Breath Like Water

by Anna Jarzab

  It’s miserable, sometimes. I don’t think I realized that until today, when I arrive at the natatorium around five a.m. and the sun is already starting to paint the sky with rosy fingers, reflecting off the green glass surrounding the pool deck, beautiful and bright. Practice doesn’t start for another half hour, and mine is the only car in the lot besides Dave’s.

  In another universe, he wouldn’t be here. He would have a swimmer in the Olympics. He’d be halfway across the world. But Jessa failed to make the team, and so did the handful of other GAC swimmers who competed in Trials. Mine isn’t the only dream that shattered on the deck of that pool.

  The lobby doors are already open. I slip in as quietly as possible, but my footsteps echo in the stillness. School doesn’t start for another month, and the place seems sterile and lifeless without the voices of the other swimmers, who are just now rolling over in their beds and shutting off their alarms.

  Everything feels different this morning—or maybe it’s me who is different. Yesterday with Harry was something I didn’t see coming, and I’m still reeling from the surprise and pleasure of it all. All night, I held tight to the glow of being with him again, and pushed back the sadness of knowing it’s really, truly over.

  But when I woke up, it wasn’t the loss of him that crushed me—it was the stark reality of what I’m about to do. I’m still not one hundred percent sure I have the courage to pull it off.

  I wonder how school will be this year, now that everything has changed. No Nina, who graduated in June and is off to college in the fall. No Harry, who won’t be coming back—he’s studying for his GED and is going to enroll in community college once he has it. I probably won’t even talk to Tucker in the hallways, now that our common ground is gone.

  At least I’ll have Amber, but she’s got big plans for herself this year, and I don’t know how much I’ll see her.

  And then there’s GAC. To me, this place has always been a natatorium that happened to have a school attached and not the other way around. For the past two years, I’ve spent every lunch period in the commons on the other side of the pool’s observation windows. I’ll have to find somewhere else to eat now, but the pool won’t be easily avoided, centrally located as it is. And most of my teammates still go to school here. Every one of them will be a reminder.

  In the locker room, most of the lights are off, but I could navigate the labyrinth of locker bays and benches, stalls and showers blind. Out of habit, I take off my shoes when I reach the pool deck. The tile is cool beneath my feet as I walk along the length of the pool. This place is as familiar to me as the house I’ve lived in all my life, but with some effort I can see it the way it looked when it was new to me, cavernous and grand.

  I sit on the block in front of lane five and let my legs dangle as I switch back and forth between the two perspectives. When I joined GAC, the natatorium was newly built, and it has always looked state of the art to me, but now I can see there are spots of rust on the blocks and paint peeling in places, stains on the grout and fingerprints on the windows. And yet, when I go back to the view from the past, I see a palace crafted with great cost and care for princes and princesses of the pool. Always, at the edge of my vision, she is there, haunting every corner of this place. The old me. Who I so badly let down.

  My toes touch the surface of the water, troubling it with little ripples. I didn’t expect to be alone for long, but I still jump at the sound of Dave clearing his throat nearby.

  He strolls over and puts one foot up on the block two lanes over.

  “You’re early,” he says. “And you’re not dressed.”

  I look down at my T-shirt and jeans.

  “You know what I mean,” he says. “Suit up. You can help me with the lane lines.”

  “I’m not staying,” I say. He flinches slightly, but he doesn’t look surprised.

  “You’re quitting GAC?” he asks coolly. “I thought you might. Easier to blame the club.”

  “I’m retiring,” I tell him.

  “No, you’re not,” he snaps. “You want to make a gesture or have a tantrum, throw your favorite toy on the ground? Go ahead. You won’t be the first and you certainly won’t be the last. But you’re not quitting swimming. Swimming is the only thing you’ve ever loved.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I say quietly, and in my head, I hear Harry telling me I’m brave. Even if he’s giving me too much credit, I believe I’m brave enough to do this.

