You Looked Lost (Narry Lifeguard AU)

Chapter 3

I’d been able to escape the weekend on only minor run-ins with Miles.  It was easy to avoid Payton seeing as she was rarely home anyway.  She always seemed to be somewhere other than our house, which was perfectly fine with me.  Miles had been out late several nights with his friends, drinking at random bars.  His absence was probably due to the absence of the one person that I actually wanted to see.  I had been looking forward to spending some time with my mom over the weekend, but she’d been called into work at the hospital unexpectedly, leaving me virtually alone.

Everything felt the same.  Miles pretending to care and Payton not even hiding her completely uncaring attitude towards my mother and I.  In summation, I couldn’t wait for my lifeguard test.

It was rather early in the morning, eight-thirty to be exact, and I was waiting for my turn to take the test.  I watched the girl before me, intent on knowing what it was I was supposed to do.  It looked as though there were just a series of drills testing my endurance in water and the abilities I would need as a lifeguard.  So far, they’d had the girl swim to the bottom of the pool several times to retrieve items placed there themselves.  They then had her tread water without the use of her arms for two minutes.  Neither of these things would be a problem for me.

I was wondering what it was that Harry was involved in, though, but it appeared that was the last thing they had her do.  Harry hopped in the pool and simply started to sink, acting as a drowning victim, I assumed.  The girl was able to drag him to the surface with a little effort, seeing as he was a complete deadweight.  Next, Harry not only sunk, but also thrashed in the girl’s arms, like a guest could likely do in a situation where he or she was panicking.  It was kind of scary to watch, just because it looked really real.  It was easy to forget that Harry could simply swim to the surface and save himself if the girl wasn’t able to handle it.  She managed, of course, only having to swim away from him for a moment to collect herself, before reattempting and pulling him to the edge.

I watched Harry congratulate her and then pull himself out of the water.  It was my turn now.  I swallowed thickly as a bundle of nerves erupted in my stomach.  I hated that I was nervous for this, but I couldn’t help it.  I stood up and toed off my flip flops, leaving them behind at the table I was sitting at.  I walked over toward the group of senior lifeguards, rubbing my hands together nervously.  The only people’s names I knew were John’s and Harry’s, although some of them looked familiar.  Harry had introduced me to some of them last week at the party.  I felt bad again for forgetting their names.

“Niall, hey!” Harry saw me and waved me over, smiling big.

Whatever had been bothering him last week was gone from his face now.  He looked just as carefree and sure of himself as before.  I approached him and gave a nervous smile back.  Harry pointed to his chest and I was confused for a moment before I realized he was talking about my shirt.  I pulled it off and threw it back over to my shoes.  I walked the rest of the way over to the group, and Harry clapped me on the back as I stopped at his side.

“Niall Horan?” John asked me, looking at a clipboard, which must have had a list of names on it.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I nodded my head.

“I’m John, and this is Paula, Grace, Harry, Trent, and Keith,” he said, pointing to each of the people.

I nodded at them and smiled, waving my hand a little.

“Alright, there’s no need to be nervous.  This is just something we gotta do before we can hire you.  It’s nothing personal or against you or anything,” John continued.  “First we’re just gonna ask that you retrieve some things from the deep-end of the pool.  It’s about thirteen feet.  We just want to make sure you’re able to swim that deep, although you’ll rarely have to.”