Breath Like Water

by Anna Jarzab

  “Maybe.” I pull my phone out of my bag and check my texts while Joan watches expectantly. I shake my head. There’s nothing new from him. She looks as disappointed as I feel.

  Things haven’t been easy between Harry and me. When I am in the pool, I’m separated from the rest of the team. When I’m not in the pool, I’m with Joan, or in school, or at home with my family. Harry and I can’t spend much time together in public because of Dave’s ultimatum, and we can’t hang out at either of our houses too often because we’re pretending to have broken up.

  We decided it would be easier to lie to everyone than to try to keep multiple stories straight or hope that people who know the truth never cross paths with people who don’t. It makes seeing each other difficult, though. There are so few places we can be sure nobody we know will spot us. We can’t even keep our Sunday diner ritual because my family would definitely notice. I almost believed Harry at the beginning, that sneaking around would be fun and sexy, but mostly I feel lonely.

  “I’m sure he’ll call tonight,” Joan assures me. “Now get the fuck out of here and enjoy your fucking weekend.”

  * * *

  The only upside to this whole mess with my shoulder is that I have a car now. Okay, so it’s not my car, it’s Bela’s, but she doesn’t like to drive and wasn’t using it. She offered to let me borrow it for the duration of my recovery, so I can drive myself to physical therapy and doctors’ appointments.

  The car is older than I am, too big and painted a hideous shade of mint green, but it has fewer than twenty thousand miles on it and runs like a dream. More important, it makes me feel grown up and in control, if not of my whole life, then at least of where I am or could be at any given moment. Theoretically. Practically, I use it only when I absolutely need to, because gas is expensive and, like everything else, my parents pay for that.

  With traffic, it takes about an hour and a half to get home from Joan’s office in the city. Most nights, I get home just in time to have dinner with my family, but sometimes I’m late and I eat alone at the kitchen table while Mom studies in the living room and Dad putters around in the garage and Nina does whatever she does in her room.

  Tonight, nobody will be there. Mom’s got class, Dad’s working a shift at the restaurant and Nina’s seeing a movie with friends. It’s the perfect opportunity to have Harry over. But he’s not answering any of my texts.

  I turn the music up to drown the thoughts that keep swirling through my head: Is Harry mad at me? Is he sick of sneaking around? Or is he feeling depressed and doesn’t want to be around anyone right now? But the thoughts bleed through the songs.

  By the time I pull into the diner parking lot, the high of finding out I’ll be back in the pool next week has dissipated. Twenty minutes ago, while I was waiting a stoplight, I made a mobile order for pickup. I’m going to get it, go home, eat dinner in front of the TV and watch a movie.

  Even though it’s early April, spring is late in the Midwest this year; we got snow last week, and now it’s sleeting. I bundle up in my heavy winter coat and race from the car to the door of the diner.

  “It’s going to be a few more minutes,” the server at the pickup counter tells me.

  I take a seat in the waiting area near the host podium. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth sending Harry another text even though he hasn’t answered the last three, when I hear a laugh I recognize.

  I turn around on the bench I’m sitting on and peer through the leaves of a plant at a group of people my age sitting a few booths away. I can name every person in that booth, because they’re my teammates. But that’s not what makes me feel like I’ve swallowed a hot stone.

  Harry is with them, and he looks like he’s having a fucking amazing time.

  I’m not sure what to do. I want to know why Harry’s here when he wouldn’t answer any of my texts. But I can’t confront him with a bunch of people we know within earshot, and anyway, it won’t make me feel better. I decide to get my food and go home. There has to be a good explanation, or at least an acceptable one. Harry would never do anything to purposefully hurt me.

  It’s a fine plan. But when my order is ready, the server at the pickup counter bellows my name, not once but twice. I hurry to the counter and grab the bag from his hand.

  “Susie?” I whirl around to see Harry standing behind me. All the blood in my body rushes into my face. I turn back to the server.

