Eventually, I brave the edge.I didn’t put on any lights when I came in.The main facade of the swimming center is all glass, so you’d definitely have seen a light from all the way over in the school buildings.The low nighttime lighting and blue light in the pool are enough for me.As I look at the water, the noise starts in my head.My thoughts, chasing while standing still.
It’s over.You’ll never swim at that level again.Not with this shoulder, which hurts to move.Front crawl?No way.My dreams?Shattered.
I look up at the ceiling, then crouch down.The water runs through my fingers as I dip my hand into the pool and bring it out again.The chlorine would damage the skin graft, so I’m not allowed to spend any length of time swimming for the first six months after the operation.After that, a few swims a month will be OK.
A few swims a month.Back in the spring, I was here every day, training for the galas.Twice a day sometimes, after Mum suckedme into covering up her affair.Anything to avoid thinking about what that might mean.
And then, as so often, I think that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t gone to bed so early that summer evening.If there hadn’t been a comp the next day, or if I’d just gone out with my friends.So many “what-ifs” and “hadn’ts,” because I can’t change a thing, not a thing, about the past.
I didn’t spend the evening with my friends.I was conscientious.I wanted to wake up rested and recuperated.But I didn’t.I came around knowing what it’s like to be frightened to death.When your body senses danger even before your head knows what’s going on.That “fight or flight” isn’t some far-fetched theory dreamed up by Mr.Ringling in biology, but the fucking truth.Adrenaline, tunnel vision.
I woke up after ten days that felt like a split second, and even now, I find it hard to understand what happened in that time.Operations, intensive care, my weeping parents, whose tears sometimes pierced the fog and got through to me.The recovery phase when, or so they explained to me later, the drugs were being reduced.It’s unlikely I’ll ever remember any of the time before that because while I was on the ventilator, my body was pumped full of medication to reduce the pain and keep me unconscious.Great, isn’t it?Almost two months in hospital, no summer holiday, and even though I hoped at first that I could be back for the start of term in August, my physio program was put back because I wasn’t well enough and the doctors insisted on keeping me in.At least now I can go to a therapist from here.
I should have lived on that evening in July.I should havefollowed my heart.It wanted to be sitting on those uncomfortable wooden benches in Ebrington with Tori, Sinclair, and everyone, talking about the holidays ahead, the play, the school year we’d just finished and the one to come.The lower sixth sucked because I was raging and treated my friends like shit.I thought I’d lost everything that mattered to me, but I was wrong.I had it all.And now it’s actually gone.
OK, I’m exaggerating, but that’s how it feels.I’m alive.It’s not the life I used to have, but it’s better than nothing.I’m on a wing with my friends.I’ll sit in the lower sixth for a few weeks and cram the upper-sixth stuff at the same time.That’s doable.And as soon as I’m eighteen, I’ll rejoin my people and we’ll do our A levels together.And everything will be just as I always imagined.
But coming of age won’t solve the swimming problem, so I have no choice there but to listen to Dad and the hospital doctors, who told me again and again that I have to give myself time.Do my physio, moisturize my scars, wait, keep the faith.I hate it.
Right now, I wouldn’t even be able to lift my arms over my head for a racing dive.
There’s a sound.I startle and jump up.Suddenly my chest is too tight to breathe.My heart starts racing, like it keeps doing these days, mostly when I remember the fire, but sometimes out of the blue.I try to slow my breathing.The air in the swimming center is humid.Although my brain is telling me that it’s getting enough oxygen, I don’t feel I can breathe in here just now.I fight back the urge to speed up as I walk past the pool.My knees are shaking as I step through the exit.The darkness wraps itself around me.I take deep gulps of the cold night air and force myself to keep walking.
A sound, a smell, a sensation.Focus on those, not your hammering heart.I’m really trying, but it will never be easy to fight back the rising panic.This stupid technique isn’t helping.I do it anyway.I can hear...my footsteps crunching on the gravel path back to the school.I can smell the grass.I can feel the cool of the night on my skin.And the closer I come to the north wing, the slower I’m walking.I have to be careful here because now I don’t want to get caught.If Mum and Dad knew I was breaking the rules, they’d definitely take it as a sign that I’m not ready yet.Like they always do, whatever happens; I can’t get anything right just now.Yet I hate myself for thinking that way, because I know they only want what’s best for me.They want to protect me and help me.Dad does, anyway.I’m not always so sure about Mum.In the end, all she wants is for me to keep quiet and not tell Dad anything about her wee fling.
My body feels heavy as I walk through the gate into the north wing.The cool air has helped me get my thoughts together, but the exhaustion is draining me.It was a long day.Maybe now I’m tired enough to go to bed and get to sleep quickly without freaking out.Mind you, I can feel this afternoon’s painkillers wearing off.A few days ago, I thought I could manage without them, but I failed miserably.I didn’t want to believe Dad when he said I should reduce the dosage gradually.I’m not the kind of person who takes things slowly.Once I’ve got an idea in my head, it’s all or nothing.And because there’s no way I can go 100-percent painkiller-free just now, I feel like a total failure.
