Breath Like Water

by Anna Jarzab

  Unless I want to tell him to forget it and walk away without answers, I have no choice but to spill about what Fee said, so that’s what I do. When I’m finished, I brace myself for some major revelation that will upend the way I think about Harry and all my hopes for our relationship.

  Instead, Tuck snorts. “Well, that was a shitty thing for Fee to do.”

  “Obviously. Was she telling the truth, though?”

  “What do you think?” he asks.

  “Don’t be obnoxious.” I feel like he’s toying with me. I want him to reassure me Fee was stirring up drama out of jealousy so I can go back to enjoying my life for the first time in years.

  “You’re asking me to betray my best friend and tell you his secrets so you don’t have to ask him about it yourself,” Tuck points out. “If I’m being obnoxious, that makes two of us.”

  “You’re right.” I push back from the table. “This was a bad idea. Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  Tucker puts a hand on my arm to stop me. “Hey, wait. Look, just ask him. He’ll answer you honestly. I don’t even think he’s trying to keep stuff from you, he’s just careful. People can be cruel.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that,” I tell him. I wish I’d never spoken to Tucker about this. Now I’m even more confused and worried than before. I thought that Fee was trying to tell me Harry was a player. But that’s not what Tuck seems to mean at all.

  My mind spins with possible scenarios. What if Harry is sick? Or...oh God, what if he has a kid? He’s seventeen, it’s far from impossible. That might explain the random disappearances and the general evasiveness. I have no idea what I’m going to do if I find out that Harry is a father.

  It takes me a second to realize Tucker is still talking.

  “—and if it makes you feel better,” he says, “Fee doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s just going off rumors and other people’s guesses.”

  This surprises me. “You mean Harry never told her?”

  Tucker shakes his head. “I know she acts like she’s still all in love with him or whatever, but I don’t think she ever really cared enough about him to work up the courage to ask.”

  * * *

  It takes me a week to figure out how to talk to Harry about all of this. A week during which I try pretending that everything’s fine, but Harry is tentative around me, like he knows something is wrong and isn’t sure what it is.

  I don’t want to shatter the happiness we’ve found together, but I can’t hide from this forever. If we’re going to make things work between us, we can’t have secrets.

  That night, I tell him over text that I need to see him as soon as possible the next day. When he asks me why, all I can bring myself to say is: Can we meet tomorrow morning before practice?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  157 days until US Olympic Team Trials

  IT’S FIVE IN the morning, and Harry is waiting for me in the natatorium parking lot. It’s deserted excerpt for Dave’s junky old Ford Fiesta. The sky is dark as ink. I told Dad I needed to be dropped off early so that I could help organize equipment, which is not a thing, but he was half-asleep and didn’t question it.

  I climb into Harry’s car and rub my hands together to generate some heat. It’s cold today, and foggy. The world looks about as confused as I feel, covered by a smoky white veil.

  Harry’s expression is grim, and he seems exhausted, like he didn’t sleep well last night. The skin under his eyes looks bruised and there’s a giant coffee container in the cup holder.

  After a couple agonizing minutes of total silence, during which I try to remember how I planned on starting this conversation, Harry blurts out, “Whatever you’re thinking, say it. This is torture. Do you want to break up? Is that what this is? If it is, get it over with. There’s no point in drawing it out.”

  I try to take his hand, but he flinches and I pull away.

  “Harry, no. I don’t want to... I just want to talk to you.”

  “Does this have anything to do with what Fee told you that night at the diner?” he asks, balling his hands into fists in his lap.

  “Wait—you know about that?”

  Harry nods. “She texted a few nights ago to tell me. I guess she was feeling guilty. But Fee doesn’t know anything about me. We didn’t go out for that long, and I never told her—”

  “Never told her what?” I ask.

  He refuses to look at me. Embarrassment, or anger, or some combination, make bright red splotches bloom in his cheeks.

  “It’s not something I tell people about right away,” he says.

  “That’s what Tucker said,” I say without thinking.

  “You talked to Tucker?” His voice is quiet, but I can tell from the way his jaw is clenched that he’s seething. “You went behind my back to grill my friend instead of coming to me?”

  “I thought Fee was warning me that you were going to cheat on me. That you’d done that to her, and other girls. I was afraid to tell you, because I didn’t want you to think I believed it,” I say.

  He narrows his eyes at me. “Did you believe it?”

  “No,” I insist. He looks unconvinced. “It didn’t make sense, not with what I know about you. But I’m new at this, and there’s a part of me that wonders if I’m too naive about guys and relationships to be able to trust my own instincts.”

  Harry lets his head fall back against the seat. He sighs. “That’s not what she was talking about. I’m not a cheater.”

  “I know that. And I’m sorry I ever doubted.” I take a deep breath and pose the question I’ve been panicking over silently for days. “Harry, do you have a kid?”

  A wave of silence washes over us. Then, to my surprise, he laughs. He laughs, while I sit there feeling humiliated and ridiculous.

  “What’s so funny?” I snap.

