The Pier

The Pier
It was a cool night and I really didn't want to go down to the pier. "Come on Johnny it will be fun" screamed my friend Lucia as she charged down the old wooden structure. Lucia was always the first to be spontaneous and rope our group into things we wouldn't generally do, she was normally right though and it turned out fun but tonight I just felt like going home. I stood at the start of the 200 yard long dimly lit pier and looked on as Lucia went further out of my vision and toward the end of the pier with another friend Clinton who was with us. There were 4 of us and I looked over and saw Kaliope shivering next to me, she only stood 5"2 and while she was quite tiny she was definitely a cutie with her brown hair and eyes, it was no wonder she was feeling the cold though as she only had on a very thin t-shirt and shorts. Like me Kaliope wasn't keen on hanging out at the pier. "Let's go back to your car and turn the heater on" she suggested. It sounded like a good idea but I didn't want Lucia to think I was a piker by not going along with what she wanted, I hated to say it but I'd liked her for a while and she had just broken up with her boyfriend so I knew now was probably my chance to make a play for her, she liked guys who weren't afraid to let go and if I pulled out of tonight I knew that I may never win her over. With that thought I said to Kaliope." You know what Lucia is like, she will pay out on us for the rest of the night if we don't go down there, plus normally anything she ropes us into is normally fun"

"Yeah but I'm really cold" replied Kaliope, her teeth now chattering.

I knew at that point I should have just turned around and gone back to the car with her but I didn't. "We'll just hang out there for 10 minutes or so to please her then once she has had her fun we will come back" I proposed.

"Oh ok then. I'm not happy though" grizzled Kaliope understandably.

We both made our way to the end of the pier and as we got there Lucia pulled out a bottle of bourbon. "This will warm us up!" she announced as she had the first skull from the bottle. I got the impression Lucia had already had a couple before we had all met up and the same could be said for Clinton who I noticed was acting a little more liberally. I knew it was a bad idea but I decided to take a drink to appease the masses, it wasn't my kind of drink but after a few minutes I definitely started to become more relaxed and not notice the cold as much. Kaliope was a non drinker so naturally knocked back the bourbon as we all continued to get drunk and began to act like idiots. Soon enough the bottle of bourbon had all been downed."OK well all the booze has been polished off so time to go now guys" said Kaliope hopefully. Lucia and Clinton scoffed at her suggestion while I could see she was still freezing, I was quite drunk now though and to be honest I was enjoying myself now so I just went along with the other two.

Once the alcohol had been consumed Lucia got quickly bored before deciding that she was going to jump off the pier."The water will be ice cold in there Lucia" I said amazed she was even entertaining it. "God don't be such a spoil sport Johnny. Geez I thought you were cool but I'm starting to wonder" she replied with a bit of disdain which I didn't like. I knew then that I had to prove myself so without another word said I dove straight off the pier, it wasn't long till I hit the water, it came up far sooner than I thought and my head hit the bottom......Luckily for me I have quite long arms and my wrists and forearms took most of the blow while my head, though hitting at a reasonable speed wasn't enough to break anything. Still, once I swam to the top I knew I had to warn the others that the depth of the water wasn't high enough for anyone else to jump, I also knew I might have to go to hospital as my wrists could have been broken, I couldn't tell for sure as the alcohol was numbing the hurt a bit but I knew at the very least they were badly bruised. I climbed the ladder and made my way back on the pier deck. "That was awesome" remarked Lucia with a big smile.

"Thanks. I just have to warn anyone else jumping off though, the water depth is pretty shallow and I felt my head touch the bottom"

"Geez what a killjoy" replied Lucia. "Here I was thinking that jump might have changed you a bit. There has to be some danger in everything you do Johnny otherwise there's no point doing it"

"Well you won't think it's much fun if you hurt yourself" I replied. My wrists now aching. As I cradled them though I noticed there seemed to be more booze. "Where did that come from?" I asked

"I just ran down to the bottle shop up the road and got it while you were swanning about in the water" grinned Clinton before putting a bit of bourbon in one of the plastic cups he had seemed to pick up also.

Kaliope then saw they had a bottle of coke with them, she noticed they seemed to be drinking their bourbon straight so decided to ask for a cup of coke. "No worries" replied Clinton overfilling it a bit due to his state of inebriation. Nearly an hour went past and I started drinking again to try and numb the pain from my wrists, I knew it was stupid trying to deny to myself that they were ok but I did it anyway. As everyone drank away I noticed Kaliope was chirping up a bit more and didn't seem to be worried about the cold anymore. "This is kinda fun actually. Being out here tonight, with friends and that" she admitted. She poured herself another cup of coke while we all went on talking and cracking jokes to one another. While I may have been in pain I couldn't help but look at Lucia, she was so god damn hot I almost couldn't handle it, she had legs that seemed to have been chiseled by a god while her breasts were like a work of art, so perky and bouncy, her face wasn't too bad either with her incredible dimpled smile and seductive lips, her eyes were extraordinary too and they just seamed to sear through your heart like a laser beam they were so intense, If you could create the perfect female specimen then she was it for sure.

