“I’ll show you.” I waved toward his car.
I made Thad park behind the school outside the pool area. Inside, there was what most people thought was a janitor’s closet in the short hallway that connected the men’s locker room and the pool. It was actually an emergency exit that led to the roof of the pool and was almost never locked. We used the fencing that bordered the dumpsters to climb up onto the roof, then I led him to the door. It was still unlocked.
“How do you know all this?” he asked, eyes wide.
“Our coach was always late for Saturday morning practices. It gave us the chance to explore the school while it was empty. You wouldn’t believe all the secret passages. There’s even an underground tunnel that goes to the middle school a block away.”
“That’s not real. People have been talking about that for years,” he contested.
“You sure?” I winked. No, I hadn’t seen it, but with all the secrets my teammates and I had discovered, I didn’t see why the tunnel would be made up. The middle school was only across the street, anyway. A short tunnel going under the street didn’t seem that far-fetched. “Yes! They didn’t cut it off.” I clapped, seeing the lock on my locker still intact. Normally the school would cut off the locks that hadn’t been checked into the main office by the end of the year.
My Speedo and my swim trunks were both still hanging along with my swim shammy and a towel. If you’re wondering why I needed both a Speedo and swim trunks, it was because we trained with the trunks to build strength since they pulled us back, then raced with the Speedo to cut off a few seconds. Trust me, a few seconds was the only difference between first and last place during a swim meet.
“I, ah. I don’t think…” He pointed to the Speedo in my hand.
“Don’t worry. Here. This’ll do.” I dropped the Speedo and grabbed the trunks still hanging inside the locker.
I handed the trunks to Thad since there was no way my Speedo would fit him without exposing his entire being. Then I turned my back to him so I could change. I didn’t care who he was, he was not going to see me completely unclothed. He did the same, but in the back of my mind I was hoping that he’d take a peek. I wondered if he was thinking the same.
We threw our stuff into the locker. I grabbed both of us a pair of goggles. Yes, I had plenty. Then I guided him through the maze of the locker room to the pool door. The locker room had separate exits for different parts of the school, and most people had never been through the pool exit unless they were on the swim team or forced to swim the mile in PE during freshman year.
“Oh. It’s dark,” he said, looking up at the high ceiling.
“Not that bad. I can go up and turn them on.” I pointed up to the control room near the pool’s main entrance. “But I don’t want to grab attention if anyone is here.”
“It’s fine. I didn’t expect it,” he replied, following me to the shallow end.
I threw my shammy to the side before plunging into the water. The thing about high school pools is that they’re cold. And it’s on purpose. Training in warm bath water is not good for you, which is why swimmers always jump in as fast as possible to get over the initial frigid shock. Thad on the other hand was not ready for this and decided to slowly inch his way down the ladder.
“This is horrible,” he wailed. I knew that feeling: The coldness of the water feels like knives stabbing your skin.
“It’s better than burning your skin outside.” I laughed.
He finally submerged his body, save his head, and let go of the ladder. But by the time he turned to face me, I was gone. I had fastened my goggles in the time it took him to descend the ladder and began swimming down the deep end of the pool, following the sloping tile to the dark depths of the diving well. I turned once I reached the bottom and saw him promptly climb out of the pool. And as I began to slowly float up, his figure appeared above me on the diving board, and he jumped before I broke the surface. He landed in a pencil dive inches from me, plunging into the depths. He reached up and grabbed my leg with his firm hand. He let out a thunderous laugh, emitting enough bubbles to momentarily erase his face from sight. But I needed some air.
I reached the surface before he did and took a deep breath, then looked up at the main entrance to make sure no one was there.
“Ope. Sorry,” he spat, breaking the surface of the water mere inches from my face.
Sure you are.
“See. It’s not that bad once you’re in.” I giggled.
“Are you kidding? It’s still freezing.”
“Then let’s keep moving around.” I submerged myself and started swimming toward the ladder.
After horsing around on the diving board, I showed him the few dives I knew. I really wanted to learn to dive but my coach wouldn’t allow it since I was one of the few swimmers with endurance. She would force me to blow all my fuel on the few longer races before the divers competed.
I grabbed kickboards from the little shed next to the bleachers for both of us so we could relax and flutter across the surface to catch our breath.
“So, what’s your family like?” he asked as I was trying to teach him to flutter and not awkwardly kick like a soccer player.
Didn’t we already go over this?I submerged my head for a second before reemerging to answer. “Well, there’s my twin little brothers who are kind of a pain. More so Callum though. Niall just follows along.”
“I wish I had a brother,” he said, continuing to make too much of a splash with his feet.
“You’d say differently about these two. But ah, then there’s my younger sister Riley. She goes here. But you probably wouldn’t know who she is.” I shook my head.