I nodded. “It will be cold, but studies have shown that swimming in colder temperatures can have excellent benefits for both your body and your mind: it lowers stress levels, and …” I paused to stroke my thumb across her cheek, back and forth, until some of the haunted look in her eyes faded. “After yesterday, I think we could both use some stress reduction, don’t you?”
She visibly swallowed. “I can think of much better ways to reduce stress,” she murmured, a hint of cheeky Ri peeking through that tight expression on her face. She stuck her bottom lip out in the most adorable pout I’d ever seen. “Could we go back home and try my way first?”
I choked on a laugh, my heart racing. Did she realise how hard I found it to deny her? I’d never felt a pull towards anyone as strongly as I did with her. She was still mostly a mystery to me, but I thought I would do anything to unravel her. In every sense of the word.
You can’t, Henry. It’s against the rules.
“Come on. You can do this. We need somewhere new to swim, anyway. Think of this as us interviewing Icebergs to be our new training facility.”
“Could we not interview a nice, warm indoor pool?” she complained, her voice shook, but she cracked her door open.
“If you don’t like this one, I promise we’ll try the warmest, most indoors-y pool you can imagine next time.” I clambered out of the car, racing around to open her door for her. She reluctantly climbed out, staring pensively at the ocean, the waves hushing onto the shore, the breeze fluttering strands of her ponytail across her face.
“No one’s swimming at the beach today,” she remarked, rubbing at her arms. “That wind is chilly.”
“You won’t feel the breeze once we’re in the water. Come on.” I reached into the back seat and tugged out our swim bags, shouldering both before winding my fingers through hers and heading along the sidewalk in the direction of the ocean pool.
She was oddly silent on the way down, but I tried not to overthink that. Once we got into the water, she’d see this place how I saw it. She’d feel how invigorating the cold water was, how the fresh oceanair was so much better than the cloying heat of an indoor swim centre.
“I can’t,” she whispered, dunking a toe in at the top of the steps and wincing. “Henry, it’s too cold, I can’t do it!”
“Watch me first,” I cajoled, striding down the steps. I faltered for a split second when the water hit my groin, biting back a hiss as my testicles retracted inside my body. But I couldn’t let her see that. I pushed past it until I was standing waist deep. I turned back to her.
Ri’s face was practically grey, her lips a thin line. She stared at the surface of the water like it was a malevolent thing ready to reach out and drag her to her death. This wasn’t just about the cold. My heart lurched as I mounted the steps to return to her. The breeze prickled my damp skin.
“Hey,” I murmured, taking her fingers in mine. Hers were icy despite being untouched by the cold water. “Tell me what’s worrying you.”
She sucked in a ragged breath, tilting her head back to the sky. “I … I just don’t like cold water,” she mumbled, but to my horror, a tear tracked its way down her pretty cheek.
I longed to drag her into my arms, to hold her, to let her have these feelings, even if she never wanted to explain them to me. But I was cold and wet, and I knew better than most that sensory input right now, especially when it would closely resemble the thing she feared, was the last thing she needed.
I leapt the last two steps from the pool and raced to our bags, left on the nearby bleachers, grabbing the fluffier of the two towels. Returning, I wrapped it snugly around her. I didn’t speak. I just held her, with the towel a barrier between my wet skin and her goosebumps.
Sometimes, being held with no expectation to speak, to explain, to verbalise an emotion that words couldn’t describe, was exactly what I needed. I hoped it was the same for her too.
The stiffness in her eased slightly, and she leaned into me, her forehead dropping against my sternum.
“I … I’ve never told anyone this, before,” she confessed, her breath misting on my skin. “There was a river …isa river that runs through the property I grew up on.”
I kept very still, too scared that any move I made might change her mind about whatever piece of her she was going to let me have.
“I was six, and hadn’t learnt how to swim, when he … when I fell in. And I’d never been in water cooler than a tepid bath before.” She shook, and a trickle of warm tears trailed down my chest. “The cold was such a shock that I sucked in a mouthful of water. I couldn’t … I couldn’t keep my head above the surface … and it was so cold, and I was …la naiba, I thought I was going to die.”
A small sob burst from her, muffled against my skin. “I can still feel it, like it happened yesterday,” she confessed quietly. “The cold, and the stabbing pain in my chest.”
She stopped talking, taking big gasping breaths against my chest. I hadn’t missed her little slip of the tongue. Whoever ‘he’ was, he’d done this to her. She hadn’t fallen. I filed that away because now was not the time to be pressing her. Maybe there never would be a time.
A heaviness flooded my chest. I might never have all of this woman. I tightened my grip on her. I’d take this piece she gave me, and I’d prove to her that she could trust me with her secret parts.
“I hate that this happened to you,” I mumbled into her hair, rubbing my hands up and down her back, bringing warmth to both of us. “I hate that it’s still affecting you so many years later. What can I do to help?”
“This is great,” she mumbled, sliding her arms out from the folds of the towel and wrapping them around my waist. “Just keep hugging me like this.”
“Of course,” I rasped, emotion clogging my throat. We stood, her forehead against my thudding heart, the breeze gently ruffling her towel, my hands tracing infinity patterns against her back. Her fingers linked behind me.
Eventually she pulled back enough to face me. “I’m ready to swim.” Her face was pale and tear-streaked, but determined.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. We’ll find an indoor swim centre to replace the university one.”
