How to Breathe Underwater

by Vicky Skinner

  “Oh,” I heard the guy in the water say and found that he was staring directly at me. “Hi.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but my attention was caught by Patrice standing on her tiptoes to kiss Michael on the cheek. Michael wasn’t particularly tall, but Patrice was particularly tiny. I had never been one for jealousy, but that was the only word to describe the twist of my stomach at watching them.

  “Do I know you?” the guy in the pool asked.

  I ripped my eyes away from Michael. “Um, no. I’m Kate.”

  His expression, which moments before had been nothing short of perplexed, sparked with recognition. “You’re the new girl!”

  “Something like that.”

  He smiled up at me, and I got a full view of just how attractive he was, with wide cheeks and dark eyes. Having the full force of his attention made my pulse stutter.

  “I’ve heard quite a bit about you.”

  “You have?” I might have been the new girl, but I was a new girl in a 6A school. I wasn’t exactly a popular topic of discussion.

  He slung his arms over the side of the pool. “Sure. Michael’s my best friend. He mentioned you moved in across the hall. Also something about a state record? Pretty impressive.”

  I stared down at the boy for too long without saying anything. In my head, I imagined Michael telling this boy about my swimming achievements only to also tell him that I had a panic attack instead of actually joining the swim team. I glanced over at him and Patrice, still talking cheerily. If he’d mentioned me to his best friend, why hadn’t he bothered to mention me to his girlfriend?

  The guy’s smile seemed frozen on his face. “Everything okay?”

  “What’d I miss?” Marisol asked, tossing a soda into the pool in front of the boy. It splashed beneath the surface and then floated back up.

  “Lovely.” He pulled the can out of the water and popped it open, fizzy soda pop exploding over his hands into the pool. The carbonation didn’t even faze him. He held the can to his lips and licked up the foam. He took a long sip and then sent Marisol a close-lipped smile. “Just the way I like it.”

  Marisol shoved his shoulder with her foot. “I’ll be back.” She winked at me. “Come find me if you get lonely.” She walked around the pool to meet up with a very muscular guy with buzzed hair and tattoos who looked more like he was in college than high school.

  “I mean, I have my doubts,” the boy in the pool said, sweeping a hand up in my direction and splashing water on my jeans. “What kind of swimmer doesn’t even wear a suit to the pool? For all I know, that championship thing is all hogwash.”

  He kept a straight face, but I smiled down at him. “Didn’t feel much like swimming tonight.”

  He pointed a slightly crooked index finger at me. “You know, Michael said you were pretty, but he didn’t say you were this pretty.”

  My smile fell then. Michael had told him I was pretty?

  “And really,” the guy, whose name I didn’t even know, went on, “I feel like I should be offended that no one’s bothered to introduce us yet.”

  “You go to Lincoln?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. I’m finally a senior, and I’m still hanging out with the lowly juniors.”

  “I’m a lowly junior.”

  His charming smile was back. “Kate, you are anything but lowly.”

  Michael and Patrice appeared at my elbow. Michael was already groaning when he approached. “Let her breathe, Ben.” He smiled over at me. “Sorry. If I’d known he was going to pounce so quick, I would have warned you first.”

  Ben splashed Michael from the pool, getting most of us wet in the process.

  Michael smiled big, and I thought maybe I was seeing him in his element without really knowing he was out of it anywhere else. And it made me see how wrong I’d been. Of course he hadn’t been flirting with me. He was just a nice guy. “Kate, this is my girlfriend, Patrice.”

  “We’ve met, sweetie,” Patrice said up at him. “Kate and I have Chemistry together.”

  Michael’s mouth popped open. “Oh, cool.”

  “No one’s ever accused Michael of being the brains of the outfit,” Ben, still bobbing in the water, said. It didn’t seem to bother him that he had to crane his neck just to be part of the conversation.

  Michael sighed. “And that’s Ben.”

  I smiled down at Ben, who smiled back up at me. “You should join me.”

  “No suit, remember?”

  He shrugged. “So?”