  “I was sitting right there,” I tell him. “And I was the only one waiting on an order! Did you have to scream my name like that? I didn’t want anyone to know I was here.”

  “Uh, sorry,” the server says. His gaze darts between Harry and me, then he scurries away.

  Harry clears his throat and chokes out a nervous laugh. “You didn’t want anyone to know you were here? How come? There’s plenty of room at the table. Are you avoiding me?”

  “I thought you might be avoiding me.”

  “I wasn’t. Should we, um...” He looks around, checking to see if anyone is watching. Thankfully, nobody is. “Let’s go outside and talk about this.”

  “It’s raining outside,” I argue. “And it’s cold.”

  He flips the hood of my coat over my head. “There, all set. Let’s go.”

  I follow him outside and around the corner of the diner, near the dumpster.

  “Susie, what’s going on? You seem upset,” Harry says.

  I sigh. “Nobody’s at my house tonight and I texted to see if you wanted to come over and you ignored me.” My backpack slides off my arm and I accidentally overrotate my shoulder trying to catch it. “Ow.”

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him. “I wanted to see you. I never see you anymore.”

  “Whose fault is that?” His eyes widen as he realizes what he’s said. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s not your fault. And I didn’t see your texts. I forgot my phone at home this morning.”

  “Okay, but it’s Friday night and we haven’t—” kissed each other held each other touched each other really even talked to each other “—been alone in, like, a week.”

  He rubs his face. “I know. I was going to text, but I thought you wouldn’t be home until later and that Nina would be there. So when Sarah invited me and Avik to go out with her and Nash and all them, I... I don’t know. I liked the idea of hanging out with everybody. I’m sorry.”

  I feel foolish. He didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. And I can’t hold it against him that he’s making friends. I’ve been isolated from everyone for weeks and I hate it. When Harry didn’t answer my texts, I should’ve reached out to Jessa and Amber, but I didn’t. He’s the only person I want to see, and the only person I can’t. But it’s not fair to expect him to rearrange his whole life around my schedule.

  “I get it,” I tell him. “I just miss you.”

  Harry hugs me close. He noses my hood off and kisses the top of my head. “Miss you, too.”

  “Do you think anyone saw us in there?” I ask.

  “Nah,” he says. “Want me to ditch these guys and come over?”

  “That’s okay. It’s nice that they included you. You should stay and enjoy yourself.”

  “Want to come in and hang out with us?” he asks. The note of hope in his voice is a balm to my bruised ego, but I shake my head.

  “I’m tired and sore. I want to go home and get into my pajamas.” He doesn’t say anything. “Harry?”

  “What? Oh, sorry. Just picturing you in your pajamas. Are we talking nightgown or short shorts or like a two-piece flannel ensemble?”

  I laugh. He cuddles me closer. It feels so good to be held by him, to touch him, even though his nose is cold against my skin and a tiny trickle of freezing rain has found its way down the back of my coat.

  The thought of Harry seeing me in my pajamas sends an arrow of warmth through my chest. Of course, he’s
seen me in my pajamas, in hotel rooms during competition travel. And he sees me in much less every day at the pool. But we’re rarely alone in those moments. That night on the beach was the closest we’ve ever gotten to being in bed together.

  When I’m trying to fall asleep at night, I fantasize about it. Not sex, although sometimes that’s part of the fantasy. But sleeping together. For a whole night. Like a grown-up couple. We probably won’t get the chance until we’re in college, and that’s usually the thought that kills the fantasy, because we don’t talk about that stuff. The future is so uncertain. Will we go to the same school? And if so, what school will that be? Those questions inevitably lead to a spiral about where I might be offered a swimming scholarship, if I even will, if he will, too, if he even wants one, and if that might mean we’d be separated.

  I try not to think about that, and I definitely don’t want to think about it right now, not when the near-future is just as unpredictable.

