Kelly was a great swimmer. She was good at sprints but better at distance. She had absolutely shattered school records and been a dependable scorer since she was a freshman. The other girls called her a work horse, her coach called her “hey you!” or “The quiet one.” She was not a star player, never one of the favorites. She was in all ways, exceptionally invisible.
And she liked it that way.
She had only touched the pool once since becoming a Shade and it had been forty minutes of pure bliss. This time she told herself she didn’t even need to swim. She could just relax, float, and let her ear plugs join forces with the water and make her functionally deaf to the world.
She didn’t even notice she had started laps until she was in the middle of her third turn. STOP! a part of her brain demanded. You can’t run away from this! It warned. There is no lap number, no yardage that will give you enough distance to make a clean get away!
She swam until her arms and legs were screaming louder than her mind.
When she stopped she was almost eight thousand yards away from where she had started, but when she pulled her goggles off and her earplugs out she was still in the same pool, the same school, the same life, with the same problems.
Her arms were pillars of flaming jello but she still pulled herself up out of the water and onto the deck. She rolled over onto her back and let the rush of oxygen from her huge chest raising breaths artificially lighten her mood.
“Did you make it?” Gordon asked.
Kelly opened her eyes. Gordon was looking down at her. She sat up slowly. “Nope. I got seventy eight hundred yards in before I realized I was still here.” She sighed.
He sat next to her. “There are more efficient ways to escape.” He pointed out.
She nodded. “Escape from what? I can go anywhere I want, when ever I want.” She admitted.
He nodded. “But your still stuck inside your own head.” He admitted looking at the school record board on the far side of the pool.
She looked at him for a second. “Why are you here?” She asked.
He shrugged and then met her gaze. “If I have to be stuck in this prison.” He tapped his head. “The least I can do is get to know the people in the other cells.” He smiled.
They both went back to looking at the scoreboard.
The surface of the pool had long ago gone flat like glass before she realized they were holding hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment