Chapter 13
“Maddie, jump in!” Drew yelled as he, James and Alex were in the middle of a splashing war.
Maybe mom hadn’t been too far off after she had called us kids.
I was sitting on the edge of the indoor pool with my feet in the water. It was a decent size pool. It wasn’t too small but, it wasn’t too large either. You could easily swim laps in it if you wanted to, or if you were physically capable of swimming laps, unlike myself.
Only a few of the ceiling lights were on and the pool was lite up. I had thought the pool had been closed because it was kinda dark in here. James had said otherwise.
I just smiled back at my younger brother. I didn’t really want to become involved the war they were having. It would just result in getting water up my nose, choking on the chlorine, and my ears getting plugged. And all that did not sound like oodles of fun to me.
Another reason I didn’t want to get in was because I was slightly embarrassed. I was the only girl in the group. The boys had all stripped down to their boxers and jumped in without a care in the world. Girls can’t just do that! I’d have to swim in the gym shorts and tank top I was wearing and that would be so uncomfortable. The tank top was sucky enough as it was. If it got wet, it would just get worse.
Being a girl, it was natural for me to be a little self-conscious. I felt like guys just didn’t understand that sometimes. Obviously my brothers wouldn’t care if I jumped in. It would still be a weird and awkward situation for me but, at least I didn’t have to worry about them looking at me and trying to check me out.
Alex was a different situation. I know, we’ve been best friends for over two years and I shouldn’t be bothered by an event like this. It’s not like there would be much of a difference between the way my clothes looked if they were wet or dry. I couldn’t help but feel weird about it though. It seemed like James saying all of those jokes about me and him dating and stuff just kind of… affected him differently than me. It was almost like I knew something was going to happen between us, and I was terrified. I had talked to him pretty much every day since the day I met him. I didn’t want anything to change between us. I liked our friendship right where it was.
Overall I had decided that swimming in your clothes was weird, swimming with boys wearing nothing but their underwear was weird, seeing boys wearing nothing but their underwear was weird, and swimming with someone that might possibly be developing a crush on you was weird, especially if all the other things were already happening.
All these things were causing me a lot of awkwardness and embarrassment and made me want to throw up. And, they weren’t even happening yet!
“Maddie!” James called, swimming over to me.
I looked up quickly, suddenly realizing that I had unknowingly put my head in my hands. James was getting closer.
“Hey, you okay?” He asked as he rested his elbows on the pool’s edge.
“Yeah,” I cleared my throat. Apparently I had been internally freaking out so much, it had caused my voice to get rough. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
James laughed and looked me in the eyes. “Maddie, I’m 22 years old. I know that girls don’t mean it when they say they’re fine.”
Crap. I swallowed nervously. Was it worth trying to deny it? Probably not.
“Well congrats.” I sighed. “You’re officially the only boy who managed to figure it out.”
“But really,” He gave me a small smile. “What’s bothering you?”
I hesitated and looked to where Drew and Alex were still swimming on the other side of the pool. They looked like they were having fun. Why couldn’t I just be super carefree and just have a good time? They obviously weren’t going to judge me, they were my friends.
“I don’t know…” I crinkled my nose and looked back at James, “It just seems weird to me. You’re all swimming in your underwear and I don’t even like seeing my own brothers wearing boxers around the house! You could’ve told us to bring swimsuits instead of extra clothes.”
He watched me intently as I rambled. It made me really happy to know that my older brother still cared about me and how I felt. It was relieving to find out that that hadn’t changed with all the time we had spent apart.
“Look,” James pried my hands off the pool edge and held them in his own. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s weird at all. Swimsuits are basically the same things as swimming in underwear or tank tops. Besides,” He smiled. “I know you don’t really want to sit here by yourself. You’d rather come in and have fun.”
His hazel eyes were holding my gaze. I sighed. “…I guess you’re right.” I still was nowhere near comfortable about the whole situation but, maybe I had been over exaggerating and over thinking things.
“So you’ll come in?” James asked hopefully as he squeezed my hands.
“I guess so…” I looked back into his hopeful eyes.
He smirked and before I could realize what was happening, I felt his hands move up to my wrists and he pulled me off the edge of the pool.
I screamed as the water got closer. James had tried to move out of the way but I hadn’t been in the air long enough for him to get to far. I tried to cling to his shoulder during my fall. I’m not sure why. Maybe I thought it would keep me from falling, or I had absentmindedly wanted to dunk him. Either way I dragged him under with me.
The water was cold as I was submerged into it.
I let go of James and swam back up to the surface. He appeared next to me and I smacked him in the shoulder.
He just began laughing hysterically.
