I wasn’t here to race, but I wanted to sweat, too. Keeping my eyes down, I tilted my head to take in air every three strokes before putting it back in the water.
Spotting the black marker on the tile below, I took one more stroke and flipped over, pushing off the wall and heading back the way I came.
I could say band and swim were an excuse to be out of the house. That my project in the park was something else I used to avoid going home. That all these activities were things I could do relatively alone without too many others, especially peers, interfering i
n my role.
The truth was, I liked showing people what I could do. To the town with the gazebo. To the few students and parents who had showed up to cheer us on at swim meets when I was on the team. To the whole school when I walked the football field and played the flute.
Every little thing you could do made you feel stronger. I have this, so I don’t need you. I have that, so I don’t need you.
Sometimes I was able to kid myself into believing that having this or being able to do that made me too busy and too important to possibly care about everything that I didn’t have and everything I’d never be.
Like a smiler.
Like friends.
Like having someone who loved to tickle me and kiss me all over my face, not just on my lips.
Nah. Being able to swim the hundred-meter freestyle in forty-eight seconds was really what life was all about. That made me happy. I didn’t need that other shit.
Charging toward the other end, I flipped, pushed, and headed back the other direction, deep in my rhythm now and the worries and stress burning away like fog in the sun.
I tilted my head, took a breath, and stuck my face back in the water, but just then there was another face looking straight up at me from the bottom.
I screamed, bubbles pouring out of my mouth like a goddamn geyser. What the hell?
I halted and scrambled to get my head above water.
But before I could get to the surface, something wrapped around my ankle and yanked me back down.
I screamed louder, my submerged cries muffled as I flailed.
Then, I inhaled. A gulp of water lodged in my throat, and I shot out my foot, kicking the prick so hard pain fired through my toe and straight up my leg.
Gasping and sputtering, I broke through the surface, coughing as I tried to escape.
But then…someone else took hold of me. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, pulling me to him and holding me with one hand around my waist, and the other under my thigh. “Calm down.”
I coughed, only managing short, shallow breaths as my lungs cleared, and I wiped my eyes.
“Piss…” I choked out, blinking and seeing Will Grayson holding me. “Off.”
But I was coughing too hard to sound stern, and he just snorted, laughing.
I pushed away. “Get off me.”
“They’re just fucking around, Emmy.”
He let me go, and I looked over, seeing Michael and Kai waist deep in the pool and talking to Diana Forester, while Damon slammed his fist in the water and shot daggers at me with his eyes. Blood poured out of his left nostril as he reached onto the deck for a towel.
Asshole. I could’ve drowned.
A blonde came up behind Will, watching us before taking his hand. “I have to be home by ten,” she said. “Come spend time with me.”
His eyes stayed fixed on me. “You okay?”
I shot him a snarl as I walked for the edge.