  “What, Matthews? How did that work out for you?”

  “Great talk, Dave,” I say, sliding off the block. The boldness it takes to mouth off to him leaves me light-headed.

  “Wait, stop,” he says suddenly, stepping in my path. “You shouldn’t quit.”

  “Congratulations. You’ve convinced me,” I say flatly.

  “Knock it off with the sarcasm. It’s not your style.” He looks me dead in the eye. “You’ve never given up. Not even when you probably should have. And that took you a long way. Further than some swimmers, better swimmers, ever go.”

  “It doesn’t make me happy anymore,” I tell him. “It hasn’t for a really long time. I was just too stubborn and afraid to quit. But I’m trying to do a better job of taking care of myself, so I can take care of other people, too.”

  “Swimming isn’t supposed to make you happy,” he says dismissively. “It’s supposed to make you someone people respect and admire. It’s supposed to make you a winner.”

  “People already respect and admire me,” I say, thinking of Mom’s speech, and Joan, and Beth—and Harry, who always believed in me. “And there are more important things than winning.”

  “You know, at Trials, I started to believe I was wrong about you,” Dave says. “Even though we didn’t get what we wanted, you still placed seventh in the country, against some of the best swimmers in the world. You should be proud. I was. But maybe I was right, after all. You don’t have what it takes. Not in the pool.” He taps his temple. “Up here.”

  “If you’re going to insult me, I have other places to be,” I tell him. My interview at the animal shelter is this afternoon. I scheduled it knowing how hard it would be to walk away toward nothing.

  But I also have an eleven o’clock appointment with my therapist. I’m nervous as hell—the last thing I want to do is keep revisiting all this misery at the exact moment I’m leaving it behind. But maybe this is the best time to do it, even though it will be hard.

  Dave goes on as if I haven’t spoken. “A little more luck and you could’ve made it to the Olympics. It could’ve been you on that podium with gold around your neck. And in four years, it just might be you. You’ve got a heart of steel, Susannah. Most people can’t take the disappointment you’ve suffered and still go on but you did. Don’t throw it away now on a fit of teenage...” He pauses, searching for the word. “Pique!”

  “I don’t care about that anymore,” I say. “It was a beautiful dream, but now it’s time to wake up. I built my life around it and let everything else deteriorate. I want to be a healthy person with a full life, and this—” I fling my hand out to indicate the pool, GAC, the whole sport “—makes that impossible. At least, it does for me.”

  He raises his eyebrows at me. “You think so?” he asks. “I think swimming saved you. Two years ago, you were drowning. And if you’d stopped then, you never would’ve discovered what you were capable of. Just because something is hard and requires sacrifices doesn’t mean it isn’t good for you. Just because a dream won’t bend to your will when it’s convenient doesn’t mean it’s not worth pursuing. Look how close you came. Nobody could’ve predicted that, not even me.”

  “Not even you, huh?”

  “You were slow, and now you’re fast. A little gratitude would be nice.”

  “That wasn’t you,” I say. “That was Beth. You’re just the monster under my bed.”

  Dave shrugs. Unkind words and accus
ations bounce off him like he’s made of rubber. He’s too arrogant and conceited to bother feeling insulted. “Don’t forget, I hired her, and I did it for you.”

  I’m not surprised Dave’s trying to talk me out of quitting, but I am shocked he would say this. “That’s not even true.”

  “I could see you and I weren’t working anymore, so I thought a new coach with a different approach might jostle you out of your complacency long enough to make some improvements,” Dave says. “And would you look at that? It did.”

  I stare at him, openmouthed. “You fired her.”

  “Well, I didn’t know that was going to happen at the beginning, but I can’t think only of you when I make personnel decisions,” Dave says. “I thought I could have someone on my staff who didn’t think like me, but it turns out I can’t. Where’s my credit for trying?”

  My hands ball into fists and I dig my fingernails into my palms. “You couldn’t have waited another two weeks?”

