Life Lines

December 13-Afternoon

13:00

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I said, glaring at the red stained tissue in my hand. Unsure whether anyone was in the bathroom with me, I threw it in the toilet with an unsatisfactory amount of force, trying to stay docile while my insides boiled.

As the stall door continued to bounce on its hinges from where I’d slammed it in my frustration, I scrubbed my hands under the burning tap water in the sink until they turned bright pink. The soap bubbles filled the white porcelain, growing high only to be burst by the water streaming out of the faucet, clouds of steam rising toward the ceiling like a boiling cauldron.

A shudder ran down my spine.

I hated blood—even if it was mine. It made me feel disgusting. So did the uneasy feeling in my stomach. Everything just seemed so disgusting.

Putting a second quarter in the white box on the wall—after it swallowed my first without compensation—was just another slap in the face and the pitying smile of the girl coming through the door in time to watch me take my prize back into a stall, wasn’t helping.

Nothing like tampons and suddenly too-tight swimsuits on a Monday afternoon to give the week a nice, hopeless outlook.

The girl and I exchanged another knowing glance through the mirrors as we emerged from our stalls simultaneously and washed our hands at the sinks in uncomfortable silence. Her brown eyes avoided mine but the same sorry smile was painted on the soft curves of her face.

It was like a stalemate between us when she realized I washed for an unusually long time—enough to make your skin burn and run dry, sore, and rough. If she shut of her faucet before mine maybe I’d think she was dirty, but if I kept going maybe she’d think I was weird. Either way, I didn’t care much.

I hated blood.

16:00

I had an uncanny ability to time things almost perfectly based on the CDs Shawn had given me for Christmas the year of the accident. He was so grateful I’d brought him back to life, he gave me all his old albums, even the ones from the punk rock group he loved.

Since that day it was like he had been connected to me through some sort of spiritual bond that no one else could see. There was a tether between us and although my parents didn’t know where, they could sense it. So they did their best to cut the strings and throw me into the wind, hoping I’d outrun him and just forget about the boy that used to be my only freedom.

It seemed weird to accept the CDs—he was so proud of them—but it was a persistent begging that he wanted me to have them that made me finally agree. Now they were almost all I had from him. That and a stack of memories that played through my mind like a booklet of Polaroids every night. Flipping through the images in my mind was like watching a movie of our friendship and the albums quickly became the soundtrack.

Besides, he said they were great to swim to and that wasn’t a lie.

The beats were so cohesive throughout the album that it kept my heart rate steady and the lyrics were quick and careless—just like Shawn.

Before diving in, I’d catch the first word and try not to lose place as I went from one end of the pool then back to the start, only hearing splashing until I surfaced in time to match the words in my mind to the ones coming from the speaker. After almost a year, I was never wrong.

I even had the ability to time my schedule events by it.

The CD ended at the same time Coach Godwin walked through the doors into the pool room, just as I’d planned. His thick legs paraded in front of me as I panted in the water, trying to catch a breath from the last lap.