Content Warning: This text discusses systemic racism, police violence, and the death of a Black man.

Open Water opens with the protagonist and his lover at a barbershop. While cutting the lover’s hair, the barber catches the narrator and the woman watching each other in the mirror. The barber proclaims, “you two are in something” (1), identifying the two as a couple in some kind of intense relationship. When their eye contact is briefly broken, the narrator reflects that love is both cause for concern and for joy.

As the young man and his unnamed lover walk at night afterwards, he asks her not to look at him because her eyes force him to be truthful. The narration becomes reflective, repeating, “[y]ou came here to” while listing what are eventually revealed to be reasons for writing the text (2). These include the following: to depict falling in love with one’s closest friend, to explore the interconnection between shame and desire, and to ask the lover if she remembers their first kiss.

The narrator remarks that feeling lust for one’s best friend is an unusual experience. He states that he cries under covers in the darkness.