by Mia Archer
“They’re going to be calling me up soon for my event,” Alyssa said.
I glanced down the length of the pool. They were running the meet in standard order and that meant the butterfly was near the top of the meet. I’d always liked that because it meant that I could get my main event out of the way at the beginning and not worry about being exhausted for it if it was near the end or something. I always felt bad for people doing the breast stroke or the 400 freestyle relay at the very end of a meet. It had to be a pain to try and stay on the top of your game when you’d already been in a couple of races.
“That they are,” I said. “You ready to go win this thing?”
“I think I am,” she said.
It still amazed me that there could be enough girls competing at this thing that they could fill every lane. Then again this was everyone in the state. Even as I watched a starter beeped and a bunch of girls launched off down the entire length of the pool in unison as they dove into the water hoping for a bit of glory. Though that glory would only go to one girl. Boy had I learned that one the hard way recently.
Alyssa looked up into the stands and waved. I turned to follow her gaze to where her parents were sitting looking down at her. Her dad had a smile on his face and he returned the wave, but her mom had her arms crossed and looked like she’d just swallowed a bad pill or something.
Alyssa’s coach had sent both of them packing after her mom tried to give her swimming advice for about the tenth time since I got down here. Apparently if there was going to be anyone doing any coaching down here it was the person who had the job title and not her mom hovering over her and being a nuisance.
I got to stay because I wasn’t getting in the way. I’d tried my best not to fix her mom with a triumphant smile as the coach told her in no uncertain terms that she needed to get lost.
Leaving just the two of us alone down here. Almost alone. Sure we were surrounded on all sides by people getting ready for their own event, but for some reason it felt like it was just the two of us. I looked up at the big board announcing all the times. The current race came to an end. Just one more before they got to Alyssa’s.
“Looks like it’s time to get ready,” she said. “You going to help me out?”
I glanced over at her and cocked an eyebrow. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. It’s not like I could get in the pool and swim with her or something. Swimming might have all the trappings of a team sport, but at the end of the day it was all about the individual testing themselves against a bunch of other individuals and there could be only one who came out on top.
I saw the bottle of baby oil in her hand and it suddenly hit me what she was talking about. I’m not sure why I forgot it. The smell of the stuff permeated the side of the pool as girls walked around slick with oil as they got ready for their event. It was a tradition at sectionals, and I guess that meant it was also something that happened at the state level.
I licked my lips and stared at that bottle. That’s what she wanted help with. Putting on oil before she got into the pool. Supposedly the oil pushed out against the water and gave someone an extra advantage of maybe a fraction of a second. Sort of like people who went through and shaved every part of their body, including their eyebrows, for sectionals.
Which I always thought was ridiculous since no amount of shaving was going to shave off enough seconds for most people to be anywhere close to competitive. The time to worry about those extra seconds was years ago when the person decided not to put in the work they needed to get better, but I never voiced those thoughts since people who didn’t put in the work to get better typically didn’t like having that pointed out by someone who had.
“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “I mean it’s not like that stuff even really works.”
Alyssa shrugged. “Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. I figure this is the state competition. I should probably try for every advantage I can, right?”
I sighed. “Yeah, I suppose you are right.”
Alyssa held out the bottle and squeezed some oil onto my hand. She had no idea what she was doing to me by squeezing that out. How crazy I was going at the thought of putting my hands on her. Sure it was just on the exposed parts of her body. Arms, legs, all that stuff, but there was something about this that felt different from all the times I’d done it with the girls on my team.
I shivered as she turned around and pulled her hair up into a swim cap, exposing her back to me. The rubber from the swim cap snapped in place and I reached out to put the oil on her back.
Her skin felt nice. It was soft. Smooth. Hot. So very hot. I ran my hands over her back and the entire time I felt my breathing picking up. I felt a twisting in my stomach that I’d never felt before.
Not that I’d really dated, but I’d also never felt something this intense looking at a guy even though I knew I was supposed to feel like this looking at guys. Not girls. Not a girl who’d been enemy number one for the majority of my swimming career.
My brain went into autopilot as I ran my hands over her back and down her arms. When I was done with that she turned and smiled. Her entire upper body glistened with the baby oil and I felt an urge to do more than run my hands over her arms.
I fought that urge, of course. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, for one, and I was also pretty sure that would be a good way to get kicked out of the place entirely. Not to mention Alyssa’s mom would probably be waiting for me on the other side to kick my butt on top of everything else.
“Are you okay Sarah?” she asked.
I shook my head to pull myself out of the funk I’d gotten into. Was I okay? Yeah, I suppose, except for the fact that running my hands all over her body was making me question everything I thought I’d ever known about who I was into. Other than that everything was just peachy keen, though.
“I’m fine,” I lied. She seemed to sense the lie because she arched an eyebrow, but she didn’t say anything. There wasn’t any time. The race was going on and she didn’t have much time before she would be called up to take her spot on the starting block and win this damn thing.
