Poolside Romance [Watty Awards 2011] COMPLETE

Don't Kiss...or Tell

This is dedicated to Tanya Joseph for being such an epic BFF. She is so awesome and I love her so much! 

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE MUST-READ TYPE CHAPTERS. It's really very interesting and get's even better towards the end!

“I love that you get cold when it’s 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle in your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

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Chapter 5

As I stand in front of the starting board I strip myself of everything excepting my flashy pink swimsuit, pull my cap over my ears and tighten my goggles to fit snugly over my eyes. I tensely examine the crowd through the blue tint of the goggles and find a few familiar faces cheering for me. Much to my disappointment, one of them wasn’t Andrew. I flash a sad smile at them and wave slightly.

‘Hey’ someone calls from behind me. I wasn’t sure if it was me they were calling, but I whipped my head around anyway. It’s only natural to be restless when you’re nervous.

Standing behind was Andrew, throwing another toothy grin at me. I smiled back just as widely and turned to face the pool as my heartbeat fastened and adrenaline rushed through my entire being.

‘Good luck.’ He calls out and I blush deep red. I’m glad I chose to turn my face away. I raised a hand over my shoulder to acknowledge him and tried to fight the growing smile on my face. 'Wipe that stupid smile off Mil!'- I urged myself, wondering what my friends would say if they saw me. I don’t think they’ve ever seen such a girly side to me.

I try to erase all other thoughts from my mind as I wait for the coach to blow his whistle and ask us to step onto the starting block.

Moments later, I am standing tall on the third block, the middle one and ready to dive right in. I wondered for a while as to why I had got that particular block since usually only the really fast ones get these (and I was nowhere close to fast) and concluded that the referees had made some mistake.

True, I had been training vigorously for over two months for this and I really didn’t want to end up coming last. Oh well, I’ll just have to try my best and leave the rest to fate.

‘TAKE YOUR MARK!’ the coach bellowed interrupting my thoughts and leaving me tensed once again. ‘GO!’ he shouted and with that I dive rather gracefully (or so I thought) into the freezing depths, muffling cheers from half the crowd. The cold of the light blue waters hit me as a shock and send waves through me.

After the initial shock however, I began to adjust. I pulled mightily with my arms and pushed just as hard with my legs.  As I brought my head above the water to breathe, I stole a quick glance at either side to see how far the others had gotten. The girl to my left- on lane 2 had beaten me by quite the distance while the one on lane 4 was just catching up. I’d seen that the girl on my extreme right was only slightly ahead of me and the girl on the extreme left, slightly behind.

 I opened my mouth wide to inhale more air before ducking my head back in the water and pulling as hard as my hands could and kicking as strongly as my legs would.