The Swim series - Book One

Chapter 9

I remember the day it happened. The day I decided that it would be so much easier to not feel, and to not think about it, and to grieve in a way that was less inconvenient to others, even if it was detrimental to my own health. 

I was five-years-old and sitting at the dining table. My father was drinking his morning coffee. And I broke into a story about how dead people didn't look like dead frogs. Their skin was different. Their colouring was different. The way they floated in the water face down, was different to the way the frogs always floated with their tummies up.

My dad put on a good face but I could see the fear quickly escalating behind his eyes. What was wrong with me? What was he going to do with me? And why wasn't I getting better?

He was so freaked out that he dropped me off at my grandparents house and left me there for a couple of days, where my thoughts and worries wandered. 

"Daddy wants you to be happy" my grandmother said. "And happy girls tell happy stories" They don't talk about death or frogs. 

I was quickly learning that what was 'normal' to me wasn't normal to the other people around me. And that I was going to keep losing people if I didn't shut up and learn to act like they wanted me too. 

Now I was a girl in a boat, so terrified or ruining Landon's plans that I was happy to risk my own life.

Row and don't think.

Breathe and don't look around you.

We were going too far out and then even further. And then rowing so far away from the camp ground, that I could only see its distant shadow.

But still. Don't raise your voice and ask to know what's going on. Sit there and be as silent as possible. 

Landon was so robotic that his movements were easy to follow. He didn't look back at me or attempt to talk. He stared ahead at Jackson and Claires boat and matched their rhythm with his.

He's a national swimmer...

So if this goes bad, don't panic. Of course he'd be able to help you.

But then other thoughts pushed back on my bad assessment, reminding me of just how many trained lifegaurds had died trying to save a hysterical person. 

Finally we set our paddles up and came to stop. Our boat turned in a half circle and then drifted even closer to Jackson's.

"You're so full of yourself" he told Landon. "You and Beattie both. You think just cos' you're in Elite now, that every girl in the school wants to hang out with you"

Jackson was still mad about the switch in the boats which he was taking as some kind of power play.

I was feeling too sick to focus on anything other than the queasy feeling that was rising up through my rib cage. Floating on water was like being dangled over a cliff for me, with no safety net or harness, waiting to pull me upwards.

"Emily, are you okay?" Claire asked. "You still look really pale..."

Landon glanced at me over his shoulder, causing our boat to shake.

It was a mistake putting me in the back, with his much heavier weight pulling us down in the front. Maybe I was imagining it, but my paranoia was convincing me, that we were sinking lower in the water than Jackson and Claire's boat, and that our uneven balance was causing it. 

"Do you want some water?" Claire asked.

"No..." I shook my head.

I wanted to get out of this boat. And I wanted to lay down on hard, firm, flooring. I didn't want to be here with these strange people, being fried at a much greater pace, thanks to the suns burn shining down and then up off the water.