlin. He wants to believe he and Leo were so different that he could not have done the same to Caitlin, but he starts to see that he was capable of the same things. He admits he is not different from Leo and begins to understand why Caitlin is afraid of him. He hopes there is time to change. He runs to the train station and briefly considers committing suicide by jumping in front of a train because he believes no one would miss him. He takes out Caitlin’s ring from his pocket and throws it in front the train instead.

He heads to the beach behind his house to finish his story because he knows he must. He remembers being at the concert with Caitlin. She was comforting him over the football game loss, but he rejected her words. On stage, Tom and Nick’s friends performed a silly dance. Nick felt left out because he was not invited to participate. When he returned from the bathroom, he discovered Caitlin was preparing to sing her solo. He ran outside, furious and losing control. He felt betrayed and provoked, believing she wanted to make a fool of him on purpose. After the show, he dragged her to the parking lot, where he yelled and beat her so severely he could not see her face anymore. He insulted her and almost choked her until Tom punched him to get him to stop; Nick knew it was Tom because he saw the dolphin drawing on his leg.

The next morning, Nick calls Caitlin one last time to apologize. This time, he tells her he understands why she could not love him the same way after his abuse. He recognizes that his previous apologies were not sincere. As he speaks, he pictures Neysa; he tells Caitlin he was capable of hurting Caitlin worse. He tells her he really loved her. Caitlin responds by saying she cannot believe him anymore and hangs up.

On the last day of family violence class, there are only five members left. Nick feels closer to these men than anyone else and shares his phone number to keep in touch with them. Mario’s final exam is one question: What was the class about? Nick does not intend to respond, but then he stands and declares the class is about being a loser. He explains that he has had to accept that he was looking to regain the power lost through his father’s abuse by abusing Caitlin. The more he believed his father’s emotionally abusive words, the more he lost control with Caitlin.

At this point, Mario shares his own story. His father physically and emotionally abused him all his life, so later, when Mario’s wife was pregnant, his father’s voice haunted him. He yelled at her and pushed her out of a moving car, and she lost the baby. He took the same family violence class, not intending to participate, but he eventually retook the class enough times to start teaching it. He tells them that working on himself helped him stop listening to his father’s voice. Nick now understands that Mario is like him. He knows now that he must take responsibility for his actions and let Caitlin go. After class, Nick tells Mario he wants to retake the class. He gives Mario his journal and asks him to read it, and Mario hugs him.

At home, Nick purposely disturbs his father while he sleeps by turning up a baseball game. His father storms in and spills Nick’s soda. He demands Nick clean it up, but Nick refuses. When his father raises his arms to hit him, Nick stops him and repeatedly yells that his father will not abuse him any longer. His father walks away, shocked, and Nick sees how weak he really is. Nick breaks down in tears.

It is the first day of Nick’s junior year of high school. He pulls into the parking lot in a new car that his father gifted him as a sort of apology. After Nick yelled at him, his father revealed that he was also abused by his own father. He never actually apologized, but he gave him the keys to the new car and tried to say that he should not have sold the Mustang.

In the parking lot, Tom confronts Nick about his poem in the school’s literary journal; Nick published it after all. Tom tells him that Caitlin moved away to live with her father and attend a performing arts school, and Nick says he is happy for her. Before she left, she told Tom that the poem was about him and that Nick’s father hit him. Tom is angry that Nick never told him the truth, and Nick admits that he felt Tom would not understand. Tom asks for Nick’s forgiveness because he feels he was a bad friend. Nick agrees that he should have told him about his father. They joke about Tom’s haircut and shake hands, friends once again.