A Matter of Heart (17 page)

“A
plastic shark?” I say.

His mouth widens in a bad-boy grin. “One game of Capture the Shark.”

“No way.” I shake my head. “This is stupid.”

“Because you can't handle losing?” He checks behind us and lanes 4 and 5 have opened up. He flips the shark over his shoulder and it hits the water about halfway down lane 4. While it slowly sinks, he stares at me, the challenge between us like a living thing.

I curl my lip in a show of disgust, but another part of my brain is calculating where the shark dropped in, how deep it's falling, and how—if I dive just right—I can shoot past Alec.

“I have nothing to prove. I'm not chasing a toy,” I say. Then I fling myself sideways and dive toward the shark.

“Hey!” he shouts. But it's garbled noise because I'm already
under the water, clearing the plastic lane line and heading for shark-infested waters.

The chlorine stings my eyes a little, but it reminds me of when I was a kid. Back then, I didn't care about goggles or the sting of chemicals. I just dove right in, like now.

A wave knocks me sideways and Alec is hurtling past. But the shark is just below. One furious kick and I'm there. I scoop it up, but it bobs, then floats free. Alec twists mid-dive and makes a grab. The shark bounces on the waves we're creating and floats to the top of the water. He reaches for it, but I throw myself between him and the shark, using my body to block.

“You lose!” I cry as I close in on the shark. But just as my fingers brush over the slippery plastic, my arm is caught from behind. Alec tugs me back and propels himself past me.

He's almost on the shark. Instinctively, I grab his leg and pull him down. I've caught him off balance and he flails wildly—but no shark!

The pool is a froth of bubbles as we chase it down the lane, yanking each other back and forth. I swim over the top of Alec and he grabs my waist. I kick, thinking I might've landed one in his gut when he tumbles back. But then he's got my leg again.

It's a free-for-all scramble, and each time the shark bobs up, we both grab and it leaps in the air.

“I got it!” Alec yells. Then it shoots free. He curses, and I laugh.

It's in the next lane and I start a dive but I'm laughing too hard and Alec dives, right underneath me, and comes up first. He's got a hand out for the shark, but I launch myself onto his back and wrap my arms around his shoulders.

He twists and turns, but I have him caught for just long enough…

There!

I grab the tumbling shark in one quick motion, curling my fingers over it tightly. Using my legs, I push off the bottom and shoot up, shaking water out of my eyes as I press the shark skyward in victory.

“Whoohoo!”
I whoop.

“Damn,” he says, wiping water from his face.

A laugh bubbles up, frothier than the water around me. I let it out, my shoulders shaking with it while I plant victorious kisses on the shark's nose.

“Hey, no kissing my shark!”

“
My
shark. I won him fair and square.”

“You call that fair? I think you broke a few ribs with that kick.”

“Baby.”

He grins.

I grin back.

Alec smoothes his hair the way he always does, and suddenly I'm back in the world again, aware of the music coming from the overhead speakers, the lady in lane 1 who is staring with a smile on her face, and the slant of sunlight coming in through the huge bank of windows. I'm breathing heavy, but in a good way. I wipe my eyes, wondering when was the last time I laughed that hard.

When was the last time I laughed?

“You okay?” he asks. And his eyes are as brown as a cup of espresso and just as warm. “You got a weird look on your face.”

I shrug and toss him the shark. “That was surprisingly fun.”

“The game or beating me?”

“Both,” I admit.

We work our way back toward our things. “You should have warned me you're a ringer,” he says.

“Me? I haven't played that in years. Even as a kid, my dad didn't go in for a lot of swimming games.”

“Was your dad your coach?”

I nod. “He was a college swimmer. A talented one too. Fourth in the nation in backstroke and working his way up.”

“What happened?”

“Crashed on his bicycle and broke his collarbone. Freak accident. He never recovered enough to swim again. But he's a great coach.”

We both grab our water bottles and drink. I glance at the clock. I need to get going. But I take another drink, pull off my swim cap, and shake my hair free. “When did you start swimming?”

He turns and rests his back against the wall. “When I was eight, my mom took me to the pool at the local Y. I was already getting into trouble, and she enrolled me in a kids' club that was run by a hard-ass named Mr. Macias. He told me I had to swim twenty-five yards to get a wristband for the deep end.”

“And you got it?”

“Nearly drowned, but I was going to show him, you know?”

I smile. Yeah, I know.

“I wouldn't take the plastic strip off my wrist. I felt like a beast because I swam twenty-five yards.”

I laugh. “And then you were hooked?”

“Yeah,” he says. “On basketball. The hoop was in the deep end. Once I had that bracelet, I could play basketball with the older kids.”

