Lifeline

November

So this story goes all the way through to August of the next year and then there's the concert and epilogue. We have a way to go on here, but I'm so close to being completely finished and I can't put into words how excited I am. This has been my greatest triumph, and I welcome you along the ride. Anyone mind commenting and voting? It would mean a lot <3

Bella didn't get the logic behind starting swimming in November. Wasn't swimming something you did in warm weather? But here she was, at the community pool before school one morning, freezing in her black uniform bathing suit even though she was wrapped in a fluffy white towel. The coach, a short muscular woman in a black tracksuit, blew her whistle and yelled at the team to hurry up and get in the pool, and the practice began.

The water was maybe three degrees warmer than the weather, and Bella shivered as she held onto the cold concrete on the side of the pool and waited for the coach to blow her whistle again. The piercing noise rang out and she pushed against the coarse wall, putting her head down into the water and pulling against the waves in the pool.

One, two, three.

Breathe.

One, two, three.

Breathe.

Swimming became almost a calming, mindless thing. The rhythm: pull, kick, breathe, push, glide. She forgot how cold it was after a lap or two. After ten laps she stopped and put her arms on the edge of the pool, ignoring the chill of the pavement and surveying her team mates. She was first finished, followed closely by a guy a lane down named Adam. She nodded at him, smiling, and he returned the smile as he caught his breath. Once everyone finished (Bella didn't understand why this wasn't a cut sport; if you can't swim, you shouldn't be on the team), they were allowed to get out of the pool and get changed. The pool was right next door to school so it wasn't much of a walk, and Bella was soon at her locker, spinning the cold dial as she let her heavy black backpack slide off her shoulder to the ground.

Meanwhile, Christie was just finishing up her annual doctor's appointment. She didn't love going to the doctor's office, but it wasn't so bad. Since her family had a history of heart problems (her grandpa had to have open heart surgery and heart attacks weren't exactly rare in the family), she always had to get an EKG, something they explained every time and something she always forgot about until they wheeled the machine in. It looked a bit like a laptop, but it had a bunch of black cables connected to it, tipped by little clamps. The nice nurse placed the cold, sticky sensors all over her as she sat still, beginning to clamp the cables onto the stickers as per routine.

She lay still once all the cables were connected, making faces at her mom as she waited for the scan to finish. The results printed out – a bunch of squiggly lines on a thin sheet of paper, it never seemed to make much sense to her – and then she was free to go. On their way out, however, her mom walked ahead of her and turned into a large, well lit room.

"Mom? I have to go to school now..." Christie followed her, and then stopped in the doorway. The flu clinic. She abruptly turned around and started to walk away. "I'll meet you at the car," she called back to her mom, casually trying to evade a shot.

"Come back here, honey," her mom said, quickly walking to her daughter and grabbing her arm. "You need a flu shot." Christie's eyes flooded with tears, and she frowned at her mother as she detached her arm from her grasp.

"You should have warned me," Christie complained, trudging behind her as she pulled off her sweatshirt.

"You wouldn't have given me a chance to get you in here," the woman reasoned, ignoring the frown the teenager was leveling at her. She was well aware of her youngest daughter's phobia of needles, and kept trying to tell her that it was high time to get past the childish fear. Christie couldn't help it; she knew the shot wouldn't hurt, she just hated looking at needles.