Being suspended underwater has given me a feeling that no medication ever could.
The sounds of the outside world are muffled. My vision is gone when I close my eyes, and the only thing I can do down there is focus on how long I can procrastinate consuming oxygen.
But I am human, and I have to breathe.
I take a huge gasp as soon as I lift my head from the water, and cough a little because of the lack of oxygen.
My hair clings to my face like glue, and I submerge my head for a few seconds to move my hair out of the way.
When I open my eyes and my vision finally focuses, I swim to the edge of the pool, and with the little strength I have left, I push myself up and out of the water, my arms limbs wobbling as my body readjusts to walking.
My eyes are no doubt bloodshot, and my nose has long since become used to the smell of chlorine. I shiver slightly as I stalk over to my bag, the water dripping around me and leaving footprints from the pool.
When I've reached my bag, I immediately grab the red towel I'd place on top earlier and shove it to my face, taking a deep breath and feeling slight content at the smell of the laundry detergent. I only pull the towel away to wipe the rest of my face and wrap it around my body so that I wouldn't get cold.
"Six minutes and three seconds," my best friend, Willow, tells me as she continues scrolling through her Twitter timeline on her phone. "You just PR-ed."
Willow was short in height, a little over five foot three, but had a strong character and stood out amongst the crowd with her purple hair. She's the only non-religious person I've known to date that doesn't like to show off a lot of skin, even during the summer at pool parties. The least I've seen her wear when there's guys around is capris and a short sleeve t-shirt, and the last time I saw that was in the fourth grade.
She rested on the bleachers, laying down completely across four or five seats with her arm under her head as a cushion. Willow didn't look up until she noticed that I didn't say anything, and I stood there with my lips pursed thinking about how I could have done better.
Her grey eyes focused in on me, then she rolled them and sat up, locking her phone before pocketing it and standing up to stretch. "Shay, you really need a slap to the face."
I smiled at her words and shook my head. "You really know how to cheer someone up."
"Violence is always the answer when people are stupid," she told me, grabbing my gym bag and falling into step with me as we made our way to the locker rooms. "But, seriously. That's been your best time so far. That's nearly ten seconds over your last time."
I only shrugged in response as we entered the locker room, and took my bag away from her to head to the showers. Willow plopped down onto the benches in front of the shower while I dumped my bag just outside the shower stall, dropping my now-chlorine scented towel a little bit farther away before grabbing my shampoo and stepping in, making sure to close the door behind me.
"You need more confidence in yourself, sister," I heard Willow speak. "I mean, I can barely go snorkeling without lifting my head up to breathe every two seconds."
I laughed at her words as I stripped off my swimsuit, opening the curtain just wide enough to toss it on top of the towel. "Will, you're supposed to breath through the tube."
"I was in Jamaica, and I fucking swear to you, Shay, it was the size of a straw," she huffed, no doubt in my mind that she was crossing her arms. "All the stupid fish kept swimming away because I kept moving to breathe."
I turned on the shower, and immediately stepped under it, ignoring the freezing temperature against my sweaty and chlorine soaked body. "There's always the Internet to surf through if you want to look at fish," I said loudly over the running water.
"I have one that I see everyday," Willow called back, and even with the water running, I could tell that her voice echoed throughout the locker room. I hoped that there wasn't anybody in here that would've gotten really annoyed.
I poured shampoo into my hand and began lathering and washing my hair and body, hoping to get rid of as much of the chlorine smell as I could, though after being a swimmer for most of my life, the smell would always linger.
"Shay, I'm hungry," Willow called out. Swimming always made me hungry, but I don't know why Willow was complaining, because she's been sitting on her phone for two hours while I did laps and practice races with the team.
"Where do you want to eat?" I asked her, washing the last of the shampoo out of my hair and rinsing my body one more time to make sure that it was shampoo clear as well.
"I'm in the mood for fries and milkshakes," she told me, and that could have been only one place.
"Bobby's?" I asked, shutting the water off and sticking my head out of the shower. "By the way, can you get my other towel from the bag?"
"Yeah, but if anyone from your team is there, I'm going to scream," she told me seriously, handing me the towel.
"They're not all bad," I said as I grabbed it from her and hid back behind the curtain, drying off my body and hair. "Besides, everyone in town goes there. Undergarments, please?"
"They're all fucking pricks," she said, situating her hand behind the curtain with my underwear and bra in hand, only retrieving her hand when I relieved her of her duties. "Seriously, I've not seen anyone as arrogant as them, and this includes Captain Russell from Lagaan."
I rolled my eyes at the mention of the Bollywood film, and even though it was great, Willow's obsession with films could be a little much at times.
"What about Charlie?" I asked her as I finally finished putting on my undergarments. "Name one bad thing about him."
Charlie was the quietest person on the team, and I don't think I've heard him say more than three sentences, which was a big thing, considering the fact that I've had at least two classes with him for the past three years.
Willow gave me a look as soon as I stepped out of the shower. "He spilled Gatorade all over my lunch."
"Willow, that was in the fourth grade," I calmly reminded her placing towel on my head before reaching down and grabbing a plastic bag out of my gym bag to put my swimsuit and other towel in. "I'm sure you can find some place in that little empty hole where your heart should be to forgive him."
"I had sushi that day, Shay," she told me as I picked up my things and we migrated to the benches in front of the lockers. "My aunt visits us from Japan twice a year, and she was long gone by the time he spilled his nasty little red Gatorade all over my sushi."
I pause and and furrowed my brows as I turned to loom at her, trying to hold down the slipping towel on my head. "How are we friends again?"
"Shay!" Willow groaned, shoving me when she saw me laughing.
"Get over it, you big baby," I told her, drying my hair with the second towel before shoving it inside the plastic bag. "You're old enough now that you can make your own sushi, especially the octopus ones. Man, those are good."
Willow scowled at my words. "Do you know how dangerous it is if you don't know how to properly cut an octopus? I could poison you!"
"I'm lucky to be alive," I said, pulling out white shorts and a blue spaghetti strap top.
"You are, until you're not," Willow agreed. "You are so ridiculously slow at changing, it hurts."
"No one told you to come with me," I reminded her, quickly dressing for her sake.
"Yeah, well, Gigi is in Finland, so I can't do much about that, now can I?"
"You just don't have any more friends," I teased, sticking my tongue out at her as I ran my fingers through my hair. I never brought hairbrushes with me, and always paid the price for it when going to school the next day.
"Are you done yet?" She scowled, and I nodded my head.
"Let's go feed you, grumpy pants."