She leaned down and started working on one leg. She was about halfway down, it was so very distracting watching her hands running up and down her leg like that slick with baby oil, when she looked up at me.
“Are you going to help down here?”
That smile. That sweet and innocent smile. As though she didn’t have any idea what she was doing to me with a simple look. With the promise of being able to run my hands all over her once more. Silently I got down in front of her and started working on her leg, and I tried to ignore how close we were to one another. How the baby oil combined with the smell of chlorine and some perfume Alyssa was wearing, to drive me absolutely wild.
It was torture, plain and simple. It was the most delicious torture possible, but it was still torture. Thankfully and unfortunately it was also torture that was over almost as quickly as it had started. Alyssa hopped up and smiled at me one final time.
“Well, this is it,” she said.
“This is it,” I said, my eyes running up and down her body. How had I never looked at her before and thought of her like this? She was like a toned goddess standing there in her one piece suit with her body slicked down with baby oil and that brand new suit clinging to her in all the right places. Even the swim cap seemed to add to her allure.
Her allure? I’m not sure why the hell I was thinking like that, but I did know that I sort of liked thinking like that even if it was crazy. It was like I’d suddenly discovered something with Alyssa that had been missing from my life and I’d never realized that lack until this moment.
Now that I knew what I’d been missing, though, it was hitting me like belly flopping into the water from a high dive. And it was made all the more complicated because I had no idea if she felt the same way.
Alyssa threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around me. I was so wrapped up in feeling her arms around me, in wrapping my own around her, t
hat I didn’t even care that she was probably getting baby oil all over me. Who was I kidding? It’s not like I was going to wash these clothes anyways now that they had that perfect combination of scent that was Alyssa tied to them.
“Thanks for coming out here,” she whispered. “You have no idea how much it means to me. I was so afraid of being out here all on my own.”
“Anything for you, Alyssa,” I whispered back.
That had a hell of a lot more meaning to it than I think Alyssa appreciated. It was silly. It was crazy. It didn’t make any sense, but I’d developed one heck of a girl crush on my former rival.
My former rival who pulled away from the hug and turned to make her way down to her spot for the race. She had an appointment with destiny, an appointment that should’ve been mine, and all I could do was stand at the end of her lane and cheer her on.
Suddenly I was a lot more okay with that than I’d been since I lost that race that sent her here and kept me by the sidelines.
6: Winners. Losers
Alyssa:
Okay Alyssa. This was it. This was the big moment. The thing I’d been training for my entire life. I should’ve been doing what I always did when I was getting ready for a big race. Looking at the starting stand. Envisioning what it would feel like to jump off the thing and have that moment where the water surrounded me. Imagine my body lifting out of the water as both arms sliced through and I did a dolphin kick that sent me flying through the pool.
I stared past the stand. To the other end of the lane. It was always a tradition that teammates would stand down there cheering you on, only I didn’t have any teammates here. I’d always felt like I got along with Coach Scott more than I got along with anyone on the team. They always looked at me weird. Probably because I was so good and they… weren’t.
Not like it was my fault. I worked hard. I had some natural talent. They’d rather sit around and chat. None of them went to practices two times a day. None of them had the dedication it took.
Not like Sarah. She understood me. Everything felt right with her. And there she was right now standing down at the end of the lane smiling, giving me a thumbs up, and providing the support that my other teammates never wanted to.
That made me feel warm inside. Warm and fuzzy. Nothing like the heat I felt when she was leaning down next to me and running her hands along my body putting on that baby oil. I’d been conflicted when I asked her to help. I wasn’t even sure what I was expecting, let alone how she’d reacted.
I knew that once I’d felt her hands running along my back and down my arms it took every bit of self control I had to avoid shivering or maybe even letting out a gasp. That felt good. Really good. It set my body on fire and I was still coming down from that high.
It was pretty much exactly the opposite of what I should’ve been concentrating on as the official let off an electronic beep that signaled it was time to step up onto the block. I forced myself to look down at the water. To concentrate on the race that was about to happen. I had this. I could do it. I was going to break a record in this pool and I was going to be the state champion. No one else was close to being as fast as me.
This was my moment.
I looked up at Sarah at the other end of the pool one final time. This could have been her moment. Half a second was the only difference between us switching places, though would I even be down there if the situation had been reversed? Would I have given it a second thought? Would we have shared that moment at sectionals if I was the one who lost?
I wasn’t sure, but I was glad she was here now.
“Swimmers. Step up!”
I moved towards the starting block, and as I did I suddenly felt a little funny. I felt light in the head. It was something that happened every once in awhile after I’d really exerted myself in a tough race, but it had never happened before a race.
No. This shouldn’t be happening now. This couldn’t be happening now. I stood for a moment while the natatorium spun around me and put a hand to my head. Only just as quickly as it hit it was gone and I climbed onto the block, praying that it didn’t happen again and send me tumbling off the block into the water prematurely.