“How'd you go from basketball to competitive swimming?”

“Mr. Macias.”

“He dared you?”

Alec grins. “Worse. He hired me.”

My eyes must have widened because he says, “Don't worry, it wasn't like he broke any child labor laws.”

“How old were you?” I ask.

“Twelve. I picked up all the basketballs and he paid me in Gatorade and Snickers Bars. Then he started telling me all the things I could do with my talent, and telling all the other kids the things I could do. So I started doing them.”

“Sounds like a cool guy.”

“The best,” he agrees. “I got a real job there at sixteen and taught classes up until I moved here in June.”

“That's what you meant when you said you had teaching experience.”

He shrugs. “So what about you?” he asks. “How did it happen for you? And don't tell me you started out drilling a thousand.”

“I guess not,” I admit. “I learned to swim on my dad's back in our pool. It's one of those kidney bean pools, but it felt like an ocean when I was little. He'd carry me around like a princess and we'd make up stories. We'd have to brave the crocodile-infested moat or the murky swamp—something. But not snakes. Water snakes scared me.”

He laughs.

“I think Dad finally got tired of dragging me around the
pool and told me I'd better help him swim. So he'd dolphin kick while I held on with one arm and pretended to swim with the other. That's how I learned. In the backyard, with my dad.”

I smile at the memory. Until a wave of embarrassment washes heat through my cheeks. I'm telling all this to
Alec
.

“Anyway,” I say. “From that moment on, I fell in love with swimming and became really dedicated. I like being the best. I like winning blue, and I'm going to like winning gold even better.”

“Olympics, huh? That's a hell of a goal.”

“Swim scholarships to Stanford don't exactly grow on trees, either.”

His smile fades. I watch him drop the shark back into his bag, and I'm reminded of what else is in his bag. Maybe it is his mother's, but that doesn't mean he might not use it himself. Just how far is he willing to go for what he wants?

I glance up at him and our eyes lock. A tremor runs over my skin and goose bumps spike along my arms. Because I can see it in his eyes—he's wondering the same thing about me.

I
'm smothered by darkness and silence again as I wake up. I tilt my head to see the clock but I already know: five a.m.
Thank you, inner clock
. “Good morning, Thursday,” I whisper. “Let today be the day.”

It started as a morning mantra. It's become a daily prayer.

Good morning, Monday. Let today be the day
.

Good morning, Tuesday. Let today be the day
.

Good morning, Wednesday. Let today be the day
.

Still no call from the cardiologist. Each day that goes by, it's like the knot inside my throat doubles. I'm waiting for the news so I can breathe again.

Good morning, Thursday. Let today be the day
.

I roll my shoulders, but there's tension there I can't get rid of. Even swimming, I never felt this stiff. It's not that I'm losing hope.

It's that I'm losing myself.

The day stretches ahead of me, and for what? Without swimming to anchor me, I'm adrift. Up until two weeks ago, I woke up to swim. I planned my meals for swim. I kept up my grades so I could swim. I said no to clubs and parties because of swim. After school, I either swam or did something else that would be good for swimming. I went to bed early because of swim.

I remember reading a magazine story about these boaters who got stuck in a storm, lost their motor, and floated for weeks at the whim of the waves. They had no way to move forward, and it drove them insane.

The way it's driving me insane.

Only, I'm not stuck on a boat. There are other parts of my life that don't rely on swimming, that can help me take my mind off whether the phone is going to ring today.

Like Connor.

Just because we met in the pool doesn't mean we can't connect on dry land. I smile to myself, thinking of just how well we connect in his car. Yeah, it's been a little weird the past week, but that's because we're still making it all about swimming. This morning, I'm going to look as good as humanly possible, and when he gets out of practice, I'm going to be waiting. Even if it's only for a few minutes, we can talk about the Halloween party. So far, we're keeping our costumes a surprise, but that doesn't mean we can't meet up in advance. Jen will be bummed if I don't go with her, but she'll understand.

Mom drops me off at school while the parking lot is still pretty empty. The only ones here this early are swimmers, cross-country, and ROTC. The air is cool but not cold, pretty
standard for October in Phoenix. Everything smells fresh and the sunrise over the Superstition Mountains is pretty enough to be a postcard. I hurry across the asphalt and through the back gate leading to the pool facilities.

As I cut through the gym locker room, I hear Bree and Hannah and a few of the others talking in the showers. Crap! Did practice get out a few minutes early? I drop my backpack near my locker and push open the door leading to the covered walkway.

