If I Tell - By Janet Gurtler Page 0,5

to’? Is everything all right?”

“I guess.” I grabbed her hand and pulled, and she stumbled since she’s shorter than me.

We both laughed as she got her balance. I put my guitar in its case and then bent to pick up my backpack and slung it over my shoulder. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. I really am sorry.”

Ashley tilted her chin, watching me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Ashley turned toward the front doors. “Okay.” Her body language said “slighted,” but I couldn’t do anything about it.

“So you’ve probably been up since six to swim this morning?” I said to change the subject.

“Quarter to five. We swam at five-thirty.”

I groaned but admired her discipline. Ashley swam competitively at the pool next to her old high school, and though she didn’t talk about how good she was, I’d checked her out online and found she held a bunch of records. When I’d asked her about it, she’d shrugged. She’d been much more reactive when I told her I hated to swim. It wasn’t entirely true. I just never really got over the time I almost drowned in fourth grade.

“You want to come to the pool after school? I have a lane to myself for two hours. I could spend some time teaching you the front crawl. I have extra suits.” She’d become determined to get me in the water, positive she could teach me to swim.

“I have to work tonight.”

“Well, another night then. I’m not giving up. No one should be afraid of the water. You have a natural swimmer’s build. I bet you’d be really good once you got going.”

“Always optimistic, aren’t you, Ashley?”

“I can’t believe you don’t swim,” she mumbled.

I shrugged, but in my head I pictured the kids surrounding me in the YMCA pool when I’d been eleven. Swimming around me, blocking me from reaching the ledge, laughing while I panicked and forgot what I’d learned about staying afloat in water and dog-paddled in circles. Terror banged in my chest as I’d struggled to breathe. My head started bobbing up and down while I heard distant gleeful shouts that my color was rubbing off and making the water dirty. I’d thrashed around, trying to keep my head above the water. The faces of my classmates flashed in and out in front of me, laughing and screeching as I struggled.

And then, the surreal panic fled and turned into an absolute certainty that I was going to die. The realization had calmed me, and I’d stopped fighting against the pull of the water taking me under. My lungs stopped burning, and an exquisite sensation of peace took over. I could remember the tangible feeling even now. Six years later. Death welcoming me.

“I can’t even float properly,” I said to Ashley, trying to push away the memory.

She pffted at me. “When’s the last time you tried?”

I shrugged. I vividly remembered the shame. When I didn’t come back up, the lifeguard must have finally noticed it wasn’t just fun and games in the circle of kids. Maybe their screams changed to panic. I didn’t remember him jumping in to rescue me or giving me mouth-to-mouth or anything else until I started breathing again and threw up all over myself.

I’d never gone swimming again after that day. At first I’d been certain that if I put myself in water again, I would die. Or that my color really would rub off and dirty everyone. As I got older that faded, but somehow even the thought of slipping on a bathing suit panicked me. Standing there so exposed.

“You just haven’t been taught properly. I’m a good teacher,” Ashley said.

She probably was. But I wasn’t interested.

The whole fourth grade had been in on it. The ones who didn’t actually block me in the water had turned their heads. The teachers and parent volunteers had missed it. Afterward, not one of the kids ever said a thing about their part in my “accident.”

After that day, everyone sort of stopped paying attention to me. I learned to take a book outside until we outgrew recess. I never knew if they stopped caring about me because they felt guilty they’d almost killed me, or if they were actually disappointed I hadn’t drowned.

“I will get you swimming,” Ashley said.

“You can always dream,” I said lightly.

Ashley and I stopped then to avoid being plowed over by a group of rowdy boys. They bumped past us yet managed to completely ignore us as if we weren’t even there.

“So.