Breath Like Water

by Anna Jarzab

  I hang my head. “Go away, please, Harry. I’m begging you. I can’t do this right now.”

  “Why are you so mad at me?”

  That is the worst thing he could possibly have said. A tsunami of anger surges up inside of me.

  “Why am I so mad? For years, no matter how I felt, no matter how hard it was, I put in the work, I did the laps, I swam the races,” I tell him. “I put up with Dave and I did Beth’s stupid affirmations and I volunteered as a lab rat for her training experiments. I feel like a fool and failure all the time. I worked so hard I literally broke myself. Then you come out of nowhere and with the tiniest bit of effort you manage to do everything I wish I could do. And you don’t even care. You don’t even want it.”

  “That’s not true,” he says coldly. “You know why I don’t push myself. I told you why.”

  “So why are you doing it now? Why did you have to do it out there?”

  “To show Dave I’m not bad for you! To prove to him that I can be serious about swimming and play by his rules, and that I’m not going to drag you down.”

  I release a ragged breath. “That’s never going to work. He doesn’t care about my career—he cares about control! Dave used you to humiliate me. And you let him.”

  I fling the words like rocks. Right now, I hate Harry. I hate him the way you can only hate someone you love when you think they’ve betrayed you.

  “What?” Harry barks, sounding genuinely surprised. Whatever he thought I was upset about, I can tell he had no idea that was it. “Why do you keep insisting that this stupid meet is about you?”

  “He told me, right before the race. I wouldn’t listen to him and I left him to swim with Beth and then I got better. He’ll never forgive me for that. His pride won’t let him. So he did what he thought would hurt me most. He made my man put me in my place. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

  “That’s ridiculous. He doesn’t even know we’re still together!”

  “Everyone knows. We were fools to think we could hide it from people we see every single day.”

  “You think I would do something to deliberately hurt you? That I would side with Dave against you? We agreed that this meet was stupid and meaningless. Yet you’re brutally injured and you destroyed yourself out there so you could have the pleasure of beating me. What the hell is that? You think I’m worthless? You think you’re the only person who’s ever worked hard at anything?”

  “No, that’s not what this is about.” This conversation is getting out of control. I have to stop it, but it feels like an avalanche that’s about to bury us both. “And if it means nothing, why didn’t you tell me he’d put you in my event?”

  “It’s not your event! You don’t own it. And I didn’t tell you because I knew you would get all in your head about it. Why does everything always have to be about you? Your swimming, your dreams. I worked my ass off to be able to do what I did out there tonight. You saw that time. I earned it.”

  He’s right. And even now, I’m so proud of him. But I’ve spent the last few years telling myself the pain and exhaustion and fear were going to be worth it someday. What if they won’t? What if I was right that the only way I was going to get to the Olympics was to put aside everything else? When I decided to be with Harry, swimming stopped being the only thing that mattered. He told me that my swimming was more important to him than his own. Maybe we were fools to believe that.

  Devastated, I say, “I knew this would happen.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This is why I had rules, Harry. This is why I told you we couldn’t be together, why I couldn’t think or care about anyone or anything except swimming. Everything I worked for, everything I was trying so hard to do, it’s all ruined.”

  Harry’s face is a portrait of agony, like I’ve reached into his chest and torn his heart out. Like I’m holding that still-beating, bloody chunk of muscle in my hands. My own heart folds in on itself, crumpling like a sheet of wet paper. I want to take it all back, everything I said, but the words fell out of my mouth so thoughtlessly and there’s no cramming them back in now.

  “That has nothing to do with me and you know it,” he says.

  I suck air into my lungs, trying to calm down. My heart is racing and my body is shaking and my shoulder is throbbing. I feel like I’m about to fall completely to pieces.

  “I know,” I say. The anger has ebbed. All that’s left is the gritty silt of regret. “I’m just so sick of being a loser.”

  “You’re not a loser,” Harry says. His shoulders slump under the weight of everything we’ve dumped on each other tonight. He looks miserable. “You just lost. But you are being a real asshole. I love you, Susie, but I’m so fucking mad at you right now.”

  He walks away, disappearing behind a row of lockers.

  “Harry, wait,” I call after him, but he doesn’t come back, and when I get up to follow him my legs won’t hold me.

  I slide into a heap on the floor and press my face into my hands. I feel like a ship caught on a rocky shoal, half-drowned and wrecked and abandoned. I don’t know if my body can come back from this, but I’m certain that, after tonight, there’s no hope that Harry will ever forgive me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  49 days until US Olympic Team Trials

  HARRY WON’T ANSWER my calls. He won’t respond to my texts. I stay up all night, trying to get ahold of him and tumbling down a shame spiral. I can’t believe I said those awful things to him, that I blamed him for my problems, told him he was responsible for my struggles. In the morning, I drive over to his house and ring the bell—desperate to talk to him, to apologize, to beg for forgiveness.

  But there are no cars in the driveway, and nobody answers the door. I sit at the curb in my car for over an hour, hoping to catch one of the Matthewses coming home, or Harry leaving the house, but the windows are dark. At one point, I think I see a curtain ripple in Harry’s upstairs bedroom, but then I figure I must’ve imagined it.