An hour passed and it was now really late, the second bottle of bourbon was long gone and there was even a strong dent in the bottle of coke, I didn't notice it at the time but with the lowering level of the coke it also bought out a more liberated Kaliope, she was now singing and dancing on the top of the pier cheered on by Lucia and Clinton who were enjoying the show, I wondered why she was so happy all of a sudden and just guessed that she had decided to enjoy the night and not whine. I had to admit I was enjoying this different side of Kaliope so I wasn't complaining. As Kaliope finally sat down Lucia decided it was time for her to jump off the pier.

"I wouldn't advise that" I told her.

"I'll be fine, stop worrying" she assured me.

I knew she was asking for trouble so I jumped up and held on to her so she couldn't do it. "Let me go!!" screamed Lucia.

"I can't let you do this"

"I will be FINE!!" she yelled in my face quite violently which scared me a bit.

"Well it's your funeral" I told her while letting her go and hoping she would wise up to herself.

"Lucia Dorsett makes her own decisions thanks" she asserted.

As I stood there she ran to the edge of the pier and launched herself off, as soon as I saw her feet leave the rickety old wooden pier I just felt sick, I heard the splash and just hoped to God she was ok. I looked over where she landed and couldn't see anything. Oh no. Where is she? I knew I should have just held onto her no matter what, now look what's happened, I had so many thoughts running through my mind and just as I went in to try and find her she surfaced..

"Haha told you I would be ok" she crowed. "Just decided to stay down for an extra couple of seconds just to fool you". Lucia swam over to the ladder and climbed it back up to the pier. "Fuck it's so bloody cold though" she announced as her body remained in soaked wet clothes.

"I'm just glad your ok" I told her to which she rolled her eyes.

As I stood there relieved over Lucia I suddenly heard Kaliope from behind me. "Hey guys I'm going to do it too" she declared before heading off the edge of the pier, before I could say anything she was gone, I couldn't believe she had done it, she was always such a level headed person and it didn't make sense. I heard the splash and it sounded similar to that of Lucia's but that meant nothing. After a few seconds she hadn't surfaced and I got worried."Where is she?" I cried. The others weren't overly concerned it seemed but I knew that Kaliope wasn't one to joke around like Lucia, although she wasn't even one to jump off a pier but she had, I desperately tried to locate her then made a shocking discovery.....her body appeared to be lying face down on the top of the water's surface. "Kaliope!!!" I yelled in shock. Rather than dive in the water I took the ladder down and swam over to her, she didn't seem to have her bearings with her and just moaned "I'm in trouble". I feared the worst and knew that she needed medical attention and that I had to get her on shore. While I wasn't keen on the water this night I was quite a good swimmer but it was a good 200 yards from the pier and would take a big effort to get her in. As we got about half the way in I really started to tire, the pain in my arms returned with a vengeance and I started to feel quite unwell, it was at this point I lost grip of Kaliope and started to go under, I tried to fight but I was on the verge of passing out, I started struggling to breath as I felt my lungs filling up with water, I wondered if this was it and closed my eyes.....

Just seconds after I closed my eyes and submitted to the afterlife I was suddenly awoken by the arms of a man pulling me to the surface. "I've got you mate, just relax and we'll bring you in" he told me with such a confidence in his voice that I could only assume he had done this kind of thing before, I had got lucky and would be of those people who just happens to be rescued by an off duty lifeguard or something like that."There's another girl" I managed to mumble out. "Yeah we know mate, she has been picked up" he informed me. As he pulled me into shore I couldn't get over how fortunate I had been, I could barely walk but as the man helped me onto shore and the waiting sand I was over the moon that I had been saved. I looked over and could see that another two men were attending to Kaliope and I was thinking that we had all got out of it ok, we had been utterly stupid and come out relatively unscathed. "Do you have any pain or feel like anything is broken?" the man asked.

"Yes I think my wrists might be busted" I told him. "Who are you guys?"

"We are the SES or state emergency services, your friend rang an ambulance but they were too far away and when we heard the distress call we decided to attend instead"

"Thank god you did" I replied as he splinted my wrists. As he did this I could hear a bit of a commotion.

"You have to save her" begged Lucia.