I pushed my now soaking we hair out of me face. “What the hell!” I began laughing along with him, even though I still didn’t think that him pulling my into the water had been funny.
“I knew you’d let your stubbornness get the best of you if I didn’t do something about it,” James was still laughing.
I stuck my tongue out at him. He was probably right.
“Woo hoo!” Drew yelled from somewhere behind me. “You got her in!”
I turned around to see him pushing the wet hair out of his eyes.
“You really need a haircut,” I said as I saw him. His hair was literally as long as his eyeballs.
“Don’t tell me how to live my life!” Drew swam closer to me. “I am an independent person!”
“You’re only 16, you’re not independent yet,” I laughed, sinking into the water until only my head and neck were sticking out.
“Close enough,” He splashed the water in my direction.
“Hey!” I turned my face away and held up my hands to try and block it. “Cut it out! There’s a reason that I didn’t want to join in on your splash war, you know.”
The splashing stopped and he laughed.
We swam around for a while and had a few competitions to see who could get to the other side of the pool the fastest. It was a struggle.
Then they started to dunk each other and I became a victim of that. I tried to dunk them back but it didn’t really work. I wasn’t as strong as them.
After a while, the dunking ceased and I was finally able to breathe again without choking on water and laughing hysterically at what was happening around me.
“What are you guys gonna be up to once you get back?” James pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the pool.
“Counting down the remaining days of summer vacation,” Drew sighed. “I don’t wanna go back to school. Junior year’s gonna be awful!”
“Yeah mine was pretty bad,” I laughed. “The actual school part was great. Just… don’t get involved in any intense baby drama and you should be fine.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Drew’s voice had a hint of sarcasm to it.
“What about you?” James took a turn to look at both Alex and I.
“Well,” Alex pulled himself out of the water as well and onto the edge as well. “I got accepted to the University of Wisconsin.”
“Good for you!” James looked at him in surprise. “There can’t be too much time left before you have to move out there then, huh?”
“It’s getting closer,” Alex agreed, pushing his blonde hair back. “Move-In Day is in a few weeks.”
The thought of Alex going off to college made me a little upset. I had grown so used to his company and having him around whenever I needed him. He would no longer be just a few minutes away.
“I’m guessing you still have a lot to do then,” James leaned back on his arms.
“Yeah, I have to go through everything I own and pack it up in boxes and then buy the rest of my textbooks,” Alex chuckled. “I’m so not ready for this. The idea of college is still really weird to me.”
James nodded at the thought.
“I want to go to college,” I spoke up, looking at them. “My options are kinda limited though. I can’t exactly go live at a college because I have Devon. I could get an apartment or something but then I’d have to get a job and I don’t have enough time for that. Right now, living at home and going to community college seems like my only reasonable choice.”
“I think it’s awesome that you’re considering it,” James watched me attentively. “Even if you just went to community college, you still be accomplishing more than I did when I graduated. I lived at home for a year and worked at the grocery store!”
I laughed at the memory. James had just laid around the house for a few months before mom made him get a job. He hadn’t done anything productive before the one day that he decided he wanted to try and get better at boxing. It took him another few months before he decided that that was what he wanted to try and do with his life.
“Yeah,” I agreed with his statement. “I still don’t know what I want to do but I thought it was better to try and figure it out instead of sitting home alone with Devon every day and thinking about how I could be doing something productive with my life instead.”
James nodded, understanding what I was saying. “Well, I’ll still be out here doing this every day,” He slowly stood up and stretched before diving back into the water.
I felt something grab my ankle and I screamed. I tried to kick it off but, I was pulled under.
I forced my eyes open and saw James’s hand clamped on my ankle. I tried to push him away so I could swim back to the surface for a much needed breath of air. He refused to budge and my lungs started to burn. Eventually, he let go and I broke the surface of the water.
I immediately began coughing and gasping for air.
“Why do you keep doing that?” I yelled between breaths, pushing my hair off of my face. “You almost drowned me!”
“Did not!” James yelled back. He sounded like a five year old when he said that.
I began splashing him and he turned away from it and began splashing me back.
“I said no splash wars!” I blocked my face.
Suddenly an unknown voice could be heard over the ruckus we were causing.
“HEY! THE POOL CLOSED TEN MINUTES AGO! YOU HAVE TO LEAVE!”
The splashing quickly stopped and we all turned towards the voice. There was a janitor standing in the doorway of the pool with a cart of supplies in front of him.
I felt my stomach sink a little with that oh-no-I-just-got-in-trouble feeling as he yelled. I had not been expecting for anyone else to show up in the room. None of us had.
We all started climbing out of the water.
“Sorry!” James spoke loudly as he climbed out. “We didn’t know! We’ll leave!”
