"You have learnt the wrong swimming technique. You throw your hands all over like a drowning man." My heart sinks to the bottom of the pool when I hear my teacher's words. It is the end of the last swimming lesson of Upper Secondary School. I know she has timed her comment deliberately. She meant to drown me.
I climb from the pool and imagine the other girls giggling around me but I cannot tell for sure. The water has filled my ears and all I can hear is waves crushing sea shores somewhere in the Bahamas or Hawaii or anywhere nice and warm, far from the frozen lakes of Finland.
By the time I get to the showers, all the voices return. Kids running and screaming, old ladies spitting on the floor, my classmates soaping their breasts. You can close your eyes from it but not your ears. I escape to the sauna. When your whole body is red, nobody will notice how your ears burn.
I take refuse in the heat but I am not alone for long. Girl With Caribbean Sea In Her Eyes enters. Other girls from my class follow suite. Their soft buttocks touching skin to skin on the crowded pews. Girl With Caribbean Sea In Her Eyes pushes next to me. I try not to exhale, but I am not good at holding breath.
They begin to chatter. Telling all their secrets, opening up about their crushes. Daring each other to tell too much. And before no-one notices they have joined me. For a brief moment I am part of the group. Part of these ethereal steaming creatures.
"Share your most embarrassing moment." Girl With Caribbean Sea In Her Eyes charges. I lift my hands up in surrender. (Please don't shoot me.) "One summer I was on a beach. It was really hot. Could have been more people than fish in the lake that day. I was practicing diving. The water was all murky. I could not see a thing. And you heard my teacher; I have the wrong technique. I throw my hands all over like a drowning man. To my horror my hands landed on something. Or someone. Well, a groin. I panicked and tried to stay under water so the boy wouldn't find out. Maybe he would think it was a fish. But there was no fish. And I can't really hold my breath."
My story pleases her. She laughs so that her whole body shakes. Every part of it. And I steal glances of our reddening skins. We look like a sunset in The Bahamas or Hawaii or anywhere nice and warm.
Dressing up takes far too long. I have learnt to get dressed fast but I wait for the others. We miss the buss and the cold air stiffens our wet hair."My hands are freezing." Girl With Caribbean Sea In Her Eyes exclaims. "But I have one warm place where I can put them..." Is she flirting? "In my pocket!" They laugh. "Let's go to my place." Girl With Caribbean Sea In Her Eyes suggests. We are thrilled of this daring plan.
She opens her apartment door with confidence of a rebel leader. The girls storm in unapologetically. Some head to the kitchen. Someone opens the telly. Nobody cares to ask permission. They open drinks and bring out crisps. Did they seriously plan for this? Am I the only one not in it? They all seems to have done this before. Am I the only virgin?
Truth or dare, someone shouts after we have emptied the first bottle which eventually chooses me. For the second time today I am under fire. But this time I want to bite the bullet. For the first time in my life I want to tell the whole truth. I am ready to die. Shoot me now! "Who would you like to kiss?" And before I realise I am half way to Girl With Caribbean Sea In Her Eyes.
"Eww. Hell no! Disgusting." And just like that she has thrown me back to the cold water. I barely got out anyway. I have thrown my hands everywhere and touched something bad. I need to unlearn my technique. I need to unlearn how to swim altogether. I need to sink with my heart.
I would avoid her eyes for years. I won't know it yet but one day I will meet a man and we will marry. We will move to Ghana. It's not Bahamas or Hawaii but it's nice and warm there. "Do you miss Finland?" My sister will ask me sometimes over Skype. "No." I will have learned to hold my breath. Then she will drop the bomb. She will tell me she heard that he said that she said that they said that Girl With Caribbean Sea In Her Eyes has been kissing girls. Girls exclusively. (Why is she telling me this? How much does she know?)
But I will be somewhere nice and warm. A bit too warm at times, but the waters there will be deep. The sea there will be different colour. This sea will beg me to keep swimming. And I will float with the waves to the open. And no-one will mind if my technique is wrong. I just don't know it yet.
