Drowning With You

CH. 3 💋

LOUIE'S POV

"Chop, Chop, Timber!" I yell, and the little girl hops into the pool and grabs on tight to my arms as she makes sure to keep her head above the water. She hates getting her head wet, still afraid of the water despite me being with her.

"Again! Again!" She says, but I shake my head and swim us to the wall.

"Nope, that's all for today, but you can have two jumps next week," I tell her, although I'm sure none of the children will ever hold me to that. They never do.

I let the other two students jump, then I send them on their way out of the pool. "Alrighty everyone, I'll see you all next time. Make sure to walk on deck! High fives, high fives," I remind them, and they all slap my hands with smiles.

Three hours of instructing takes a lot out of me, but I haul my ass out of there and get changed, then scurry over to the daily shuttle that takes me back to campus.

If I'm lucky, sometimes I can bribe the driver to stop at a store so I can buy stuff that isn't on campus. 

"Hey, Joe." I wave at him and he makes a grunt as he nods his head towards me. His head is basically bald, other than a bit on the sides. If that was me, I'd just shave it all off at that point.

I grab a seat on the almost empty bus and put my earbuds in. I'm back to the wired earbuds after I dropped my Bluetooth ones in the pool a few months ago. I decided that after having that happen, not once but twice, that maybe I should stay on the safe side.

"Alright, Hun. You're out," he calls to me and I look out the window to see my dorm's building.

I toss my bag over my shoulder and hop out of the bus, then run up to my room to see the ice queen standing against it. The fuck? Oh shit.

"Where have you been? I was waiting there for you! Unlike you, I was there on time and ready. Are you really just trying to ruin my fucking life, Louie?" Her long blonde hair is tied back, and she is wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, most likely over her swimsuit that she'd put on.

I completely forgot about meeting Winter at the pool. I guess I forgot I had swim lessons scheduled at the same time. Whoops. I check my phone, realizing I'm twenty-five minutes late. Not too bad, could be worse.

"My bad," I tell her, grabbing my key out of my pocket and unlocking the door. She follows me in, walking past me as she grabs my extra swim bag off the hooks on the wall, my towel, and other swimsuit that are drying on bathroom door.

She shoves them in the backpack, throws the pile at my chest, then walks out the door. "Now let's go. Hurry the fuck up, so we can get this over with. I'm hungry." Winter marches down the hallway, followed by her yelling at a few kids to move out of her way.

I lock back up and head in the same direction, not even attempting to match her pace since she's on a mission—whereas I couldn't care less. I'm too tired for this shit.

Once I get to the locker room, I quickly toss on my swimsuit and make sure the bandage over my ankle is still in place. Luckily it is, since underneath isn't something, anyone needs to see.

Winter is already in the water waiting, not very patiently, with her cap and goggles ready to go. I cannonball in, making sure to splash her as much as possible.

"Louie, we don't have time for games, just get on the wall." Her tone is as if she has turned into an actual coach. "I get thirty minutes working with you, then you get thirty minutes working with me," she states, which I just shrug to, since it sounds like a reasonable plan.

"Alright, when you swim, your arms are at a weird fucking angle, almost like you are pulling down, rather than behind you. Also, your kicking is ass. I mean, I've never seen as slow of a flutter kicker until you. It's terrible. Your flip turns need work, you start them either way too early and can't reach the wall, or you start too late and hit your head. Overall, you suck." Her mouth finally stops moving and I honestly don't know what to reply to that.

All of it is true but why the fuck was that such a long hate speech? Goddamn, she could have at least spaced it out.

She throws me a kick board and holds another one out in front of her. "200-meter kick. If I see even one breaststroke kick or more than one pull to get to the wall and turn, you are restarting." Her glare is deadly and cold, like her heart.

"Go," she says, then continues to kick next to me. I know she can kick way faster, but she stays next to me in silence, making sure my kicks are up to her liking. 75 meters in and I think I might die.

She's not wrong at all, my kicking is terrible. I am extremely slow, Coach always yells at me for it, but eventually she gave up and told me to just breaststroke kick while the others flutter since I can go around the same pace as them then.

Now, I am on the spot, and I am awful. This is awful. I almost throw my leg out to start a breaststroke kick but stop myself right before. It's muscle memory, kicking my leg out. It's all I do; flutter kick is not my thing.

"Faster, Louie!" She yells at me, despite being a literal foot away. Without conversation, all I can think about is how much my legs hurt. She looks way too calm for this, her body looking comfortable as she kicks the same as me.

"Faster!" Again, she yells. I roll my eyes and hold back the urge to slap her with my kick board. Her bruise is still healing, maybe I'll wait a few weeks before hitting her again. 

Jokes, I swear.

"I'm trying! Chill, Mom." I kick a bit faster, maybe because she told me to, or maybe because I'm on my last 25 meters and need this torture to end. Either way, I touch the wall and finally take a breath.

"That was awful," she says, and I just give her a blank stare. Duh.

She gives me more drills and swims, we yell back and forth, I somehow survive. Barely.

Once we are halfway through, it switches to my turn teaching. Thank the gods, because freestyle will be the death of me. Since she gave me her 'little' hate speech, it's only my duty to reciprocate.

"Your pacing is terrible, your breakouts look like shit, you lift your head way too far up leading to your entire body arching in a weird position to where you are sinking when you swim. Your kick looks like it's being done from a five-year-old who broke their left leg, you basically start going backwards with how weak your pulls are, and your glides are nonexistent."

Just like me, I receive a blank stare. Good. Then we get to work, although I give her a bit less lengths but more speed, continuing to yell "Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!" Every time she glides, which only leads to more swear words when she's above water.

The hour finishes and we are both tired, probably from all of the arguing. I dry off and grab a drink of water, but Winter doesn't even look in my direction as she starts walking out. Without turning, she yells a quick, "next time, don't be fucking late!"

I should remember to text her about switching our times to not interfere with my swim lessons. Her wrath can be freaky, I won't lie here.

With two of these lessons with Winter per week, there is a big chance I will go psychologically insane. If you are around crazy for too long, you start to become crazy too.

Shit, kill me if I ever become a Winter.

A/N: WHY ARE THESE CHAPTERS SO SHORT???

anyways, thanks for sticking around!!