But his face was blank as his eyes centered on me for just a moment and then turned away, yelling something to Coach Judd. Three more events took place, alternating between the girls’ and boys’ teams, before the teams lined up for the butterfly. Harris had always swum this event, so I moved down in the stands. I wanted to see how the new Harris moved up close. No point in hiding anymore.
I’d seen Harris swim a butterfly for the last ten years, but nothing like this. He plunged off the block and stayed under longer than everyone else, pushing himself immediately into first place. When he came back up, he was a like a cannon out of the water. He wasn’t graceful. He was willful. He pushed himself hard, coming up on every other stroke for a breath, and I could see it there, in his face. He was concentrated. He wasn’t blowing this off. He wasn’t looking beside him to see his competition. He was pushing it, moving faster than I’d ever seen him move before.
When he hit the wall first on his last lap, I jumped up, screaming loudly, even as everyone around me stared at me. When it was over, and I was still cheering, my father came up behind Harris. He put a hand on Harris’s shoulder, turning him toward the hallway and the locker room. Even though I knew it would be a while before Harris had gotten his muscles back into shape, I followed them, only turning into the hallway after they’d vanished. I took a seat on the floor outside the boys’ locker room.
“Hey, All-Star!”
Cal came down the hallway toward me. He was extremely cute, and I’d always effectively avoided him so as not to get him into trouble with my dad. He wore gauges in his ears when he wasn’t swimming and had the longest hair of anyone on the team, his mane and eyebrows gold like straw. But how he was right now, coming down the hallway, was how I’d always known him: in jammers, a cap on his head, his earlobes empty, and a pair of goggles dangling from his hand.
“Hey, Cal.” I pushed myself up the wall and leaned against it. Cal came close, the way he always did, standing just inside what I would normally designate my personal bubble.
“How’s it going up there in Portland?” he asked, pressing one wet, open palm against the painted brick beside my head. “Not much competition, huh?”
I shook my head. “Are you calling yourself competition? Because I’m pretty sure that Harris just kicked your ass out there in the pool.”
He snorted and pushed away from me. “Oh, give me a break. Harris has been your dad’s little pet since you left. Those two are Frankenstein and his monster.”
“Better be careful. Your jealousy is showing.” He could say anything he wanted behind Harris’s back, but Harris was the one out there working hard enough to put himself in first after always getting lost in the middle.
“All right, Cal, keep it moving,” a voice called from just outside the locker room. Coach Masterson was headed in our direction, his face stern.
Cal scrambled away from me and into the locker room.
“Come to see your old man?” my father asked. He was actually smiling. I guess he had reason to smile. He had a new accomplished swimmer, a new girlfriend, no sullen teenager to take care of. Maybe he was living the life he’d always wanted.
“I came to see Harris,” I said coldly, staring down the hallway at bulletin boards and pictures of children playing in the pool plastered along the walls.
“Well, you can talk to me while you wait for him.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.” I decided that I would just go back to the pool and see Harris later. We could go out for dinner or something, just the two of us. He could miss the after-meet party this one time. I made for the exit.
“Kate, come on,” my father called.
I spun around. “I said, I don’t want to talk to you.” I’d been angry with my father before. He’d cheated on my mother, he’d kicked us out of our house, he’d tortured me in the pool for ten years only to throw it all away, but all that felt like nothing compared to the fact that he scared Lily into ditching her wedding. That was unforgivable.
My father stared at me, every single line on his face visible, until the door of the locker room swung open. Harris stepped into the hallway.
“Coach,” he said, stepping up to my dad, his face focused and concerned. He didn’t even see me, standing at the end of the hallway, trying to split just moments before. “Look, I know Cal’s a great swimmer, but he’s not focused enough on his last split. If he could keep his head in the game for the entire last leg, we’d be able to widen the gap. We could—” His eyes finally found me, and his sentence came to a halt. His entire expression changed, the stern curve of his mouth melting into a smile. “Kate!”
He stepped around my father and swept me up into a hug.
“God, work out much?” I said as he crushed me against him with arms of steel. He set me back down, and I tried to ignore the fact that my father was still standing close by, watching us.
“Yeah, well, when I’m not spending all my time entertaining my tiny little best friend, I have more time to spend in the gym.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please. Like April isn’t taking up all that extra time?”
He opened his mouth to say something, but my father broke in. “Harris, we weren’t finished talking.”
Harris’s eyes went wide and he spun around, like he’d completely forgotten that my father was even there. “Oh. Sorry, Coach. Um, I was just saying that I think Cal could use some work on his concentration.”
My father’s eyes swept to me quickly before focusing on Harris again. “I think we could all use a little work on our concentration. Maybe you shouldn’t invite Kate to our meets if you’re going to get distracted.”
Harris looked like he wanted to respond but couldn’t find the right words. I could.
“I’m not allowed to come to the meets anymore? I’m pretty sure you don’t get to decide that.”
“You’re not part of this team anymore, Katherine. You shouldn’t be here.”
I tried not to let his words sting. He was right, after all. I wasn’t part of the team anymore, but hearing him say it somehow made it more real. Why had it felt like they might not be able to go on without me, when they were obviously doing just fine? When my father had found my replacement so easily?