That would’ve been embarrassing.
“Swimmers. Take your mark!”
The amplified voice echoed over the natatorium and the cheering crowds behind us went absolutely silent for a moment. I let out a breath as I waited for that moment. This was always the most difficult part of a race for me. Knowing that the beep was coming. Feeling my body hopped up on adrenaline and anticipation. Worrying that I might hear something that I thought was the beep and disqualify myself with a false start. It had never happened before, but the worry was always there when I stood up here.
The beep. My body reacted on instinct. I threw myself forward into the water.
Training took over. My body went on instinct as I threw my arms forward and rocketed out of the water. It still amazed me that I was able to do this at all, let alone do it fast enough that I stood a chance at winning a state title. Still, I went on autopilot and threw myself into the race. Everything else was forgotten as I sliced through the water.
Almost everything, at least. One interesting side effect of doing the butterfly stroke was that it pulled my head completely out of the water for a fraction of a second every time both of my arms sliced through the water and pulled me out. It wasn’t like the crawl stroke where someone was essentially swimming blind the entire time.
And every time I pulled out of the water I saw her there cheering me on. Screaming at the top of her lungs. Sarah. She looked so pretty even when she was screaming and looked almost angry.
That wasn’t anger though. She was cheering for me. Cheering for both of us. This was for both of us. We were in this together. We’d both worked so hard for this moment even if it could only be one of us competing.
Knowing she was there only increased my determination. I hit the wall and flipped around. Sliced through the water as the world went silent around me while I did a dolphin kick and came up to the sound of people screaming. The second length. Out of the water. Screams echoing through the natatorium. Screams for girls who were going to lose this race because I was in the water and I was the fucking champion, my friends, and they’d all be losing in the end.
Oh yeah. This was mine. I hit the wall by the starting block and did another flip, only this time the flip came with a bit of that lightheadedness. Damn it. Not now. I did not need this right now. This was quite possibly the worst fucking time for something like that to happen. I growled as I plunged into the water and fought it back. Caught a glimpse of Sarah yelling and then turning away. I had a feeling she’d be sprinting around the pool to meet me on the other end.
This was it. This was the moment of truth. The last twenty-five yards of my high school swimming career. The culminating moment of years of effort. Years of working. It all came down to this, and I knew I was the best. I couldn’t see the other girls, but I knew instinctively that I was ahead of them.
This was my moment. This was it. Halfway down the length. So close.
It hit me like a massive wave rolling over me all at once. A sense of dizziness coupled with fatigue and exhaustion that was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. It was so much more powerful than anything I’d felt after a race, and it took me a moment to adjust myself. I actually flailed in the water for a moment and had to give a couple of scissor kicks before I managed to right myself and get back into the groove that I’d had so many times before.
Even then it was difficult. I felt like I was swimming through molasses, not water. I had to struggle to get my arms over my head. I had to labor for each breath. All I wanted to do was curl up and take a nap. I wanted to puke from the way the world was spinning around me, and it was training more than anything else that kept me going until that last moment when I hit the pad and recorded my time.
My head shot up and I immediately regretted it. The world that had been spinning under water was even worse w
hen it was spinning around me in the open air. The cheering crowd dulled and grew louder as stars danced in front of my vision and the whole world spun, and then everything came into focus and I looked up at the timer.
I’d done it. I was the first one in. By a good five seconds. In the space it took for that episode to come and pass the second girl hit the wall.
I felt dizzy. I felt incredible. I felt like I was on top of the world. I moved to pull myself out of the water and I nearly fell off to the side again because the world went spinning again. Damn it. What the hell was wrong with me? Though at least this was sort of normal. This always usually happened at the end of a race, not in the middle of it. This I could deal with.
I felt a hand wrap around my arm and pull me the rest of the way out of the pool with surprising strength. I looked up to see Sarah staring down at me with worry plain on her face.
“Are you okay Alyssa? Something looked really wrong there near the end,” she said.
I hung my head. Concentrated on breathing for a moment. I could deal with her concern in a minute. She wouldn’t be the first person to notice that I got a little woozy after a race, and I’d managed to convince those people up to and including Coach Scott that everything was fine so I didn’t see why she would be any different.
I finally caught my breath. The pounding in my heart went down. The room stopped spinning. I stood and almost managed to take a step without wobbling. Too much. As always I felt a stab of fear when this happened, but I knew that fear would go away as soon as this feeling went away. It was just something that happened when I pushed myself too hard. That was all. I was young and it’s not like I’d ever had any major issues.
I told myself it’s just how my body worked. I almost believed it, too.
“Alyssa?” Coach Scott was there next to me. “What happened out there? It seemed like you…”
“She was a little wobbly when she got out of the pool,” Sarah said.
“Come on Alyssa,” Coach Scott said, putting an arm around mine. “We should get you over to the nurse they have here to check you out.”