 I looked over and could hear what sounded like someone flat lining. Lucia crumbled to the ground and looked to be in complete distress. While mid splint I shot off to see Kaliope, the machine was just showing one continuous long line and it was marked by a big 0 in the top right hand corner meaning no pulse or heartbeat and that the patient wasn't with us. I forgot about my wrists and just hoped they could get her heart going again, as I stood there I started to weep as the SES worked feverishly trying to get her to breathe.... Finally it happened! the straight line disappeared and started to beep properly while the number shot up to 34 then 61 then 79, Kaliope was alive again.....After stablising her Kaliope was taken to hospital, I followed her there and had my wrists x rayed, they were found to just be heavily bruised while I had also experienced a very minor concussion when I hit the water which was the reason for my lightheadedness when trying to bring Kaliope in, I felt such guilt over not being able to bring her in but I was just so glad the SES had answered the call for help. After all the excitement of the day I was exhausted and headed home with Lucia and Clinton following suit, the details were sketchy on Kaliope but we were told that they would know more tomorrow and to come back then.

The next day arrived and I slept like a log, I woke up with a massive headache though and two very sore arms, I was desperate to get to the hospital though to see the prognosis on Kaliope. As I entered the hospital I could see Lucia was already there and in tears. "What's happened? How's Kaliope??" I asked knowing it couldn't be good.

"It's really bad they think" she hinted

"How bad?"

"She broke a couple of vertebrae. They think she could be paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of her life" she sobbed almost breaking down. I stood there stunned, I couldn't believe a bit of skylarking on the pier had turned out like this, sure I knew after my jump that there was a risk but until it happens you don't really know. "Are they sure?" I asked hoping I would get a more favourable response second time round. "They can't know for certain yet but it looks really bad. It was just meant to be a bit of fun you know, just get her out of her shell a bit" cried Lucia further.

"Yeah I know, jumping off the pier wasn't one of your best ideas but you didn't make Kaliope jump" I replied trying to reassure her.

"If she jumped off in a fit state then yes but Clinton and I did something horrible" she hinted.

"What are you talking about?" I asked puzzled.

"You know the bottle of coke Clinton brought back?"

"Yeah what about it?"

"Well when he went off to the bottle shop I told him to buy a coke and some vodka, mix the two in the same bottle so Kaliope wouldn't taste the alcohol" she admitted

"You did what??" I replied flabbergasted.

"Well I didn't know this was going to happen did I??"

"No but that's not the point"

"Look I don't have to listen to this. Catch you around" said Lucia before walking off.

At that point the glass ceiling broke and I had no interest in Lucia as a romantic prospect anymore, I knew she was a bit of a wild child and that was part of her charm but getting someone drunk and what led from that was inexcusable. A young woman's life had now been shattered by their "prank" while they would be able to continue on in their life however they wished. Over the next week I heard that Lucia came in to visit once more and then was never seen again while Clinton never bothered to visit at all, such a cold bastard I thought to myself but I always knew he wasn't the most reliable of people so I guess in some way I shouldn't have been surprised.
Every day for the next month I visited Kaliope, every time I saw her lying in the bed unable to move and breathing through a ventilator pierced through her neck I had to admit I felt a little bit of guilt myself, if only I had of just agreed with her when she said she was cold and gone back to the car, but no I was selfish and wanted to see if I could win Lucia over, what a big mistake that was. Eventually Kaliope left the hospital and moved home, she suffered bad depression over her condition but I tried to stay strong for her and was always there for her if she needed to talk, naturally she was very bitter and angry and couldn't believe that two of her best friends barely even visited, one of them not at all. I decided after what happened to Kaliope that I would devote my life to people suffering from spinal cord injuries, I became a physical therapist and even took on some psychology subjects to better understand what happens in their mind once an injury has occurred, I knew it wouldn't give Kaliope her arms and legs back but that night at the pier had a profound effect on me.

Many years after the accident Kaliope finally came around to her new way of life and shed all the bitterness and anger to find love, he was a lovely gentle man and treated Kaliope really well, she started to smile again and enjoy life, it made me so happy and on the back of her joy I had my own, I met a woman and we got married and now have one child. It was soon 12 years since that night at the pier and one day I wondered where Lucia and Clinton had ended up. As I did a bit of research I found out that their lives never reached any great heights, in fact they read as a tale of misery with Lucia becoming a heroin addict and dying at age 27 while Clinton married and had two kids with a woman only to find out they were fathered by someone else, he's now an alcoholic and living under a bridge as his home. I had to say that while I was sad over how their life turned out it was probably a bit of justice in some respects, they caused Kaliope's injury and never even had the courage to admit it to her and apologise. All I knew was that I grew up a lot that night at the pier, ironically it ended up getting bulldozed 12 months later as it was beyond repair, the wood rotting to a point where it was starting to crumble, I'll never forget it though and I'm sure neither will Kaliope, or who knows maybe even Clinton, huddling under that bridge.............