  “She was there in the end,” he says. “Don’t go blaming that loss on me. Beth might’ve made you fast again, but I made you tough. Tough enough to keep going, even when it felt impossible.”

  I look away, toward the water. Am I tough? Maybe I was before, but now I don’t think so. The hot pain of everything that happened this year has melted the steel in me that Dave claims to admire. But steel can be recast.

  “You crushed me,” I say, not on my own behalf but that of my younger self. The one I keep seeing in the corners of this place, the one who believed this pool was home. The one he promised to make an Olympian, and then abandoned.

  “I created you,” Dave says. “But there’s still a lot left to do. Go get dressed, and we’ll forget this conversation ever happened.”

  “You think that’s all it’s going to take? I’m not thirteen anymore, Dave. I’m not going to let you tear me down with bullshit backhanded compliments.” I laugh, amazed I let him tell me who I was for so long. “I’m done swimming. But even if I wasn’t, I’d be done swimming here. Get out of my way.”

  Dave raises his hands in mock-surrender, stepping aside as I pass him. Even though I know it’s the right thing to do, my heart cramps at the thought of walking away from this part of my life. But I’m proud of myself for standing up to him, and getting the last word.

  I should’ve known he wouldn’t let me. When I’m almost at the locker room, he calls out, “Maybe you don’t like my methods. Maybe you think I’m too demanding, too mean. But I’m not the monster under your bed, Susannah. You are.”

  * * *

  I rush out of the natatorium with Dave’s final words ringing in my ears. I feel like I’m running away in fear instead of striding off into the sunset (sunrise actually) with dignity. I force myself to slow down, to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Cars are starting to pull into the parking lot, mothers and fathers, like my own parents, who’ve been making this early-morning drive for years just so their kids could have a shot at the shot I had. The shot I missed.

  That’s not true, I remind myself. There are other reasons people swim that have nothing to do with the Olympics. Harry came here every day, not to win, but to work out, and maybe make some friends. That’s why Amber came—for the camaraderie, the teamwork, the fun. Swimming is fun. Somewhere along the line, I forgot that, or at least stopped seeing it.

  My teammates shoot me confused looks, but I just smile back.

  “You’re going the wrong way!” Avik calls as he jogs past. I wave and continue toward the car.

  When I open the driver’s side door, Nina opens her eyes midsnore. She dozed off waiting for me; she’s not used to being up this early. I ran into her on the way to the bathroom this morning as I was heading out. I wasn’t going to ask her to come. I thought I should do this alone, but then I remembered that she was with me on my first day of GAC, because it was her first day, too, and I thought I should at least tell her what I was planning to do. She insisted on riding with me.

  You might want to talk about it after, was her only explanation for wanting to drive to her old high school with her kid sister long before dawn. My heart swells with tenderness as she rubs her eyes and asks, “Is it done?”

  I nod, sliding behind the wheel.

  “How’d Dave take it?”

  I shrug.

  “Did he kidnap the real Susannah and replace her with a mute cyborg?” Nina asks with a yawn. “That sounds like something he’d do.”

  I smile. “He’ll be fine.”

  Nina laughs. “I’m sure he will. And how about you? How do you feel?”

  I take a deep breath and grip the steering wheel, then shift the gear into Drive.

  “I feel ready,” I tell her, pulling out of the parking spot and angling the car toward home. “For whatever comes next.”

  EPILOGUE

  829 days until US Olympic Team Trials

  NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships

  Indianapolis, Indiana

  Women’s 200m Intermediate Medley Finals

  THE WATER IS BREATHING. At least, that’s how it seems. I’ve always imagined it as a living thing—benevolent and obedient and faithful. A gentle beast at first, like a pony, but over time something faster. A thoroughbred, maybe. A cheetah sprinting across a flat, grassy plain.

  But there’s nothing tame about the water. It can’t be conquered. If anything, it’s a dragon, a wild thing you’ve got to hold on to by its scales. If you want to ride it, you have to surrender.