  “Hot tub, anyone?” Patrice asked, her smile so bright it made the darkening sky even darker. “I’m getting a little chilled.” She tugged on Michael’s hand, and he followed her to the hot tub.

  I watched them go, completely unable to resist admiring the curve of Michael’s back even as I knew I shouldn’t. They settled into the hot tub, the water sloshing around them.

  I rolled my pants up to my knees before taking a seat next to where Ben was floating in the pool. Against the other side, Marisol and Tattoo Boy were making out.

  “That’s Jesse,” Ben whispered to me. I leaned over and put my elbows on my knees to get closer to him. I could see below the waterline Ben’s slim waist, his trim body, his board shorts. I tried not to be distracted from what he was telling me. “He’s twenty-two and the love of Marisol’s life.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “Do you have a love of your life?”

  I could have sworn that I felt his hand brush against my calf. “Not yet.”

  I felt myself blush, and when I snuck a peek at Michael, he was watching us over his shoulder until Patrice said something that caught his attention.

  “Are you adjusting to Portland okay?”

  I tore my eyes away from Michael and Patrice to look down at Ben, who’d pressed his head against the wall of the pool. “Um, yeah. I guess so. I mean, I just came from Salem, so it’s not like I moved across the country.”

  He shrugged. “New places are hard. I moved here from New Mexico two years ago. I was feeling pretty lame about the whole thing, but these guys kind of adopted me.”

  I watched Marisol happily splashing around with her boyfriend. “They’ve been really nice to me.” It was completely true, and I suddenly felt awful for being even the slightest bit jealous of Patrice, who had been nothing but kind to me. “I guess I’m not really used to that. I hung out with a lot of male athletes back in Salem. They spent their free time playing pranks on each other. They wouldn’t know how to be nice to a stranger.” I laughed, remembering an infamous prank from when I was a freshman. “One time, the guys put a possum in the trunk of my best friend’s car. My friend was so mad, and all the guys got in so much trouble, but it was pretty great.” I smiled, thinking about it, even though it wasn’t funny at the time, especially not to Harris.

  “You have a nice smile,” Ben said quietly, like he almost didn’t mean to be heard at all. Up until that moment, Ben’s personality had seemed a little like a performance, but for a second, I felt like he might actually be trying to flirt with me, and it made my stomach warm.

  I looked away to hide that I was blushing. “Anyway, no, I’m not really used to people being nice to me. At least not so soon. On our swim team, you had to earn that kind of thing. Rivalry was high.”

  Ben pursed his lips. “I see.”

  “Hey, let’s play Marco Polo!” Marisol shouted from the deep end.

  “Are we in third grade?” Michael asked from the hot tub.

  “I love Marco Polo,” Patrice said, and climbed out of the hot tub. Michael watched her go and then glanced over at me.

  I made myself focus on what was going on in the pool. It was impossible to say if I would have made a move on Michael at all, but the knowledge that I was no longer allowed to made the fact that he had never mentioned a girlfriend that much more uncomfortable.

  I watched from the edge of the pool as everyone got into place and Marisol closed her eyes to be the first Marco.

  “You playing?” Ben whispered to me,
but I shook my head. What was I supposed to do, walk around the edge of the pool, yelling Polo?

  Marisol shouted out to the rest of them, everyone shouted back, and I had visions of seventh-grade pool parties, the boys suggesting Marco Polo because they could fake ignorance when they collided open-palmed into a girls’ chest. Marisol giggled as she moved around with her eyes squeezed tight until she finally cornered Jesse against the side of the pool. He tried to dodge her, but she lunged for him.

  The radio sitting beside the cooler blared out a song with thick, thumping bass while Jesse moved around aimlessly in the sloshing pool, his fingertips coming close to grazing the arms and shoulders and necks of several people before finally coming into contact with Michael’s back.

  I watched Michael take a step into the middle of the pool, his arms out in front of him like a zombie. I didn’t want to keep my eyes on him for too long in fear that I would get caught noticing how adorable he was with water dripping off the ends of his hair.

