Coming Up For Air | ✓

1 | inhale

In her life, Stella has never had a difficulty holding her breath.

Her struggle has always been the exhale. Getting out of the pool at the end of a swim, emptying all that air out of her lungs, that is where she's always stumbled.

But here, now, stood on the narrow wooden dock of the Wilson lake house in the early morning sun, she feels it. It's not easy, but it's there.

The ability to breathe is right there. It's not quite in her reach yet, but it's there.

And with it – lingering in the horizon of the bright blue sky – is the promise of a summer of solitude. The promise of new beginnings. Of the troubles weighing her down becoming smaller, lighter.

A summer away for herself. Away from the madness.

Not to forgive, clearly not to forget – she knows as much after the past one and a half years – but to continue to heal.

Weighing back on her heels, she rolls through the soles of her feet.

Angelina and Geoffrey Wilson had been right. Faye had been right. Her moms had been right. Ms Flores – her therapist – had, unsurprisingly, been right.

This is exactly what she needs.

She reaches up on her toes, drawing in a breath, and launches off the dock.

Her dark brown hair flows out as she dives through the surface of the blue lake water in an elegant arch, a tightlipped smile tugging at her lips as she's enveloped by her oldest confidant.

Surrounded by nothing but white noise, she senses herself relaxing. Her eyes slowly grow accustomed to the murky blur below as she takes a few strokes forward, her arms paling by the light of the sky reflecting the surface above.

Once – back in fifth grade – during a makeshift geography lesson, her teacher Mrs Ross had asked the class where each of them would most want to live in the world. Stella's answer? Easy. The water. Any water. She'd settle for a deep puddle on the side of the road if it meant she could swim in it, float upon its surface, surrounded by its comfort forever and ever. Though life deep beneath the sea did, and still does, sound far more welcoming.

She stays beneath the surface for a long moment. So long that if anyone else had been around they would probably have called for the lake patrol by now, she's never had a difficulty holding her breath, only breaking back through the surface for air as her once superstar lungs can suffice no more.

With a few strokes she swims further out, kicking around to float on her back.

Sprawling her fingers, she feels the still overnight cold water between them. She stares up at the sky, the blue behind the few white clouds dotting the above a milder shade than that of the body of the lake, as she lets her smile widen.

Ever since she learnt how to swim as a four year old, the water has been Stella's one constant thing. Her one place to be.

She thinks she's finally falling back in love with it, learning to trust it once more.

It's been a long journey.

Less than years, more than months.

Pools are still more difficult. The chlorine sunk deep into the floors and the walls of the natatoriums even worse. But she's getting there. Day by day, she's getting there. And she has a lot of days left of this summer.

Closing her eyes, she lets the rays of the early morning sun light up the smile on her face. Breathing in the scent of lake – of earth liquified, soil wet in the best way –, she senses it again; that feeling of peace, just out of her reach.