WATER BATHS

00 ; water baths

Hugh

Water was comforting to me. The smell of the chlorine that turned to nothing, the initial chill that melted away from my bones. Until all I felt was the gentle slosh and the smooth waves. But being in a pool... it wasn't the same as being in the ocean.

Being drowned in a pool seemed calmer, softer.

The ocean was sometimes abrasive and the calm was sometimes hard to find.

Though people loved the ocean- the ocean didn't love us. Only when it feels like, when the sun shines on it gloriously and the life inside quakes barely and it moves like an unfurling blanket or maybe a net, ready to catch the the air, my legs, my breath. Only then does it love us. But then again how could it love? It was just foam and salt and rushing h20.

I thought that my ocean murmurings in my head should be filed away in a crevice of my head, the memory of the words in my hand to write down later.

Those same hands slipped through the blue as I swam, wading through the flickering paleness. On my bare skin the water passed and washed. Arms strained after the lengths, legs a bit old from the exertion, I bobbed slowly. Stuck in my head, on my own.

I dragged a hand over my dripping face and through my hair that fell in my eyes, pushing it back; the red in it a deep copper from the water.

I blinked and let the noise around me fall away; the shriek of smalls kids, the slap of feet against the slippery floor and the buzz of those around me and rush of water in the other pools.

I fried my brain, willing the charred remains of school and overdue library book thoughts to drift out my ears.

My scattered head wasn't nearly as clear as I would have liked with silent worries bobbing in its folds. Stupid work experience form. Plans for the future. What did I want? What was I working towards? What the hell did I even do this summer?

I racked my brain and cried for it to shut up and just when I was ready to squeeze my eyes close and take my ears into the chlorine water- both heart and soul of mine dropped to the bottom of my stomach.

And everything went blank except from the annoying awareness that my mouth had lost all moisture and the heart that had fell to my stomach was hammering away uncomfortably. Sickly.

It was the glimpse of the hair. Long and dark and drenched. I hadn't seen it in weeks. Not since she stopped walking home in front of me after 4 pm, striding with her school bag over her shoulders and a hood over her head. Not since she stopped walking through the door next to mine, over the wrought fence.

My eyes hardened unconsciously and I tried to pull my gaze away but it was looking for her, just confirming, only making sure.

And they couldn't look away as they spotted her, back in the water.

I swallowed thickly. Eyes flickering over her wet hair that was swept back over her ears so I could see all of her face and her neck. Her piercings, many in one ear, glittered. Her long strong arms swept through the blue and her dark eyes with their stark long brows told me nothing. They were so cold. Yet somehow I felt like I was always being scorched into shock by them. Trouble. That's what she was.

Her eyes. They set some mix of stress and curiosity inside of me. I hated it. Despised it. Maybe it was just intense dislike I was feeling. That was always my conclusion. Dislike and that shivery feeling that came from cold rain. Unfamiliar, was her gaze and people didn't tend to like unfamiliar things. But it was an unfamiliar, unreadable expression that I was used to, what I knew.

Damn it.

But it didn't really matter. I shook my head. She didn't matter. I would rather I rot away inside my skull, avoiding home than ponder over her.

I looked away and continued to wade through the deep end of the blue under the white light.

Darya

I saw him, I also knew he found me. And he wasn't being very subtle about it. Hugh's eyes darted away from me quickly just as I looked up and he swept off to the deeper end, past a skinny boy in neon green shorts.

I rolled my eyes. Then closed them and dived under, holding my breath- still as my hair exploded in the water, floating inside and pretending oblivion was expanding around me. It felt calm, unmoving until I had to break through the water above and let oblivion dissipate around my limbs.

A small girl with plaited hair that was clinging to her little neck was bobbing around with inflatable armbands, pink and fat. I watched as an elderly women with etched wrinkles on her weathered though kind face, and crinkly eyes pulled at the little girl's tiny hand.

They laughed together and danced in the water.

The older woman's hand were bony but firm and the arms that held them were strung with blue jutting veins, pushing through the skin but they were strong those arms.

I sighed at the sight, reluctantly wistful, as I ignored the sharp ache in my chest. I looked away.

The water around me felt like an old estranged friend. I had avoided it too long. At first, it had felt like welcoming a ghost. The ghost of a feeling that had turned the waves grey and murky. But soon it cleared and my apprehension managed to decrease until I wondered if I had to say goodbye to the swimming pool for so long.

The past 4 weeks of the summer holidays had mostly consisted of late nights that turned into early mornings. I got to see the sky blush everyday. Neon violet and blue lights flashed in my eyes and the memory of the smell of green I could probably take to my grave. Gwenyth and Jamie and Reece came to mind and without them here with the bright bulbs, it felt like a whole other bubble of life in the middle the pool.

When I slowly peered through the swim soaked crowd I blinked and tilted my head easily, calmly as my eyes passed the back of Hugh then turned back to him due to a mere spark of curiosity.

His back was bare, hardly broad but hardly skinny. His hair was a disgruntled shock of dark brown and red. Honestly, I would've been content if he had just continued hovering near the edge of the pool with his back to me.

But he didn't, his body twisted round and his eyes met mine in barely a minute. I looked for a few moments; glancing over his distant expression that soon turned to one of surprise, eyes growing wide before I saw a face full of thinly veiled contempt and dislike.

Lovely.

I just raised an eyebrow a little and let a shadow of an amused smile flicker across my face before I dived under the water, finding my way out of the pool and walking away, each step heavy as I dripped from my limbs.