  I fold my arms over the top of the steering wheel and rest my forehead in the crook of my elbow, fighting back panic. I can’t even cry. Terrified thoughts cycle through my mind on an endless loop: What if our fight did more than hurt his feelings? What if he’s not okay?

  The house is quiet when I get home. Dad is at the restaurant, helping Miguel prep for the dinner rush, and Mom is in class. Nina, I assume, is still asleep, but as I trudge up the stairs I hear voices coming from her bedroom. I assume she has a friend over, or even a new boyfriend, but then I recognize one of the voices: Amber.

  Maybe she’s here to check on me after all the drama of last night. Harry and I were alone in that locker room, and I refused to talk to anyone about it after, but I’m sure people standing near the door could hear us. It’s no secret to anyone on the team that we had a massive fight.

  But there’s only one person I want to see right now, one person I want to talk to about what happened between Harry and me, and I can’t get through to him.

  Nina’s door is partially closed. I knock, then nudge it open. I’m not at all prepared for what I see.

  Amber. And Nina. One of my best friends, and my sister, making out on Nina’s bed.

  I take a step back and turn my head, shouting, “Sorry!” Then I hurry across the hallway to my room and slam the door. I was so startled by the sight of Amber and Nina kissing that I’m breathless. Talk about a surprise.

  I’ve known Amber for as long as I’ve been at GAC, and she told me she was gay as soon as she’d figured it out herself. That was when I realized that we were truly friends—not just teammates, or acquaintances, but real friends, the kind who trust and confide in each other. Now, of course, everyone knows. She’s been out since we started high school.

  But Nina! As long as she’s been old enough to have crushes or be attracted to people, it’s always been boys, or at least I think it has
. Now I feel stupid for assuming. She’s only ever brought boyfriends home, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t had girlfriends, too. Maybe she never invited them over or told us about them because she didn’t know how we’d react, what Mom and Dad and Bela and the rest of the family would think or do if they found out she wasn’t straight.

  Something else occurs to me: this is not the first time they’ve done this. What I saw of that kiss tells me they’ve had some practice. Which means they’ve been together for at least a few weeks, if not longer, and I didn’t even notice. I’ve been so focused on swimming and Harry that I missed something that was probably right in front of me.

  For some reason, it’s this, not the situation with Harry, that moves me to tears. It’s a comfort to cry. It reminds me I’m not completely broken inside.

  There’s a knock at the door. “Susannah?” Amber calls. “Can we come in?”

  “Yeah,” I say wetly, wiping my face. The door creaks open, but Nina and Amber stay in the hallway, looking at me warily. “I thought you were coming in?”

  Amber exhales and forces a smile. “We weren’t sure if...how you were feeling, you know. About what you saw?”

  A fresh wave of tears bursts out of me. Nina rushes over and puts her arms around me, hugging me in a way she hasn’t in years. “What’s wrong?” she asks, brushing the hair out of my face.

  “I don’t know,” I sob, pressing my face into her shoulder. She rubs my back and shushes me softly. I don’t think Nina has ever been this gentle with me. It only makes me want to hold on tighter.

  The room is silent except for my sniffling. Then Amber starts laughing. I lift my head, blinking at her for a few seconds, trying to see the humor. Then it hits me how melodramatic and silly this is, and I start to laugh, too. Nina joins in, and then we’re all laughing. Before I know it, my tears have dried up.

  Nina hands me a tissue. “Wipe your nose, Booger,” she says. She glances at Amber. “Susannah always had the runniest nose as a kid.”

  I blow my nose a few times. “So, what is happening?” I ask Amber. “Don’t tell me I walked in on you helping her run lines for the play.”

  Amber shakes her head. “We’re...” She shoots Nina a look. “Hey, we haven’t really discussed what we are, have we?”

  “Not as of this exact moment, no,” Nina replies. “But I guess, if I had to define it without any prior conversations with Amber...”

  “Yes?” Amber and I ask.

  Nina shrugs. “I guess I’d say we’re together. Like, girlfriend and girlfriend. Is that what you were thinking?” she asks Amber, whose face-splitting grin is confirmation enough.

  “Since when?” I ask.

  “Around Christmas,” Nina confesses. My eyes practically bug out of my head. That’s almost five months! Harry and I haven’t been together much longer than that. “It was, um, you know, casual at first but I think we like each other.”

  Amber’s eyebrows shoot up. “You think?”

  “She broke up with her boyfriend,” Nina says. “I’m trying not to rub it in.”

  I jerk away from Nina. “I can hear you, you know. And we didn’t break up. We had a fight. Harry and I—we’re not something that just ends.”

  Nina and Amber exchange a look I can’t interpret. It’s like they have some information I don’t.

  I gesture between them. “What’s this? What’s happening?”

  “Amber, didn’t you have something you wanted to talk to Susannah about?” Nina asks, bouncing off my bed and over to the door before I can blink.

  “Now is not the time,” Amber tells her through gritted teeth.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Amber says with a breezy, dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s nothing. It can wait.”

