Floating - Adiza FF

Part 2

Good morning/afternoon/evening my dear readers.

My sincere apologies for the long wait.

I am immensely grateful for all the lovely words in form of comments and all the votes! Thank you so much!

I hope this chapter will make you smile!

Here you go!

Song: Hold Back The River by James Bay

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After a few moments of confusion, he collected himself and thought about that it must have looked like he was hesitating, and he was, as she had already predicted, not the one to turn down a challenge. He started smirking slightly.

"I will help you...", he said, and she could already tell that there was a "but" left in the sentence. "But?", she asked without waiting for him to continue. "Not necessarily a "but" per se, I just would like to know what kept you from learning it before?", he asked, and this was a question she was prepared for, but it didn't mean that she was nervous to disclose it to him.

He was looking at her with his big, curious, brown eyes, expecting her to reveal a secret to him that he wanted an answer for, for a long time. And she knew that she owed this to him, especially since he's not really asking for anything else in return.

Slowly she started to tell him the story which happened when she was a child. She was supposed to take swimming lessons from school, and everyone was getting ready to go into the pool. There was this one other kid that was a bully at the time and pushed her into the water, not knowing that she was a beginner, and had no experience what so ever with being in deep water. The swimming teacher had to pull her out as she was drowning, due to not knowing what to do in the water. Ever since then, she had been afraid to even try to learn it.

When she finished, she was, somehow again, expecting him to laugh at her for this silly little – big – fear of hers. But there was nothing. There was just a faint smile on his lips and his 'thank you for telling me', made her wonder if she has to work on building her opinions about people as well... She was glad she chose to ask him to help her.

They decided to meet at the swimming pool right the next morning, 6am sharp, since both couldn't figure out another time due to their schedule. Later, when they were about to leave, they realised that it got quite cold outside, since it had started to rain quite heavily. Zain neither had an umbrella nor a jacket to cover himself, and since it was quite close to where he lived, he had walked to the restaurant. As usual they had an argument over who was going to pay the ride, but she somehow convinced him and made him take her sweater which had a hood, arguing smartly that at her place she'll already be in the shelter. Defeated, he took her hoodie and went out of the car, shaking his head.

She stayed back in the car with a satisfied smile on her face. She had accomplished what she wanted today. Sighing she headed home and prepared herself for the day after... even though she knew she'd be safe with him; she couldn't help but feel nervous.

The next morning, she didn't think she would be this anxious. There she was, at the private pool she was able to rent out for one hour, it was 6am sharp and somehow the early morning jog she went on to warm up as requested by Zain was not able to divert her mind from what she actually had asked him to help her with. The water seemed so calm looking at it from here... but she couldn't help but shiver at the thought of what happened when she was little. How much she struggled to keep herself above the water but failed miserably. How the water consumed her body and pulled her down, she felt so defenseless.

Shutting her eyes close tight, she shook her head. 'No..., don't let this fear keep you from learning it', she pep talked herself and didn't realise that there was someone standing at the entrance of the pool, observing her curiously. He almost forgot that they were supposed to start soon as they only had this one hour before the pool would open for everyone.