Twelve #3
My hand is halfway to my chest again when another engulfs it.
Crouched at my side, Heath tugs my stolen limb. Guides me to sit, legs dangling in the water, my goggles forgotten on the tile between us. ‘Why did you start swimming?’
Before I actually make the conscious decision to answer, one comes pouring out.
‘My dad was a swimmer. He was really good. Got a scholarship and everything, but halfway through sophomore year, my mom got pregnant so he dropped out to get a job. Stopped swimming. Tried to get Seba into it, but it never really stuck. Not like it did with me.’
Heath sits with that for a long moment before opening his mouth again.
‘I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was a kid. Used to stay up late reading National Geographic magazines and wake up early so I could watch The Discovery Channel before school. I had a Shark Week-themed birthday party, like, five years in a row. I learned to swim on that beach outside my house. Learned to surf there too. Spent more of my childhood splashing in the waves than I did on land.’
‘And you were an extra on H2O: Just Add Water,’ I drawl sarcastically, though there’s a distinct ping from somewhere in my chest as he details the most normal childhood, and I find myself feeling jealous. ‘Do you have a point?’
‘I did all of that because I loved it. Not because someone else did. Just like I swim because I love it.’
‘You think I don’t?’
‘I think you love it differently to how I do.’
‘And that’s, what? Wrong?’
‘Different,’ he emphasizes. ‘Just wonder if you know there’s another side.’
‘A fun side,’ I easily piece together, and something sour curls in my belly. ‘Because I don’t have fun, it means less?’
‘Baby, that’s not what I’m saying.’
‘Then what are you saying?’
‘I just . . . What would you do if you didn’t swim?’
‘Be a princess. Obviously. I’m just getting that anthropology degree for fun.’
‘No,’ he shoots me a look, lips quivering with how hard they stifle his amusement. ‘I mean, like, day-to-day, normal shit that you never do because you think you don’t have time.’
I resent that think, but I let it go. ‘I would sleep in.’
Heath feigns a yawn. ‘Boring. Pick a better one.’
‘I don’t know. Take more classes.’
‘Oh, Daniela.’
‘Fine. Jesus. Uh, paint. My mom was a painter.’
His face softens. ‘What else?’
‘Travel. Never been out of state.’
‘Where’d you move here from?’
I name where I grew up, another coastal town all the way down the other end of the state, similar but not quite .
. . I don’t know. Real. Not a Hallmark special waiting for someone to shout action.
‘My mom’s parents moved there from Mexico when she was a kid.
After she got pregnant, her and my dad moved back there. ’
And after my dad died, Marisol stuck it out for a whole two years before deciding she needed a fresh start.
‘And your dad’s parents?’
‘England. He grew up there. Moved here for college.’ I pause, a not-quite-smile twisting my mouth.
‘Y’know, he met Marisol before he ever knew my mom.
He did one of those foreign exchanges in high school.
Went to Spain and ended up in her hometown.
Never saw her again until after Mom died and he went to an old friend’s destination wedding and came back with a bride of his own. ’
Heath is quiet for a long time before he asks, ‘How long after?’
‘A perfectly respectable fourteen months.’ The lump in my throat burns.
God, I remember that day like it was yesterday.
I remember starting it crying into my pillow, begging God to bring my mom back, and ending it with some stranger wearing a stiff smile and too much perfume telling me I could call her mommy if I wanted to.
In that youthful, almost instinctive way most eight-year-olds are, I was excited, for a little while.
Hopeful. My dad started to smile again. I think she liked us, at first, before she realized having two grieving children who were old enough to remember their mother, and too old for her to so easily take her place, wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
For once, Heath doesn’t know what to say. A true achievement, but at what cost?
I clear my throat. ‘I’d get drunk. Really, obnoxiously drunk. Like, hungover for three to five business days drunk.’
‘Now we’re talking. Keep going.’
‘I kinda always wanted a tattoo,’ I slowly admit, and, I swear, those eyes practically glow. ‘But at least two weeks no swimming to let it heal . . .’
‘You’d shrivel up and die, I’m sure.’
‘I’d learn to cook.’
‘You can’t cook? At your big age?’
Rolling my eyes, I shoulder him semi-gently. He nudges me back, his warmth lingering as his side remains flush against mine. ‘I’ll teach you,’ he promises, like he really means it. ‘You still wanna get a swim in, don’t you?’
I blink, shifting my gaze to the pool that I just . . . forgot. As if it isn’t the very reason we’re here. ‘Right.’
Clambering to my feet, I reach for my googles, but Heath beats me to it.
Hooked around his wrist, the plastic brushes my chest as he steals my swim cap too.
The backs of his knuckles graze the scratch marks from earlier and he tuts, and I hardly have time to even register the gesture before I’m distracted by another one.
By him securing my braids with the pins he must’ve pilfered from my bag.
Tucking my hair securely beneath the cap.
Slipping my goggles over my head, adjusting them perfectly as if he has a sixth sense for my comfort.
My mumbled gratitude is paltry. My cheeks, flushed. Skin hot because he isn’t looking at me like you should look at someone in a swim cap and fucking goggles. I would laugh if that look wasn’t so . . . whatever it is.
‘Go on.’ He pats my hip. ‘Assume your true form.’
At that, I do laugh. With a deep breath, I dive in.
Strangely, it doesn’t feel nearly as good as I thought it would.