“Yep. To distract me from panicking. And it worked, because I was too busy being horrified to be scared.”
“In my defense, I was ten, and I thought it was hilarious.”
“It was not hilarious. You don’t know this, but I spent that night calculating the volume of the pool and trying to determine if the ratio was accurate.” I regulate my breathing as the mental image of thousands of gallons of urine-contaminated water does exactly what I need it to do. The situation below my waist begins to defuse. Thank God for the repulsive power of childhood anecdotes. “The next morning, when my dad went to the supermarket, I looked it up. The actual percentage of urine in a public pool is closer to point-zero-one percent, depending on the facility’s filtration system.”
“I also remember you grabbed my head and almost drowned me.”
“You were the only solid object within reach. Self-preservation isn’t personal.”
“My scalp would disagree. Pretty sure you drew blood.”
“Your hair was too short. I maintain that was a design flaw on your part.”
For a split second, the ten years between then and now collapse into nothing. We’re just two kids in a pool again—one who can’t swim and one who refuses to let that be the case.
“Took us the whole summer,” Oliver says, his voice going soft in a way that makes my stomach flip. “Every Saturday.You’d show up at my door in your little button-down and your swim trunks with the anchors on them, but by August, you were doing laps, just like I said you would.”
I remember the exact moment my body stopped fighting the water and started working with it. Oliver lifted me out of the water and spun me around, and I was too happy to care that my glasses flew off and sank to the bottom.
“You lost my glasses celebrating,” I say.
“I dove down and got them back.” Oliver’s treading slows, his legs moving in lazy circles beneath the surface. His eyes hold mine, giving way to something less playful, more memorializing. “That was a good summer.”
“It was,” I admit, and the words feel heavier than two syllables should.
A pool noodle sails over our heads, launched from across the pool like a javelin. It smacks the wall behind us with a wet thwap and slides into the water between us.
“Sorry!” Gerard’s voice booms. “That was meant for Nathan!”
“Your aim is atrocious!” Nathan shouts back.
Oliver’s focus stays on me. Under the weight of his attention, I feel exposed in a way that has nothing to do with being nearly naked in a pool of naked men. He sees me. And if I’m being fully honest with myself, he’s always seen me, even when I was folding myself into smaller shapes to avoid detection.
I’m breathing heavily now. The doggy-paddle is unsustainable, and my pride is rapidly losing its battle against gravity and fatigue. Oliver must notice the way my chin dips closer to the waterline because he drifts forward, closing the gap between us until his arm brushes mine.
“Grab my shoulder,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
“Ryan, your face is turning purple, and you’re sinking. Grab my shoulder.”
I grab his shoulder. The skin is warm despite the cold water;the muscle beneath is as solid as a rock. My fingers curl around the curve of his deltoid, and suddenly, I’m not fighting to stay afloat anymore. Oliver absorbs my weight as though it’s nothing, his legs kicking steadily enough to keep us both above the surface.
“There,” he says. “Was that so hard?”
“Excruciating.”
“You’re welcome.”
We float there together, the sounds of his teammates a distant symphony of splashing and profanity. My heartbeat thuds in my ears, and I’m acutely aware of every point of contact between us. My palm against his skin. The occasional brush of our legs beneath the water. The closeness of his face to mine.
“I never stopped thinking about those Saturdays,” Oliver says, voice barely audible. “After you moved, whenever things got bad. I’d think about teaching you to float, and how you told me I was a terrible teacher but kept showing up anyway.”
My eyes become glassy, and I kid myself that it’s pool water. “You weren’t a terrible teacher.”
Oliver’s free hand finds my elbow beneath the water, steadying me further, and the gentleness of it makes me want to wrap my arms around him and never let go.
“I really am sorry for disappearing. For not saying goodbye.”
