Page 60 of The Lies We Steal

Stripping my clothes excitedly, leaving me in my black two piece. I’d been waiting all day to slip into the cool water. Swimming made me feel weightless. Nothing really mattered except the way my body moved. My brain could shut off for a little bit and I could just float.

I needed that.

No more Hollow Boys. No revenge plotting. No school or math problems.

Just to float for a bit.

My bare feet danced across the cold floors around the outside of the pool. Slightly damp and sticking to my feet, I inhale the chlorine that lingers in the wet air. The verbena and wild roses planted around the pool almost overwhelm it, but not entirely. I loved that smell. The chlorine that is. Huffing it like paint before meets as I readied myself on the diving board, prepared to launch into the water.

Music hung in the air, soft distorted melodies, with subversive lyrics and full of angst. The kind of songs that fueled broken hearts and brought castaways home.

Restless, I dive headfirst into the nine-foot-deep end of the Olympic sized pool. The rush of water cocoons around me, settling on the outside of my ears and making everything above the surface trivial.

The pressure of the water hugs me, showing me comfort I lacked from being here. My family may have been poor, my father may have stolen for a job, but I grew up loved.

I grew up in a home where hugs were given freely and often. Where the grill was always on in the summer, the smell of charcoal wafting around the warm air. Where in the winters we’d find the largest hill in our trailer park and sled down it with plastic lids to storage containers. Where my mom read my bedtime stories and tucked me in.

I was used to being invisible to everyone outside of my home. To feeling cold and unwanted at school, judged at the grocery store, but I knew I would walk into a two-bedroom trailer that felt like home and supported me. I had basically nothing to call my own, except family and now it felt like I didn’t even have that.

I’d never felt more isolated.

Yeah, I had Lyra, I had Thomas and I called my mom quite often, but it didn’t feel like enough. Walking around here is a constant chill on my spine, always lugging the chip on my shoulder ready to defend myself.

Minus being chased by psychotic men, I assumed most college freshman felt this way.

Trying desperately to fit in, to find a place to belong in the world all alone. Going away from your family always sounds better in your head, until you’re states away, alone, eating ramen in a hoodie that hasn’t been washed in three days.

But it’s a process. I know this to will pass in one way or another. Either I start to get used to the torment or I let it scare me away.

I stay under until my lungs wanted to burst, until black spots began sprinkling behind my eyelids.

Piercing the water with a gasp for air, I pushed my hair out of my face, slicking it down my back. Chlorine stinging my eyes enough to make me wipe at them.

With a slow pace I make my way to the shallow end, stretching my legs out on the side of the pool, pulling my arms across my chest working the muscles out.

I wanted to get my laps in for the night, I knew it would tire me out and I could possibly get some rest tonight. Which I needed, because I had a test tomorrow and I did not want to fail my first college test.

I picked the lane in the middle, number five, the song changing as I dive back underneath the water starting with the breaststroke for my first hundred meters.

Five-hundred-meter medley was always my heat. I think it silently killed my swim coach that I was the only one on the team who could do all four swim styles. I won meets just to see the pissed off look on her face because just like everyone else, they expected me to fail.

And I guess that’s what all of this comes down to.

It’s why I haven’t tucked tail and ran far away from this homicidal school with kidnapping tendencies.

I didn’t want to give them what they wanted from me.

Failure.

It’s all anyone has ever seen when they look at me. When they get past the invisibility, all they see is trailer park trash destined for the gutters.

I wanted more for myself. I wanted to prove them all wrong. I lived for the moments I did, when I could see the shock on their faces. That’s what I’m going to try to do here.

Build a better future for myself so that when people look at me, they see a woman riddled with success and confidence. They wouldn’t be able to imagine me as anything else.

Those boys weren’t going to take that from me. I wasn’t going to let them see me fail either. Even if they look down at me from their respective thrones, thinking their terror pranks will run me away, ruin me.

They would not be the end of me. They are not taking my future from me.

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