  He’s laughing so hard there are tears gathering in his eyes. He wipes them away and splutters, “A kid? You think I’m hiding an actual child? Oh, Susie, I’m sorry. If I thought for one second that was what you were imagining, I never would’ve—no, that’s not it at all.”

  I sit back in my seat, relieved. “Then what is it?”

  He stares at the roof of the car. “Man, compared to a secret love child, the reality seems almost boring.”

  “Harry,” I say.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll be serious.” He takes a deep breath, then says, “The unvarnished, absolute, one hundred percent truth is that I’m bipolar.”

  I don’t say anything for a few seconds, and neither does Harry. He darts a glance at me. He’s not laughing anymore.

  “Susie?” He pauses. “What are you thinking?”

  “Bipolar?”

  “Yes,” he replies.

  “I don’t know much about that. I mean, I’ve heard of it, but I’m not sure...what it is.”

  “It’s a mood disorder. Sometimes people call it manic depression, but that’s an imprecise term. Bipolar disorder is characterized by emotional highs that alternate with extreme lows.”

  Harry’s whole demeanor has changed. The smiling, mischievous charmer has fallen away and his whole body is rigid, as if he’s bracing himself for a punch. His voice has lost its teasing quality, and in its place is something I’ve never heard from him before—the clipped, antiseptic speech of a medical professional. I wonder if he’s repeating things he’s been told before.

  “I’m not crazy,” he insists. “I hate that word. I’m living with a chronic illness, and I manage it with my psychiatrist, therapy, drugs, exercise...that’s why I started swimming actually. My doctor thought it would be an outlet for my energy and a good confidence builder.

  “There are different kinds of bipolar disorder,” he continues. “I’m bipolar II, which means I’ve never had a manic episode. With me it’s mostly depression with a few hypomanic episodes over the course of my life
. I’m not psychotic, I’m not dangerous and I’m not crazy. Okay? I’m not crazy.”

  “Okay, I hear you.” I think about all the times I’ve casually said the word crazy, especially around Harry, and feel ill. I’m never going to use that word again.

  He closes his eyes. “I know it bugs you when I don’t answer my phone or show up where I’m supposed to be. When that happens, I’m usually in therapy, or need to be by myself. Sometimes, it feels too hard to face the world. My meds work, but they’re not a cure. I still get depressed, and when I’m feeling bad, I don’t always want to be around people, even people I care about.”

  I put a hand on his arm. I’m shocked, not by what he said, but by the sudden flood of new information to absorb. My mind is like a capsized boat, and I struggle to reorient myself. The night of the tamalada, what he told me up in my room, makes sense now. I thought he was coming down with something, or finally feeling the impact of four solid months of hard swimming with no breaks. It didn’t occur to me that what he was going through was part of his everyday life.

  “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel guilty,” I finally say, “or like you were doing the wrong thing by taking care of yourself. But if you want to tell me when you’re feeling that way, I’m happy to listen.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s not that easy. I know there’s nothing shameful about being bipolar—it’s how I was born—but most people only know what they’ve seen on TV and in movies. They jump to conclusions about who I am and what I’m like and how I think, all because of a label, and then I feel like I have to do all this extra...performing, to get them to see me for me. But then I think, is it really me if I amp it up just to prove their assumptions wrong? At some point it became easier to not tell anyone. Not until I know we can have an honest and open conversation about it.”

  “Do you feel like you can do that with me?” I ask. I feel a sharp pain in my chest, like I’ve been stuck with a needle, at the thought that he doesn’t, that I ever made him feel like he couldn’t trust me. But I get that this isn’t really about me, and never was.

  “I do,” he says. “But I wasn’t sure when to bring it up. It’s not something you can casually drop into a conversation, at least I’ve never been able to, but sitting someone down specifically to talk about it overdramatizes the whole situation.”

  He drops his head back and sighs. “I don’t want to have to ‘come out’ as bipolar to every person I know. Everybody’s got hard stuff in their life. How come I always have to feel like I’m doing something wrong by not laying all my challenges out on the table from day one?”

  “You don’t owe that to anyone,” I say. “It should be your decision what to share, and who to share it with. I’m sorry I pressured you into it. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing.”

  “Yeah?” He sounds so hopeful it breaks my heart. I’m worried that he thinks this will change how I feel about him, but it doesn’t. I’m as in love with him as I’ve ever been.

  Because of course I’m in love with Harry. I’ve been falling in love with him ever since we met. But I’ve never been in love with someone before. It’s the best feeling in the world, but I know that, in handing over my heart to him, I’ve given him the power to break it.

  “I totally get it,” I tell him. “I know it’s not even remotely the same thing, but I don’t tell people about the things that I struggle with, either. All the setbacks and the fear and the disappointment. I don’t even talk about it with my friends that much, or with my family most of the time. I don’t want people to know I’m not as resilient as I pretend to be.”

  “You talk to me about that stuff,” Harry says.

  “I might never have told you,” I admit. “But you saw it. From the first day, you saw what I was trying to hide, and you made me feel like it was okay to be honest about it. It was such a relief.”

  Harry rubs his eyes and sniffs. “Well, shit, Susie,” he says with a wobbly laugh. “That’s a really nice thing to say.”