  “Sweatpants and a T-shirt,” I tell him. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “The only disappointment is that I’m never there to see it. Someday, though.”

  “Yeah,” I whisper. “Someday.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  67 days until US Olympic Team Trials

  “THIS IS SUCH a bad idea,” Beth snaps. She’s usually capable of keeping it together in front of the team, no matter how much Dave frustrates her, but right now she’s clearly exasperated beyond the point of self-control.

  I don’t blame her. Because Dave has announced, with fanfare and suffocating smugness, that in two weeks we are going to have our first annual GAC Battle of the Sexes meet.

  The mezzanine is so silent you can hear the water sloshing around in the pool gutters below. The team is stunned. Boys and girls train together at GAC, but we don’t compete against each other, and it hasn’t occurred to any of us that we might ever have to.

  Harry and I glance at each other. His eyes widen. There’s no reason for Dave to pit girls against guys unless he’s trying to create tension. I can’t tell, in this moment, who he’s gunning for most: the girls on the team, or Beth. Very possibly, it’s both.

  “You’re welcome to your opinion, but this is my team. So if you want to coach here, you can keep it to yourself,” Dave bites back.

  Beth’s jaw tightens. It’s not the first time he’s spoken to her like this in front of us, but it’s become more frequent lately. Dave and Beth don’t see eye to eye on much—that was never a secret—but they used to keep their bickering private.

  I’m not the only person on the team who finds this whole situation unsettling.

  “We’re not going to win this,” Amber says in a low voice as we change out of our suits in the locker room that night after practice.

  “Speak for yourself,” Jessa says, wriggling into a pair of leggings. “I could take at least half of those boys in a race. But yeah, you guys are in for it.”

  “Excuse me!” I protest. “I can take them, too. And so can Amber.”

  Jessa gives me a skeptical look. “No offense, Soos, but you’re not taking anybody right now, not with that broken wing.”

  I bristle. It wasn’t until my first practice back that I realized how bad my injury is. Beth altered my workout so that it’s mostly legs-only sets, but I’m still swimming through quite a bit of pain. The last thing I need is someone who’s supposed to be my friend and teammate smirking at me about it, making me feel even worse than I already do.

  Which is why I say—stupidly—“Want to bet?”

  We agree to put fifty dollars on whether or not I can beat one of the guy swimmers in one event during Battle of the Sexes.

  “You don’t even have to win the whole race,” Jessa says in a tone that I guess is supposed to underscore how magnanimous she’s being by offering this concession. “Beat one boy. Doesn’t matter which one.”

  “You’re on,” I tell her. We shake on it while Amber watches, incredulous.

  “This will not turn out well,” she mutters, shaking her head.

  I zip my swim bag closed, then the three of us walk out together. We run into Avik, Harry and Nash leaving their locker room. My heart starts beating rapidly the second I set eyes on Harry. This ruse of not being together, and the distance it has forced between us, has ratcheted up the longing I feel for him to the point where I feel like I can hardly bear it. I wonder if it’s the same for him. From the scorching look he gives me over Nash’s shoulder, I’m going to go with yes.

  It’s clear from the snippets of conversation I overhear as we catch up with them that the boys are talking about Battle of the Sexes, too.

  “It’s so unfair to you girls,” Nash says to us as we make our way to the parking lot.

  I’m not in the mood for his shit tonight. Watching Dave and Beth argue so publicly earlier has left me feeling shaken. Amid all the turmoil of my injury, I feel like the only ground I thought was still solid is crumbling beneath my feet.

  “Fuck you, Nash,” Jessa says lazily.

  I flash Nash a smile and my middle finger. He rolls his eyes at both of us, then spreads his arms to slap Harry and Avik on the back.

  “It’s gonna be a shutout, boys,” he says with a laugh.