  Nevertheless, my eyes were stuck to him when a wet hand wrapped around my wrist. The hand was attached to a grinning Ben, and I tried to shake him off.

  “Ben, no,” I whispered. I didn’t want to catch Michael’s attention, but he seemed to hear us anyway.

  He froze and turned slowly in our direction. He was standing devastatingly close to us, as he hadn’t ventured far from the shallow end, and I clamped my lips inside my teeth and shook my head at Ben, who was tugging on me slightly.

  My eyes went back to Michael, still tiptoeing through the pool as everyone moved away from him as quietly as they could. His eyes were closed tight and his hands skimmed the surface of the water as he drifted through it. Marco Polo, Marco Polo, Marco Polo.

  I looked back at Ben, who was still smiling at me, but he’d stopped tugging on me, and when our eyes met, he gently let go of my hand. The party was moving closer to our side of the pool, Marisol’s boyfriend moving so close to me on one lunge that he bumped my foot.

  I felt the warm water sloshing around my feet, heard the joyous laughter of someone almost being caught, smelled the chlorine scent wafting up out of the water.

  I took my phone out of my pocket and tossed it onto a nearby bench piled high with towels. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and slipped into the pool.

  The water closed over my head. It shouldn’t have been so disorienting, but the heavy sweater I’d forgotten to take off was wrapped awkwardly around me, and for a second, I couldn’t tell what was up and what was down. As I pushed up toward the surface, I felt the panic start to settle against my chest, felt the way I did when I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to oxygen before my lungs burst.

  I got my feet under me, and right at that moment, two hands found me, holding on to me clumsily as I rose through the water.

  When I broke the surface, I was face-to-face with Michael. His fingers were tangled in my wet sweater, and his eyes traveled over my face, like he was confused.

  “Hi,” he said, not letting me go. I felt his fingertips through the material of my sweater.

  “Hey.” I breathed hard, out of excitement and nerves.

  “Kate’s playing!” Marisol shouted, breaking through my silent brain and bringing the rest of the noise from the pool in with it. I heard the music and the splashing and Ben’s laughter.

  Everyone was looking at us, and when I noticed Patrice’s eyes, her smiling mouth, her wet hair, I backed away from Michael. He let his hands drop, and I swiped the water off my face before taking a deep breath.

  Ben raised his eyebrows at me. “You’re playing?”

  “I’m playing.” I ducked down until I was up to my shoulders in the pool. “This is a little heavy.” I struggled to get my wet sweater off and tossed it over the edge of the pool. I was glad I’d worn a black camisole underneath.

  “Good,” Ben said, floating along the surface on his back like a piece of seaweed. “Because it’s your turn.”

  As I stood there with the water sloshing against me, I became aware of my calm breaths, the normal pump of blood in my veins. I wasn’t panicking. I didn’t feel like I was going to die. In fact, with the warm water pushing against every inch of my skin, I felt good, relieved.

  I closed my eyes.

  “Marco.”

  *   *   *

  I lay on a bench by the pool and stared up at the stars. The clouds were moving across them, making it seem like the stars were swaying back and forth across the sky. My skin was slowly starting to go cold as the warm water dried away, but I wasn’t ready to go back to the apartment, back to the stifling world we’d created for ourselves.

  Something brushed my arm and then Michael appeared in my line of vision, blocking half the stars from view. He held something out to me, and it took me a second to realize it was my sweater. He’d already put his own shirt back on.

  “It’s still a little damp, but I figured you were cold.”

  I sat up and took my sweater from him, looking around at the empty roof. “Everyone’s gone?” When I’d collapsed on the bench, Ben and Marisol had still been buzzing around, but the roof was quiet now.

  “Yeah. It’s pretty late.”

  He sat down to perch at the edge of the pool, his legs dangling in the water, his back to me. I smelled cigarette smoke, and he turned his head to blow smoke into the air. “How’s your sister doing?”

  “As well as can be expected, I guess.” I looked away from him, pulling my legs up to my chest, still embarrassed that he’d been there this afternoon. I couldn’t imagine how that scene looked from his point of view.

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice slight.