  “It’s actually not nothing, and it can’t wait,” Nina says. “Tell her. She’ll find out on Monday, anyway.” She gives Amber an encouraging kiss on the cheek. “I’ll talk to you guys later.”

  “What—” I start to say.

  “And, Susannah?” Nina cuts me off, pointing her finger at me. “No telling Mom and Dad about me and Amber. I’ll be the one to tell them, got it?”

  “When exactly will that be?” I ask.

  “Yeah, when exactly will that be?” Amber asks.

  “Tonight,” Nina says with a smile. She taps her temple. “I’ve got it all worked out.”

  She leaves, closing the door behind her. Amber and I are alone. My eyes are puffy and red, I’m sure; they ache and burn from all the crying. Amber takes my hand and squeezes.

  “I’m sorry for lying to you about Nina,” she says.

  I shake my head. “You didn’t lie. I never asked. And you don’t owe me an explanation. Of all people, I get that there might be reasons to be private about a relationship. I was shocked, is all.”

  “You burst out crying!”

  “It wasn’t about that.” I close my eyes, pinching them shut, trying to push aside the memory of Harry’s face as I hurled accusations at him. “I miss Harry.”

  “Have you talked to him since last night?”

  “No, he won’t pick up when I call or text me back. I tried going over to his house but he’s either not there or not answering the door. We’ve never had a fight like this before,” I tell her. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make this better.”

  “He adores you,” Amber assures me. “But you hurt him. Give him time to cool off.”

  “I hope that’s all it is,” I say, but I can’t tell her about my worst fears, that Harry’s bipolar disorder might affect how he reacts to all this. It’s not my right to share.

  “If Harry’s half as devastated as you are about this fight, I predict he’ll be blowing your phone up in no time, begging to see you,” Amber says. I give her a small, watery smile.

  It’s a relief to be with someone who knows and cares about me, who doesn’t give a shit what I look like or what I swim like or what I said last night to my boyfriend. In the many years since we met, Amber and Jessa and I have been a trio, so I’ve always thought of everything as equal, no relationship stronger or closer than the others. But the truth is that Amber has always been the best of us, and the person I trusted most before Harry came along. I’m lucky to have her in my life.

  I press my face into her shoulder. “I hate feelings.”

  “I know,” she says, patting my head. “You just want to be one of Dave’s heartless robots.”

  “I don’t,” I insist. “I’d rather have my heart broken than pretend I don’t have one at all.”

  She pulls back, eyebrows raised. “Wow,” she says, “look who’s growing.”

  “Okay, enough. I’m sick of talking and thinking about myself. What did you want to tell me?”

  Amber’s expression changes. One minute, her face is open and sympathetic, and the next she looks closed off and nervous, even a bit scared. We’re sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing each other. I nudge her, trying to get her to look at me, but she’s staring over my shoulder with obvious discomfort.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask her. “Did something bad happen?”

  “No, something good,” Amber says, swallowing hard. “I’m quitting GAC. Actually, I’m quitting swimming. Entirely. As of today.”

  It’s like I’ve taken a cannonball to the stomach. This is the last thing I expected her to say. Amber has been swimming competitively longer than I have. She’s one of the best swimmers at GAC, not to mention one of the only girls of color on the team besides me. She can’t quit.

  “Is this because of Nina?” I ask, feeling all the old resentment left over from when my sister quit GAC bubbling to the surface. This is my experience: I’m close to people, then they stop swimming, and we aren’t close anymore. I don’t want that to happen with Amber. She’s too important to me.

  “N
ina has nothing to do with this,” Amber says. “In fact, your sister’s the reason I haven’t quit already. She told me to give the sport a chance to convince me to stay before making any final decisions. I think she misses it.”

  “So why are you quitting?”

  “Is this really such a surprise to you?” Amber asks. “I thought it was obvious. It’s all I’ve been able to think about this year, how much I want to be done with GAC.”

  “I had no idea,” I tell her. But snippets of conversations we’ve had start floating back to me: If a girl I was into liked me back, I’d quit GAC tomorrow... Don’t you care about qualifying for Trials? Not really... Did you consider quitting? After you tore your shoulder? I think about it, sometimes...

  She’s been trying to tell me for months—the entire season—but I wasn’t paying attention.

  Amber chews her thumbnail. “Swimming doesn’t make me happy anymore. It hasn’t for a long time. But I wasn’t sure I was ready until yesterday, when I realized it might be bad for me.”

  Her eyes meet mine. “The way Dave treated you and Harry was atrocious. Manipulating you like that, lording his authority over you, playing God with your lives and careers. You could see on his face how much he enjoyed making you both squirm. He hurt you to watch you hurt, even though there was a very real chance you could aggravate your actual physical injury. I don’t want anyone to have that kind of power over me.

  “Plus,” she concludes with a shrug, “there are other things I want to do with my time.”

  “Like hang out with Nina?” I envy her. I wouldn’t be in this situation with Harry right now if I’d put our relationship before my own pride. I don’t think I could ever give up swimming for him, but I wish I could go back and make some different choices.

  “Partly,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to be in the color guard, ever since my cousin Steph joined when she was in high school. And I’m thinking about trying out for the fall play.”