I didn’t let him see that his comment hurt. “Shouldn’t you be busy coaching other swimmers or something?” I said more confidently than I felt.
“That’s what I have assistant coaches for.” He focused on Harris again. “Get an early night. I want you ready for practice tomorrow.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t you think he deserves a night off?”
“That was always your problem, Kate,” my father snapped. “You weren’t willing to work for it.”
I could feel my body vibrating from my hairline to my knees. How dare he say that I didn’t work for it? All I ever did when he was my coach was work my ass off. Day and night I was in the pool at home or at school, always eating what he told me to, always spending my time how he thought I should. No real social life. No boyfriend. Nothing but him and the water, all the time.
I wanted to snap back at him, find something that would hurt him as much as he’d just hurt me, but my brain was so muddled by his words that nothing would come out. My father had won. He’d successfully torn me apart, and he knew it.
Instead, I threw open the double doors at the end of the hall and went for the front door of the aquatics center, people staring as I rushed past them. When I finally made it outside, where cars were cruising past and people were coming into the center with their children in tiny swim trunks in tow, I felt like I was going to throw up.
“Kate!” Harris caught up with me. He put a hand on my shoulder and turned me to face him. “Hey, I’m so sorry.”
I shrugged him off. “Go ahead. Go spend all your time with your new coach. I’m so glad to see that you’re not the disappointment that I always was.”
Harris shook his head. “You’re not a disappointment. He’s just lashing out. He’s hurt.”
> “Oh, and I’m not?”
“I’m not saying that you’re not. I’m just saying—” He broke off, running one of his large palms over his bald head. Then his eyes found mine, fierce and determined. “If you’re so pissed at him, then show him. Swim your fucking heart out the next time we’re all in the pool, and show him that you’re still swimming your hardest. Show him that your power came from you and not from him.”
“I’m not going to show him anything because I quit.” I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it. That wasn’t how I wanted to do it. I wanted to tell him out of confidence, not out of anger.
Harris went still, his eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”
I threw my hands up. People were starting to file out of the center now, the meet finished. “I quit the team.”
Harris shook his head aggressively. “You’re the best. You can’t quit.”
“I can do whatever I want!” I sucked in a breath, and it felt like the whole world had gone quiet.
I could see his jaw moving beneath his skin. “You love the pool.”
“Maybe I did, but…” I couldn’t even bring myself to say it out loud. It felt like a bullet. “It’s not enough anymore. All the bad has just covered up all the good.”
His eyebrows creased in, and he looked like he was in pain.
“Do you hate me?” I asked carefully.
“Of course I don’t hate you. But I think you’re making a big mistake.”
Behind him, I saw my father walk out of the center. His eyes found us standing on the curb, and his face went stiff.
“It’s like I never even existed,” I said without thinking. “You’re his new favorite toy. All my work meant nothing.”
Harris’s eyes went hard. “You know this isn’t about what he did to you. This is my future. I have parents to please, too.”
He was right. I wasn’t being fair. My father’s personal life had nothing to do with Harris, but I couldn’t seem to separate the two when everything hurt this much.
I just nodded. I couldn’t be here anymore. I couldn’t look at this life that I’d chosen to leave behind and be happy that Harris was still in it. “Call me later,” I said. “You did really great.” And then I turned and left.
* * *
“Go! Go! Go! Come on, Kate! Come on!”
I could see the girl in the lane next to me every time I came up for a breath. She was almost a whole stroke ahead of me.
My arms burned and my lungs screamed, but I could hear my father on the sidelines, screaming my name so loudly that he drowned out everything else in the room. It echoed off the walls and around in my brain.
I knew the wall was approaching. I took one last breath to see that the girl next to me was pulling even farther ahead, and then I tucked under for my turn and kicked off the wall as hard as I could. When I came up, we were stroke for stroke. I had pulled ahead in my turn, and I could feel it, the energy pushing me forward, my legs kicking, kicking, kicking.
“Go, Kate! Go!”
I couldn’t go any faster, didn’t have anywhere else to pull speed from, but I kept pumping. I kept pushing, holding my breath for almost the entire last split, until my fingers hit the wall and I came up for air.
I didn’t even see the scoreboard. I knew I’d won because my father was screaming, standing over me at the end of the lane. He reached down into the pool and pulled me out under my arms.
He held me to him, crushing me against him so hard that it was only a second before he was soaked, both of us dripping as the crowd cheered around us. “That was amazing. That was amazing,” he was saying in my ear, over and over. I could hear the crack in his voice, and I thought he might cry, right there in front of everyone.
“Did I win?” I asked because I still hadn’t seen the scoreboard.
My father threw back his head and laughed, finally letting me go. He grabbed me by my shoulders and spun me around to face the board, to see my time. Not only had I won first place, but I’d also set the state record in my event. I clapped my hand over my mouth at the same time that my father lifted me off my feet.
I wrapped my arms around him and closed my eyes, letting the moment soak into my skin.