I walk through the hallways, which I know like the back of my hand.I have to be careful to avoid the sick bay, because ifthere’s anyone I don’t want to bump into, it’s Nurse Petra, who’s guaranteed to tell Dad I’m creeping around the place by night and not sleeping.Luckily, it’s all quiet so I can slip past unseen and take a right turn back toward the east wing.That’s my intention, but then my footsteps start slowing almost unconsciously.
The display cases lining the corridor draw my eye, like magic.I stop by the one for the swimming team.Our school might be most famous for rugby, but the athletics, tennis, and volleyball teams are pretty successful too.And so’s Dunbridge Swimming.OK, so half the school doesn’t turn out to cheer us on, like they do for the rugby matches, but the number of trophies on show is an indication of how good we are.We...
I gulp and stare at our achievements, for which I did my bit.The championship cup that Helen Snider brought home to Dunbridge last year.She’s left now and is swimming for Cambridge.I’d thought I had a chance of following in her footsteps, but instead of swimming my way to victory for Dunbridge, I was in intensive care.The others did their best.They weren’t bad, but a bronze is a bronze.Even so, I’d take that gratefully if I could go back in time and change everything.But I can’t.
I step closer and clench my fists as I study the team photos.
Give yourself time.You’ll swim again one day, Olive.
Yeah, old-lady breaststroke maybe, but I’ll never be back to my former level.I want to be the best.I want to win.I want my heart to pump strong and fast as my arms split the water and my legs propel me forward.I want the feeling of flying when, in the water, everything’s weightless and my worries and fears float away as I dive.Is that really too much to ask?
Hot rage pounds in my chest and mingles with despair.Why did it happen?Why did it happen tome?Is this a punishment for the way I treated my friends?Is it because I’m not telling my dad the truth?Not that I have any fucking choice in that!
I feel the tears stinging my eyes and see myself raise my right arm.My fist is shaking, my shoulder hurts, but that’s a good thing, right?Because it means I’m alive.A stroke of luck.I’mlucky...
I step back a little to give myself room to swing.I really want to do this.I want to break something the way that fucking night broke me.One moment, one spark, everything lost.
I hear something and whirl around.All the blood drains to my legs as I realize someone’s watching me.
“You wouldn’t dare,” says the person who steps out of the darkness toward me.
Colin
I’m fucking tired because my body’s been awake for about one thousand hours now and can’t go on, but it’s not so easy to get kicked out of a school like this.You have to put some work in.So I’d better start right away.
Wing time.Could they have found a more ridiculous term for “curfew”?Fine by me, though, because it’s the perfect thing to ignore.But to my deep personal disappointment, I don’t meet anyone in the dark corridors once I’ve left my room.I have to admit that it’s kind of creepy, but obviously that’s just becauseI don’t know my way around here yet.My sense of direction gave up on me the moment I walked down the stairs from the dorm wing.Once I got to the bottom, I didn’t have a clue which way we’d come from the head’s office earlier.We...Mom, who just messaged briefly to tell me she’d landed back in London.Didn’t ask how I was doing or if I was settling in.Ava Fantino doesn’t have time for that shit.
I look out from the covered walkways on the ground floor—arcades, they call them—and see the cobblestoned courtyard where we got out of that car this afternoon.I dig my hands into my pants pockets and walk past the rounded arches.There are lights on in a few windows around the courtyard.The only wing that’s completely dark is the one opposite.Seems like they’re renovating—the building’s covered with scaffolding.If the rooms in the boys’ wing are anything to go by, that’s way overdue.Pity I couldn’t come here after they were done, though.Then I might have been able to live somewhere with slightly modern levels of comfort.But hey, it’s not like I’m sticking around.
I kick at a stone with the toe of my sneaker.I wish it was bigger so it would make more noise.But I’m sure to get caught eventually.According to Mom and Dad, this boarding school is supposed to be superstrict, which is just what I need.They have proper discipline here.Not like my old school in New York, where I walked all over my teachers.Doesn’t seem like it right now, though.Beats me why my parents think this place’ll be any different.Especially now.I know it’s dumb.But what can I do?Negative attention—stress and fighting—is better than none at all.Attention from the people who are supposed to love you is afundamental human need, or so I’ve read.Attention, autonomy, safety, intimacy, and affection.OK, so I had autonomy—I could arrange my own daily life—but that’s it.And now they’ve even deprived me of that.Psychology was probably the only class at Ainslee that I got anything out of.The main takeaway was that all our parents screwed up at some point in our childhoods.Not necessarily on purpose; it’s simply impossible not to give your kids some kind of trauma.But my parents had to do better than everyone else in this respect too.It would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking shit.