For a second, I don't see or hear anyone. The pool area looks empty. Then I hear the rattle of the pool gate and see the sweep of wet blond hair and tan shoulders that belong to Connor. Perfect! I paint a smile on my strawberry-glossed lips. The gate jangles as he swings it open, his blue Speedo workout bag banging the metal rungs as he holds it open. Someone else is coming and I hear him laugh—the deep one that means he's not just being polite. Then he steps back and to one side and it's Jen he's holding the gate for.

My best friend—even more perfect. Only for some reason, it doesn't feel that way.

She says something—I can't hear what—and he laughs again. The gate clangs shut behind them and they're talking and my muscles are stiffening into concrete with every passing second. I watch them walking together, but in my head something shifts like one of those hidden pictures. Now I see them
together
walking. They're laughing, talking, both wet from the pool, from a practice I couldn't attend.

What else have I been missing since I started missing practice?

Then Jen looks up and sees me. “Hey,” she calls. I watch her and don't know what I expect to see, but it's just Jen and her usual smile.

“What are you doing here?” Connor says. He reaches for my hand and leans over and gives me a quick kiss. “Strawberry,” he says, tasting my lip gloss.

“You know fresh fruit is good for you after a workout.”

He grins his sexy grin. Jen finally stopped counting them because there were just too many. But now I try to remember the last one before this and I can't. Are they numbered in a way I'd never considered? Because our days together are numbered? Or are they still coming as fast as usual—just in someone else's direction?

I glance from Connor to Jen. I hate this feeling…this
jealousy
. But I can't help it from stinging. “What were you guys laughing about?”

She drops her swim bag and straightens the sides of her swim parka. Jen hates to be cold and her parka is a nice one: black on the outside with gray furry lining inside. Connor, on the other hand, just has a towel around his waist.

“There was a Band-Aid floating in the pool,” Jen says. “While we were doing streamlines.”

“Ah,” I say, understanding immediately. For streamline drills, we straighten our bodies like an arrow and try to shoot our way across the bottom of the pool using only our legs to propel us. Swimming so deep always brings up stuff that's stuck to the bottom.

“Anyway,” Jen explains, “the Band-Aid ended up glued to Bree's goggles when she surfaced.”

“I was still underwater and even I heard her scream,” Connor says.

“She was freaked,” Jen adds.

“So then Tanner grabbed the Band-Aid—”

“Of course, he couldn't just toss it onto the deck,” Jen interjects, looking at Connor to finish.

“So Tanner told everyone he saw a scab attached, and I said no, I thought it was a hair.” Connor grins and rocks back on his heels.

“After that,” Jen says, “everyone had to take turns guessing where the hair came from.”

“Can't repeat those,” Connor says. “Could get expelled.”

By now, they're retelling the story to themselves. I smile as widely as I can but it's one of those “you had to be there” stories.

“Coach didn't get mad?” I finally ask.

Jen shakes her head. “It was right at the end of practice, so he let us out a few minutes early. We're supposed to be tapering for State, anyway.”

“I thought I heard everyone else in the locker room.”

“Yeah.” Jen looks at Connor. “We got to talking, I guess.”

“And now I gotta run.” Connor rolls his eyes. “I was supposed to check in at ceramics and make sure my pot got fired.”

“I'll go with you,” I say.

“To ceramics?” He sounds surprised at the idea, and I suppose it is stupid. I've never offered to go to his class before.

“You've never shown me what you're making.”

“Because I'd rather be making
out
,” he says, and it doesn't sound cute; it sounds…stupid.

I don't have much practice hiding my feelings, but I give a
pretty decent imitation of a smile and even shove his chest lightly with one hand. “Get out of here. I'll see you in the hall after second period.”

“And wear more of that strawberry stuff,” he adds, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

He disappears inside the locker room, and Jen grabs her swim bag with a sigh. “He's a crack-up.”

“I know,” I snap. “He's
my
boyfriend.”

She flashes me a look of surprise. “I didn't say he wasn't.”

“But maybe you'd like to change that?”

She shifts, pulling her coat tighter around her waist. “What is up with you?”

“Is it Connor?”

“Is what Connor?”

“The guy you like.”

“I told you there is no guy I like.”

“Jen,” I say, my gaze glued to her face.

She rolls her eyes, and I think she's just looking for a way to break eye contact. But then she looks back at me, her gaze locking on mine. “Even if it was Connor. Even if I loved him with all my heart and a complete lack of frontal lobe, I would never, NEVER, do anything about it. And you know that.”

It's my turn to look away. Jen is a better person than I'll ever be, a better friend than I deserve. I know deep down she wouldn't go after my boyfriend.

But is she wishing she could?

Is he wishing it too?