“You’re amazing,” my father said in my ear. “So amazing. You were incredible. I can’t believe you.”
* * *
“Kate?”
I wiped the tears off my cheeks as fast I could before turning around to face Michael. He was barefoot and had a wrapped peppermint in his hand. I’d been on the roof since the moment I got home from Salem almost an hour before.
“Hey,” I said, thinking maybe I could play it off like I hadn’t been sobbing. Or at least maybe he would be nice enough to pretend he hadn’t seen.
His eyebrows wrinkled, and it was like there was some direct connection between those eyebrows and my tears because I started crying again.
I groaned, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Just leave me here. I’m such a mess.”
“Messes aren’t so bad. People who have it all put together are overrated.”
I opened my eyes, and he was standing with his knees pressed against the bench where I was sitting. I laughed a wet, snotty laugh.
“So, what happened? You went out to see your friend, right?”
I nodded and wiped my face with my hands. “Yeah.” He was probably expecting more, perhaps expecting a monologue about how awful my life was. But I was too tired to give him that.
His eyebrows shot up. “Does that usually make you cry?”
I sniffled, embarrassed that he had to hear it. “No, but my dad kind of ruined everything.” My dad always kind of ruined everything.
He finally sat beside me, the still-unwrapped peppermint crinkling in his fingers. “He’s good at that, huh?”
I watched him open the peppermint and then pop it in his mouth. The minty smell was almost immediate. “Pretty much.”
He stuck the wrapper in his pocket. “I know I might not be the best swimmer, and I know you disapprove of my smoking,” he said, meeting my eye, “but I promise you can talk to me. If you need someone, I mean.”
I sighed. “It’s not a secret or anything. I just feel like I complain about my dad too much.”
He shrugged and leaned back on the bench. “So? Is there a limit to how much you’re allowed to complain about something? I don’t remember them passing that law. I have a feeling people wouldn’t stand for it.”
I smiled down at my feet. “You never complain.” It was true. He never so much as complained about getting behind on his homework. No matter what, he always seemed to have a smile on his face. And what did that say about me, the girl who was always crying and bitching about her parents?
“It’s just not my style. Doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to.”
I pulled my feet up onto the bench and rested my head on my knees. “You’ll get tired of listening to it.” You’ll get tired of me.
“No, I won’t.”
He was so sincere, so completely confident in that fact. It was comforting. I looked at him for a second, at his lips pursed adorably as he sucked on his peppermint, at the messiness of his hair, at his bare feet, at the darkness of his eyes looking right back at me.
“My dad said that I didn’t work hard enough. And then Harris and I kind of got in a fight, and I told him I quit the team, and I don’t know where we even are right now.”
Michael grimaced. “Sorry your dad is kind of an asshole.”
I laughed. It was refreshing to hear him say that. To everyone else, my father was passionate. He was strong-willed, levelheaded, and a hard worker, and if I ever complained about him, I was just a spoiled teenager. Hearing Michael say something like that without even a hint of hesitation or even the smallest consideration of how things might look from my dad’s point of view was such a relief that some of my tension melted.
“We ordered pizza. Why don’t you come down to the apartment?” He gestured in th
e direction of the door.
“Who is we?”
“Oh, ya know, Ben, Marisol, Patrice, Jesse, and Mom.”
“Oh. Okay.” It wasn’t like I felt like going home. If I’d wanted to go home, I wouldn’t be on the roof right now. “I just need a second to not look so emotional.” I wiped harder at my face, getting rid of the tear tracks and trying to let the cold air dry out my swollen eyes. “Did you come up to the roof just to eat a peppermint?”
He laughed and pulled out another peppermint as he crunched the other one between his teeth. “Got used to the fresh air. I might be able to give up the cigarettes, but I don’t really want to give up the quiet time, you know?”
“Sure.” I had no idea what he meant. Compared to the noise of my life before, the swim meets, the after-parties, the constant chaos of my own and my father’s schedules, my life now felt like it was moving in slow motion. I wasn’t looking for peace and quiet on the roof. I was looking for a distraction.
I could feel him looking at me, could feel his eyes burning into my skin, but I knew he didn’t mean anything by it and that when he looked at me, he just saw a girl he could be friends with, maybe a girl he could trust. And I wanted him to see me that way. He made me feel so safe and so warm and so … normal.
We went down to his apartment in silence, and I stood aside as he opened the door. At first, no one seemed to notice us coming in, but then Ben, standing in Michael’s tiny kitchen, said, “Hey, it’s Kate!” and Patrice and Marisol smiled over at me. They were both on the couch, leaning in close to each other. Patrice spun around to face me as the door closed.
“Kate! I’m glad you’re here! We were actually just talking about the chem project. Please tell us you have a brilliant idea.”
Jesse was sitting on the end of the couch, doing something on his phone, and I didn’t even see Harriet around. I could only assume she’d chosen to go to bed early. But a glance at the clock told me it wasn’t really that early at all.
I took the seat by the reading lamp, the chair that Michael’s mom had been sitting in when we’d met the day before, while Ben clattered around in Michael’s kitchen.
How to Breathe Underwater Page 12
