Underwater(46)

chapter thirty-three

Summer is almost here. The air is telling me so. Evan went to the desert with his mom for the Memorial Day weekend, and I haven’t heard him or seen him or breathed the ocean smell of him since Ben’s birthday.

“I’ve never been to the desert. I heard it’s unbearably hot. Will I melt?” Evan asked Ben when he left our apartment that night with a giant slice of dinosaur birthday cake for his mom.

“Just watch out for rattlesnakes,” Ben warned him. “They come out at night.”

And now it’s Wednesday and Ben and Evan are back at school. My mom is at work. By the afternoon, the inside of my apartment is so hot, I can hardly breathe. I slide the bedroom window open and sit in the fresh air that comes through the screen. I’ve got my notebook propped on my lap and thoughts in my head. I’m writing down things I remember from years ago. I remember when Ben was small and I was bold. I recall wildfire warnings. I remember the way ash blew down from the foothills and into the courtyard of Paradise Manor two Septembers ago. There was the smell of smoke in the air and the burn of it in my lungs and my eyes. Sunsets blistered the sky in pink and orange. I stood at the edge of the swimming pool and scooped out ash, dumping it into a pile next to my bare feet. I scooped out the ash because it was a hot day and I wanted to swim.

That same heat is here this afternoon, minus the smoke.

My hair sticks to my forehead. My underarms stink.

I think of the pool downstairs. I could jump right in right now. I would cool off in no time. I make the choice. I leap off my bed and pull off my clothes. I yank my team suit from the door handle where it’s been taunting me for months. I slide it on. The good thing about Speedos is that they stretch. My suit effortlessly sucks up the pounds I still need to lose. I grab my goggles and race down the hall and out the door. Barefoot in my bathing suit.

The turquoise water winks at me.

It licks a come-hither message at the edges.

I skitter down the stairs. I stop shy of the pool. I back up to the front gate. I take a running start.

I leap.

For a split second, I fly through the air. My feet hit first. The splash echoes through the courtyard. My body sinks downward in follow-through. Oh, the pure bliss of cool water and chlorine.

In my hair.

On my skin.

Through my fingertips.

I rise to the surface and kick my feet, blasting through the water and gulping in air. I climb out and scoop the leaves from the surface of the pool. There aren’t many of them. I think Evan has been busy with the upkeep. I jump back in when I’m done.

The pool is small, but I take long, even strokes, propelling back and forth, wall to wall. I’m weightless. I’m free. I’m where I’m meant to be. People either are or are not of the water. It either means something to them or it doesn’t. I know in this moment that I’m not myself without it. I know this as much as I know anything. My need is palpable.

I swim. I float. I breathe. I burn. I hope. I dream. I think. I wonder. I am.

I think of Evan in the ocean and on his surfboard. I think of him loving the water as much as I do.

And then I sink to the bottom of the pool.

My hair floats out around me. I hold my breath. My goggles make everything crystal clear, from the crack in the bright blue tile mosaic in the deep end to the leaf stuck in the drain. I let out the air from my lungs slowly, watching tiny bubbles rise to the surface.

Blip, blip, blip.

Pop, pop, pop.

I’m watching. I’m waiting. I’m about to rise up again when the water suddenly jostles me. Someone else has jumped in. They yank me from behind, holding me tight so I can’t move as they pull me up and through the surface. I scream and flail, splashing water everywhere with my feet. My brain is about to go into full-blown panic mode.

“What the hell?” I yell, punching at nothing because whoever is holding me is gripping me so tightly that my hands are about as effective as the forelimbs on a Tyrannosaurus rex in one of Ben’s dinosaur books.

“What are you doing?” Freaking Evan.

“What are you doing? Let go of me! I don’t need saving!”

We hit the waist-high water of the shallow end and Evan lets me go. He’s fully clothed. His hair is dripping, and a bright green T-shirt advertising a Hawaiian shave ice shop clings to him. I push him hard. Even though we’re only waist-deep, he rocks back on his feet despite the fact that he’s so big and brawny.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought maybe you were doing something stupid.”

“I’m not stupid!”

“I didn’t say you were stupid. I said I thought you might be doing something stupid.”

Underwater, I curl my hands into fists like Ben does when my mom tells him he can’t watch a TV show past his bedtime. “That’s the same thing!”

Evan pushes his hair back from his face and water droplets fly off the curly ends and land in the pool. “I thought you were drowning, okay? I thought I was helping you. I’m sorry.”

He looks sincerely apologetic, with his big brown eyes bewildered. But I’m too mad to care. Okay, maybe I care a little bit.

I rip off my goggles and toss them onto the pool deck. They skip then skid. I point at my Speedo. “Hello? Swimming here. Kind of a big deal for me.”

“You weren’t swimming. You were sitting at the bottom of the pool doing nothing. I thought you were drowning.”