  “Get out of the car,” I say. He shoots me a worried look. “Trust me.”

  We climb out, then I open the back door on the passenger side. He does the same, and we slide into the backseat, meeting in the middle. Harry stares at me.

  “What are we doing?” he asks softly.

  I wrap my arms around Harry and pull him close, hugging him so hard he gasps in surprise.

  “Man, Susie, I knew you were strong but this is ridiculous,” he says. He slides his fingers into my hair, closing his fist around a handful of curls.

  I stroke his back, brushing my hands up and down his spine in what I hope is a soothing rhythm. His heart pounds against my chest. I can feel each heavy beat of it in my own throat.

  At first, he’s stiff in my arms, guarded and careful not to let himself go. But then he softens, his breathing steadies and his heartbeat shifts from a wild gallop to a soft, tranquil trot.

  I don’t really know what I’m doing here—if I’m saying the right things, or asking the right questions, or if I should be asking any questions at all. All I know is what I feel, which is that I want him to know I’m here to listen, that I want only what’s good for him and to make him feel safe with me. That I’m not going anywhere, and I love him for exactly who he is.

  But what Nina said months ago keeps cycling through my head. When did you get so selfish? I’ve been focused almost exclusively on myself for so long, because I was convinced that was the only way to make my dreams a reality. When Harry needs me, if he needs me, will I know how to help him? What if I constantly, always let him down?

  I do my best to push those worries away and just hold him, because what I think might help Harry, more than anything I could say right now, is being made to feel like he deserves to be held. That someone wants him close, that he can relax against me, put his head on my shoulder, feel the warmth of my skin against his. That I can be his relief, too.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask softly.

  “This is helping,” he whispers. His cheeks are wet. I wipe the tears from his face. “Do you have any questions? Is there anything you want to know?”

  I loosen my grip on him; he pulls back and looks at me. He brushes the hair out of my eyes and gives me a small smile. “A few,” I tell him. “If that’s okay.”

  “Go for it,” he says.

  “How long have you known that you’re bipolar?” I ask.

  “About six years. When I was eleven, Bruce and my mom went through a rough patch. I was convinced they were going to get divorced. They were arguing all the time. It was stressful and I was already bipolar—I mean, I was born with it. But I hadn’t been diagnosed yet. And I didn’t know how to control my emotions or understand what was going on with me, so I started stealing vodka from Bruce’s liquor cabinet and getting drunk in my room whenever my parents fought.

  “It was getting harder and harder to concentrate in class, because I had all these racing and cluttered thoughts. This one time I decided to drink before school, thinking it would make me feel better, and one of my teachers noticed. They called my parents and suspended me. It was the first time anyone realized something was wrong.”

  My heart feels like someone took it in two hands and twisted. It hurts for Harry, physically hurts, as if the actual muscle is torn. That must have been so scary for him.

  Harry’s expression hardens. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you pity me. I’m not an invalid. I hate those condescending poor-little-sick-boy frowns,” he says. “Or worse, the way people’s eyes get wide when they find out you have a mental illness, how they step away from you like you’re contagious or a bomb about to go off.”

  “I promise, that’s not what I’m thinking,” I say. He makes a frustrated noise, and I pause to wonder if maybe I am looking at him that way, even though I don’t mean to. I rearrange my expression i
nto something more neutral.

  “Before I was diagnosed and went into treatment, I was destructive and angry and sad. I was so fucking sad,” he says.

  I run the pad of my thumb over his knuckles. His shoulders deflate, like he’s forcing himself to relax, but he doesn’t seem so much calm as tired.

  “I did stupid stuff. Defaced a public building, got into fights with other kids. I was drinking and taking pills, and I...” He hesitates. “I cut myself, sometimes. Here,” he says, patting his inner thighs. “Where no one else can see.”

  “That’s why you wear jammers,” I say. The competition suits are long enough to cover any scars.

  “I don’t do it anymore. It was a shitty, shitty time. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t have the words to tell people. I tried everything I could to make it all go away.

  “I got stuck in anger management for vandalism,” he says. “I spray painted one of the walls of my school with some, uh...pretty saucy language. They agreed not to press charges if my parents put me in a juvenile counseling program. That’s where I met Tuck.”

  “Why—”

  “Nope. That’s Tuck’s story. It’s not my place to tell it.”

  “He said the same thing about you.”

  “Tuck’s a good friend.”

  I knock his shoulder gently with mine. “So are you.”

  Harry frowns and lapses into silence.

  “I told my first girlfriend,” he says. He glances at me tentatively. “Not Fee, before her. We were freshmen and it wasn’t serious, but she never spoke to me again. I didn’t tell anyone after that but she must have, because people found out. They were...not nice about it.”

  “That’s awful,” I say. “And completely unfair.”

  I understand why he might worry about sharing this part of his life with people, after an experience like that. I’m careful with people, too. Don’t get too close, don’t let my guard down, don’t put the most important thing in my life at risk. In my case, it’s swimming, which I know is not the same, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind when I try to imagine what he must be feeling. Swimming is my heart, the thing that feels like it’s keeping me alive.