Remember When **Under MAJOR Editing**

Chapter 10

"Go Lynn!" I called. If she could find an iota more power inside her, she could win the women's 100 fly. On second thought, I screamed, "Go, Stephanie!" She was part of this heat too, and I didn't want anyone to think I was dissing her because she was giving my boyfriend rides.
But before Stephanie or Lynn touched the wall, I sank to the front row bleacher. I'd felt disoriented since I'd followed Dade limping into this fancy natatorium. I'd thought the problem might be that for the first time since I'd joined the varsity team, I was in the stands with screaming friends and parents from five schools rather than in the locker room, getting ready to swim. Or that instead of focusing on the pool in front of me, my mind was on Dade, who was lying on the bleacher still half asleep. Now that I was getting really dizzy, I decided to cheer from a sitting position for the rest of the heats.

My muscles tensed. My body ached to stretch out and swim. I watched my teammates so closely that I was down in the water with them. I could feel their muscles work, then burn and tire, and the cool water swirling past their bodies. I could tell how fast their times would be before I saw them. I didn't take notes on my clipboard because the host school would give Coach a computer printout of the times for the whole meet, but I was so keyed into times that I guesstimated them automatically.

Even when I wasn't watching the clock, I knew which runs would be personal records. And not because of some internal clock I'd constructed from attending so many practices, but because I knew my teammates' bodies, the ways they moved when they were on, or tired, or distracted. That included Dade. Before the boys touched the wall at the end of the 200 free, I knew they were slower than Dade's personal best, which he'd bettered every meet this season before we came to a screeching halt in the wreck.
I bet Dade never watched anyone this way.

At the end of the meet, my headache came back. It was kind of funny actually. Watching Connor and Ian in the final heat, I felt a twinge at their first turn. By their second turn I knew the culprit was the headache and not the fact that I'd stared at the pulsing water too long with my eyebrows in knots. By their third turn the golf ball was back, banging against the inside of my skull. By their fourth turn I was looking at my watch to see whether the recommended four hours had elapsed since the last dose of painkillers I'd swallowed during the meet. I stared at my watch dial for a long time. People with concussions needed digital.
The heat ended. Everyone knew what the finish meant toward the point count. Fans of the home team sprang from the bleachers, cheering that they'd won the meet. We came in third out of five. Normally I would have gone with my teammates into the locker room and bitched with them about the officiating, and that one chick from Apalachicola who was like a Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the fact that we would have won or at least come in second if we'd had Dade.

The headache anchored me to my seat. I couldn't have withstood the escalating pitch of the excited girl-squeals in the locker room. And if Mike sang the boy-band falsetto on the van, I would kill him.
Four tall boys from other schools called to Dade. He brushed past me, maneuvering down the bleachers to the floor to talk to them. They pointed to his splint. He held it out to show them, nodding and then laughing. They'd come to the meet expecting to lose to Dade. They couldn't believe their luck. They wanted to know how long he'd be out—that is, how long their luck would run. I knew this though I couldn't hear them. Their voices mixed with the echoes of the crowd in the natatorium. Every word sounded five times.

Suddenly Dade's finger was under my chin, tilting my face up so he could look into my eyes. I had no idea how long he'd been crouching in front of me, propped on his crutches. "This is why I came," he said. "I figured you were running on adrenaline this morning but you'd crash tonight. And I knew you'd come to the meet, because you're such a dork.""I love it when you talk dirty." This was not the thing to say. Dade was telling me he cared about me. He'd come to the meet to watch over me. I should say the right thing and then we would have a little conversation. He would feel comforted because he'd connected with another human in the very small way that was the only way Dade ever connected with anybody. He'd limp back to the van and fall asleep to sweet dreams. I couldn't think of the right thing tosay.