  Harry and I are walking beside each other, doing our best to affect disinterest. Stealthily, he brushes the back of his hand against mine. I can’t tell if he’s trying to reassure me, or just desperate to touch me after all the time we’ve been spending apart, but my body springs to attention. I’m surprised nobody can hear the muffled whoomp of it going up in flames. It’s still cold out, and I can feel my cheeks burning against the chill in the air.

  There’s nothing I want more than to follow Harry into his car, lean the seats back and put my mouth on his until all this wanting I feel recedes to normal, manageable levels. The frustration rises through my chest to the point where I think it might burst. I hold it together as we scatter to our cars, calling goodbyes almost as an afterthought. I’ve got Bela’s sedan, so I’m driving Amber home tonight.

  “Are you sure you should be swimming in this Battle of the Sexes thing?” Amber asks, cranking up the heat. She can’t keep the disgust at the mere prospect of the meet out of her voice.

  I know she’s coming from a good place, but I’m done with having my every move questioned.

  “Well, if I shouldn’t, I bet a million people are going to tell me so,” I say. “I feel like I can’t even sneeze right now without everybody having an opinion. Beth, Dave, Joan, my parents...”

  “Sorry,” Amber says. She doesn’t sound that sorry. She sounds irritated. “My mistake. It’s not like you were gravely injured or anything.”

  “Yeah,” I say, pulling out of the parking lot. “Thanks for pointing that out, I’d forgotten.”

  Amber and I never fight. I’m not even sure if we’re fighting right now, or just sniping at each other because we’re exhausted and spent the evening swimming through waters made toxic by Dave and Beth’s constant and ever nastier disagreements. Whatever the reason, I don’t like it. I take a deep breath.

  “I think ‘gravely injured’ is a bit dramatic, don’t you?” I ask, keeping my voice light. “It’s not like I’m bleeding from a wound to the gut or anything.”

  She laughs. “I guess not.” Then she sobers, like her mind has snagged on something. “I don’t know, though—you didn’t see your face in that pool in Iowa. Your expression, it was like...the visual equivalent of a howl. Lost and anguished and hopeless. I’ll never forget it.”

  I shudder, more affected by the hollowness of her voice than I am by anything I recall about that day. “I don’t remember much.”

  “That’s probably for the best.”

  We don’t talk as I drive to Amber’s house. That’s one of the nice things about being alone with Amber—she’s an extrovert and I’m an introvert, but we’re both happy to sit quietl
y and listen to music, sunk in our own thoughts like footprints in a snowbank. We’ve always had more in common than either of us had with Jessa, who never met a silence she didn’t feel compelled to break with restless chatter. Pale, blond, pretty Jessa, with her demanding, overbearing parents and high-limit credit card and endless confidence, never an outsider anywhere.

  But Amber knows what it’s like to feel like you don’t belong, like capers on a birthday cake. To feel like you have to fight hard for every scrap of recognition the ravenous machine of swimming, and society at large, resentfully spits out.

  “Did you consider quitting?” Amber asks. Her voice is soft, her tongue a bit clumsy, as if she’s woken up from a nap. “After you tore your shoulder?”

  “No.”

  The answer comes quickly, because I haven’t allowed myself to think about quitting since Des Moines. Before the injury, I used to toy with the idea sometimes, idly, the way you might play with a piece of your hair while watching TV. When the fantasy started to feel too real, I shied away from it, like it might burn me, or like merely thinking it could make it come true.

  After Des Moines, I knew that if I let the possibility cross my mind for even half a second, it would take root and flower faster than I could kill it, and then everything would be over. Everything I’d worked so hard for. Everything I believed myself to be. Gone. And I couldn’t let that happen.

  “I think about it, sometimes,” Amber says, examining her cuticle beds as if the answer to whether or not she should quit GAC might be written there. “A lot more, lately. Since you got hurt.”

  I don’t know what surprises me more—that Amber has thought about quitting, or that it has anything to do with me.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask. “Is something bothering you?” Because that must be it—she’s got some pain, in her knee or her back or maybe her shoulder, too. All common injuries in swimming.