  I blink and everything around me comes to a standstill, like I’ve stopped time through sheer will. A light breeze tickles the leaves on the trees outside the natatorium and the sky is a bright, can’t-look-directly-at-it blue, no clouds. The people I love are waiting to cheer me on from the stands. In a way, it’s like Worlds five years ago. I’m homesick and nervous and ready. More than anything, I’m ready. For whatever comes next.

  It’s not five years ago, and it’s not Worlds. It’s not Trials, either. Still, this feels like a homecoming. I paid a heavy price to be here, but here I am, alive to the tenth power. Resurrected.

  The world speeds up. The coaches clump together in their bullpen. I catch sight of my own coach and she sees me, too. She smiles at me and nods. We’ve talked about this race. We have a strategy. All that’s left for me to do is execute it flawlessly. The pressure bears down, but it won’t crush me. The steel in my heart has found a new home in my spine.

  If someone had told me after I quit swimming that three years later I would find myself approaching the block at the NCAA Championships, I would’ve told them there was no way in hell. I said I was done, and I believed it.

  I spent my junior year of high school doing all the things I missed out on while swimming: hanging with friends, volunteering at the animal shelter, working with Dad at the restaurant, studying alongside Mom and helping her prep for family parties, watching TV alone on the couch with a bowl of popcorn on a Thursday night. I even said yes when a boy from my English class asked me to prom.

  So when Beth called, I didn’t think much of it. We’d been in touch on and off after Trials, and I knew she was in the running for the head coach job at a club in a nearby suburb. I thought she might be looking for advice, although I couldn’t fathom why. Instead, she told me she’d been offered the job, that she’d taken it—and that she wanted me to consider coming to swim for her.

  I told her no, a knee-jerk reaction, and she didn’t press me. But then I did consider it. I considered it a lot. And the more I imagined getting back in the pool, the more I realized that while I loved my life the way it was, I missed my sport. Intrigued by the possibility of swimming again, but still not convinced, I drove to her facility and told her I was there to show her how slow I’d become.

  “You won’t want to coach me after you time me,” I said. She smiled and said to get in the pool. If I hadn’t been in the water when she told
me the time on my 200 IM, I would’ve fallen over. It was much faster than I thought it would be. Our eyes met, and we both knew—I had to come back.

  My only condition was that neither of us could discuss the Olympics. I didn’t come back for that. I came back in the hopes of getting a scholarship to a good university. For the exercise. To flex the competitive spirit in me that hadn’t seen a challenge greater than family game night in a year. But mostly, I came back because I love to swim. And not a moment too soon. I did get that scholarship, at a school with a coach whose training philosophy is similar to Beth’s. It’s why I’m here now.

  Father Bob was right—failure is an intersection, but even though I took a detour for a while, I ended up on a better stretch of the same road. Most of the time, I’m happy I did. My career, like all things, has an expiration date. I hope it’s far off in the future, but when it comes, at least I’ll know I gave it everything I had.

  I put my race face on and try not to look like I want to throw up. I bend forward and grab my toes to stretch out my back, then wheel my arms to test my shoulders—no pain. The other swimmers stare at the water, like they’ve left their bodies altogether, but they’ve just retreated into the corners of their minds to be alone in the midst of all this chaos.

  My mind has the same hidden corner, but I’m too distracted to go there today. Instead, I scan the crowd, looking for a familiar face among the hundreds that have turned out to watch this race.

  When my cap snapped back in the ready room, I fought the urge to see it as a bad sign. That was a GAC superstition, and GAC is far behind me now. Besides, I have plenty more, at least five blue-and-gold caps printed with my university’s logo and my last name in my bag.

  As I rummaged around for a spare, my hand closed around something squishy. When I pulled out the rubber duck, my breath caught in my throat. There was only one person it could be from, but I packed this bag last night and it wasn’t in there.