Note: unedited first draft. Forgive any and all mistakes.
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We met underwater.
In a swimming pool, where 35ft was as deep as it could go.
We were the same then as we were now
We went up for air quickly for our first time. Maybe it was fear that stopped us. Maybe it was unpreparedness. Maybe it was both. We both thought, at the ages of 11 and 14 respectfully, that we'd have more to live for. We've seen the movies, we know what they want to tell us. Be mindless and carefree, don't think about anything that might corrupt your innocence and sour your childhood. A serious life that young is bound to be another statistic. Used as a warning for others like you, all while paying for your own hole in the ground. You're own tiny slot, next to your ancestors who died of war, or famine. While you died for one fond memory to be seared into you until your passing, all before you ever found out who you would turn out to be.
I think that's what made us part ways after that day. Being grown up enough that we knew this wouldn't be how we'd turn out to be when we got older. That somehow something will snap in place during puberty and we'd find some logical error in out plan.
But we coordinated it well for being that young. I'll have to give us that much credit. We were also naïve enough to stop because of idealism. Or maybe it's just hindsight speaking, and I've managed to translate a feeling we had into words I could put together today that I couldn't at that age. Wishful thinking.
The second time, a decade after, we held our breaths and looked at the rippling water above us in scorn. A weary anger. Our lungs burning for air, screaming to get back to safety. We stubbornly stayed under anyways, until the anger was gone. Eyes wide open, burning from the chlorine, we looked at each other and then up once more. Crippled waves crashing against each other above us. More violent than it'd usually be. We pushed our way to the surface and reflexively gasped for air. I coughed until my lungs were sore, and he retched the water he had swallowed.
We were still alive, but silent. I think we both came to the conclusion that life wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Not how the movies put it.
But we were still that same kids we were then. Just as cowardly, but not as naïve. The slight room we had to not fear death disappeared now. We were godless, and the haze of childhood was stripped away from us before we ever had a chance to change our minds.
Dying in that imitation ocean meant we'd at least die with a view, suspended in God's splintered light casted on us while laying on the cold cement bottom of the glorified tub we swam in--it would have made an interesting sight. One we wanted to capture as both our last memory and our only good one.
We stood side by side, arms on the ledge of the pool, elbows touching. He cried. After a while I did too.
