Synchro

Sync Ch. 6

“So I really don’t know you all that well.” Deveon whispered to me. We were lying right next to each other on a blanket I had brought. His arm was gently around my shoulders in a friendly way. It was more like just comfort than anything.

“And I really don’t know you all that well either. But you do know that I sleep with stuffed animals, I have an odd obsession with learning, and I know some really odd facts.” I sighed, closing my eyes.

“And you know that I’ve had only slutty girlfriends, I’m very pushy, and I’m not all that smart at all. We seem very different.” He laughed, his chest convulsing.

“Yeah, we really do.” I swallowed hard. The longer I was around him the more I wanted to be around him. “So, tell me more about yourself.”

“Well, I was born in Italy in 1993 on October 31st. My dad was out drunk and partying when I was born, so my mom and grandmother were the only ones there. My mom is Native American, Chinese, African, and French. My dad is pure Italian. I don’t know how they got me but whatever. Huckabaa is my mom’s last name; she never took his, and I’d prefer never to have ties to that cheating dick.

When I was four, I started synchronized swimming, and my dad had me training with him during the weekday for seven hours everyday and on the weekends I had practice with my team for four hours then went back to my dad to practice for another five at home. I had no friends, and I tried my best not to associate with anyone because they’d immediately realize how overworked I looked. My mom thought it was too much, but my dad told her to shut up and that he knew what he was doing.

I continued that until I got to seven when I started school. My training got cut down to four hours everyday when I got home from school. I still had no friends, and I didn’t want that to change.

When I got to middle school, I believe it was 7th grade, my mother came running into my room in the middle of the night, shook me awake. Her nose was bloody, and she was crying so hard it was dripping onto my sheets. She told me we were leaving, moving to America so we didn’t have to live with my father, and I didn’t have to continue my training as a synchronized swimmer. We left that night and stayed in a hotel for a few weeks before my mom scrapped up enough money to buy a small, one bedroom apartment in a crappy part of town in Chicago. I learned later he was having multiple affairs and was abusing my mom.

I didn’t quit swimming. I only had practice for three hours on Saturday and Sunday. When my time was cut down, I felt this love for it that I had never had before. It was really amazing. Of course, to pay for it, my mom worked three jobs, and I never saw her. My only friend was this girl, Cindy, who lived across the hall from me.

We got so close. Before we knew it, we were sleeping over at each other’s house and sneaking out just so we could be alone somewhere. I loved her, and she loved me. We never wanted to leave each other, and we both thought we never would. That’d we’d run away together when I turned sixteen, and she turned fifteen, and we could rule the world.

Then he showed up and ruined our dreams.

My dad came back and apologized to my mother, offering money and a warm, big house and love. And she stupidly believed him. When I was fifteen, I moved to Florida with my mom and dad. It was a rented house, but it was huge. I was put back on my synchronized swimming schedule, four hours everyday after school and seven hours on the weekend including the three in real practice with my team, and I was a womanizer.

I had about fourteen girlfriends to try and drown my hatred of my father. I did cheat a few times on a couple of them. When I was about to turn seventeen, my father packed us up and dragged up to Texas for four months were I had twenty-three more girlfriends before he took us to Idaho.