Submerge

F O R W A R D

Ethan doesn't say anything when I limp into the kitchen. He's pouring coffee into mismatched mugs, eyes flicking toward the clock.

"Fifty-one minutes," he says softly.

I freeze mid-step. "You timing me now?"

He shrugs. "Just... noticed."

"It helped," I say too fast. "The heat."

"I believe you."

He doesn't press. But he also doesn't stop watching me like he's trying to guess which stitch will come undone first.

That night, I start my college essay.

The prompt is something vague and nauseating about resilience. I title it Forward. Then stare at the blinking cursor for fifteen minutes before I type.

I never thought I'd have to relearn how to move through water.

It's the only sentence I keep. The rest gets deleted, rewritten, deleted again. Words crumble like sand in my hands. 

I rewrite it three times before Nathan wanders in with a bowl of pretzels and asks if I want him to read it.

I let him. He doesn't say much, just taps one line near the end where I wrote "You move forward by choosing to believe in motion, even when your body's screaming to stay still." He highlights the word believe and nods once.

Later, Ethan reads it too, curled up sideways on my bed, hair falling into his eyes. He underlines "I am not the same boy I was before" and writes in the margin: You're still you, Mas. Don't forget that.

I don't erase it. But I don't read it again either.

I should feel proud. Everyone acts like I'm doing well.

Ellis tells me I've turned a corner, Jada upgraded me from "pool noodle" to "resistance band," and Nathan is already talking about college visits this summer.

But I keep ending up in the bathroom.

Three nights in a row, I sit under the water until steam bleeds up the walls and the mirror forgets my face. Not because I'm sore. Not because of the brace.

Because I can't stop scrubbing.

Soap, then body wash, then shampoo when the others run out. Fingernails dragged over skin until it burns. I scrub my chest, my thighs, the inside of my elbows—anywhere someone once touched without permission. As if enough friction might erase what's still underneath.

The water runs so hot my skin blotches pink. The loofah starts to unravel. But I don't stop. Not until my fingertips go numb and the tiles ache beneath my knees.

I tell myself I'm just being thorough. That it's about routine. About healing.

But the truth is, I don't know how to feel clean.

In our next session, Ellis watches me too closely and asks if I ever feel like I'm pretending.

I say no.

What I mean is. 

Yes. Every second. But if I admit it out loud, I'm scared it'll all fall apart.

Coach Anderson calls my name across the pool deck and tosses a whistle like he expects me to catch it without flinching. 

I do—barely, and he claps a hand on my shoulder like we're soldiers in the same war. 

"You're running warm-up for the clinic tomorrow. You've earned it."