The guy didn’t reply. He glared at us for a few seconds before going back out the doorway and continuing down the hall.
Once I was out of the water, I did my best to squeeze out the water from my clothes and hair.
“Why didn’t you tell us to bring towels?” I looked at James as the realization hit me. “We’re going to leave a trail throughout the whole building!”
“I forgot!” He was trying to squeeze out some of the water from his boxers as well. “We can just go to the lockers rooms to change. They’re not that far.”
We all gathered up our own things and followed James out of the room and down the hallway to the locker rooms.
I pushed open the door to the girls’ locker room and walked inside. It was empty. I set my bag down on one of the benches. I quickly changed my clothes and rung the water out of them the best I could so they wouldn’t cause my bag to become completely soaked. I put my socks and sneakers back on. If I had a towel I probably would’ve rinsed the chlorine off.
After I was finished, I walked back out into the hallway. The boys were already there, waiting. James led us back through the gym to get back to the door we had originally come in through as he called Mom on his phone to tell her that we were done. By the time we got to the parking lot, she was already back with the car. She got into the passenger seat so James could drive and we all climbed in. It didn’t take long to get back to the apartment.
Once we were back, I finally got to rinse off the chlorine and change into comfy pajamas. I sat down in the living room with the rest of my family, feeling really tired and exhausted from the day’s events.
…
I was suddenly aware of Devon’s cries. Opening my eyes, I was momentarily confused. I was in the living room curled up on the couch. The light coming through the windows next to the TV told me it was early morning.
Wait…early morning? I had fallen asleep on the couch last night while everyone had been talking and watching TV?
I sat up and noticed another set of pillows and blankets on the other half of the couch I had just been sleeping on. I think Drew was crammed on the other half of this couch. Alex was asleep on the air mattress. The other couch had been abandoned, only a pillow and blanket was there. Where was James?
I quickly pushed the thought away as I realized Devon was still crying. I looked toward the hallway and noticed a light coming out of the doorway to the guest room.
I slowly climbed off the couch, careful not to wake my brother, and made my way down the hall. As I got closer to the room I heard whispering. I peeked into the door way and saw James sitting there on the mattress next to a wailing Devon.
“Hey Dev,” James was trying to calm him down. “Shh. You gotta be quiet. Everyone’s sleeping.”
I let out a laugh and walked into the room.
“Oh. Hi Maddie.” He looked up at me in surprise, trying to act like nothing was wrong.
I went over to Devon and picked him up.
“You look like you could use some help,” I said to James as I started to rock Devon to calm him a little.
“I thought I was doing alright,” He replied, scratching his head. He was acting like everything had been perfectly fine before I had walked into the room.
“Yeah that’s why the poor kid was screaming,” Dev had calmed down a little now that he realized I was here. He wasn’t used to seeing James around, so he probably hadn’t been too comfortable around him. “Did you try changing him?”
“Of course not!” James looked at me like I was crazy.
I laughed. “Well he smells like he needs one.”
He cringed at, what I was assuming was, the mental picture of him changing a diaper.
“That’s okay, I’ll change him,” I went over to where my bag was still on the floor and got out all the things I needed.
After he was changed, the crying had died down. I threw the diaper out in the bathroom garbage and washed my hands. I had left Devon on the bed next to James.
“You know,” I walked back into the room and began to put all of the diaper things away. “You’re gonna have to change a diaper eventually.”
“Hopefully not for a long time,” James replied as he picked Devon up.
“It’s really not that bad,” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him. I laughed a little before speaking again. “When the time comes, I’ll probably end up teaching you anyway. I bet you’ll call me and be on the verge of tears.”
“I won’t be in tears!” He fought back, looking at me with an entertained expression.
I raised an eyebrow, not believing him. “Well if you’re not physically crying by the time you call me, then you’ll be crying on the inside.”
“You seem so sure about this,” He watched my face carefully, probably wondering where these physic predictions were coming from.
“Maybe it’s my motherly instincts,” I teased him. He had said earlier that day that I had them.
“Maybe…” He put Devon back down on the bed and stood up.
“You know, you could’ve woke me up,” I said as he began walking towards the door.
“Yeah, I probably could’ve done that. I just thought that… you needed a break. He cried for a while and you didn’t moved an inch,” James turned and smiled at me. “You seemed really exhausted so, I thought I could try and take care of it for you.”
“Well thanks for trying,” I grinned back at him. “It’s kinda adorable that you did.”
“It didn’t really do anything though,” He paused and stretched his arms. “Well. I’m gonna try and sleep for a couple more hours.”
“Yeah me too,” I started to fix the blankets on the bed and arranging Devon’s area.
Hopefully I could get Devon to go back to sleep for a little while longer.