  “My dad happened,” I said, feeling it start to rise in my chest again. I squeezed my eyes shut, determined not to let it consume me. “I can’t stand that smell.” I didn’t mean for it to come out angry, but I was so angry about so many things.

  I opened my eyes to see him pull the cigarette away from his mouth and roll it between his fingers. “Patrice hates it, too.”

  “I can understand why.”

  He was silent for a long time, and then he stubbed out his cigarette and looked at me closely. He had been looking at me like that since we met, but it seemed to mean something different now, so I looked away from him.

  “Patrice is really sweet,” I said, and he flinched.

  He opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again. “Yeah. Yeah, she’s sweet.” He looked away from me, down at his hands, and then back up at me. “I should probably get home. Are you okay out here by yourself?”

  I just nodded and watched him go, looking away so that I wouldn’t give away just how disappointed I really was.

  Boys with girlfriends flirted with other girls all the time, and I was pretty certain he hadn’t even been flirting at all. He didn’t owe me anything, and I knew that, but the knowledge that he’d never mentioned her was still a twinge in my chest.

  Once he was gone, I stood up, wrapping my cold arms around myself to look down at the pool. It was the same pool it had been earlier, when we’d been playing around and Michael had put his hands on me. But looking down at it now, it seemed bigger, more alive. The ripples along the surface were barely perceptible, but I watched them, willing myself to dive in.

  I held my foot over the surface, watching the light bend around my toes. It would have been so easy to just jump, barely any movement, and I would have been shoulders-deep. But I pulled my leg back and grabbed fistfuls of my sweater to hold in the pain in my chest. Because I couldn’t do it. Why couldn’t I? Why was it so much easier when it was full of people, when Michael was there? When the distractions were loud enough to cloud my mind?

  I sat back on the bench and put my face in my hands, crying hot tears that dripped from my palms and down my arms to mingle with the water still clinging to my sweater.

  And then my phone rang. When I snatched it off the bench, I saw that it was Harris and answered immediately.

  “Hi,” I said, forcing dow
n any emotions that had started to arise. It had been such a strange day, full of upsetting and confusing things. I just wanted this one thing, this conversation with my best friend, without the rest of the world interfering.

  But that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Hey, guess what. Coach just told me that he wants me on the relay. Can you believe that?”

  I actually couldn’t. Harris had never been on the relay before. His times had never been good enough. “Really?” I tried to sound invested. I tried to sound like every tiny mention of the team or the pool today hadn’t been killing me. I tried to pretend I was surprised that my father, Coach Masterson, had called Harris while Harris was away for the weekend, on his daughter’s wedding day—no, on the day his daughter ditched her own wedding. Of course the first thing on his mind would be who was swimming the relay. “That’s great.”

  “I know! You’re coming to the meet, right? I can’t wait for you to see me in action. It’s going to be—”

  “Harris.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “Can we just … not talk about swimming right now?” I felt his confusion in the silence that fell then, and I sighed. “I just don’t want to talk about him, okay?”

  “He’s still my coach, Kate.” I could hear the control in his voice, like he was trying to be gentle with me. “I’m sorry he acted like a jackass, but I still have to answer to him. I still have to practice with him every week.”

  “I get that.” I could feel the tears rising again. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. What had happened between my parents wasn’t supposed to screw with Harris and me, too. “It just feels like you’re taking his side.”

  “I’m not taking his side. He’s an asshole. I get it. But what am I supposed to do, not talk to my best friend about this? Am I supposed to quit?”

  “No, of course not, but…” I couldn’t stop the tears. I sniffled and covered my mouth to hide the sobs, but Harris heard anyway.

  “Shit. I’m sorry,” he said softly in my ear. “I’m sorry. Damn it, I don’t want to fight with you.”

  But I wasn’t mad at Harris, not really. This wasn’t his fault any more than it was mine. “I hate him,” I said. “I really, really hate him.” I wiped my face and my lips tasted like chlorine and salty tears. “I did everything for him, Harris. I did everything to make him proud of me, and he screwed it all up.”