I tried to move my arms and legs, to coordinate my limbs to actually begin swimming inside the pool. But then, I remembered what had happened & the stressful things I had been experienced. I remembered the nightmare I had dreamt days before, I thought about the homework I had to finish for school, about how stupid I had felt last Friday at school. I thought about it all.
I thought about the way my dad had treated me the night before, trying to 'fix my beliefs.' I got tense when I started to think about this because he already knew what I think about God but it was so that I realized that maybe he didn't really know it after all. He was just being stubborn.
But no one could understand that, ever. That's why I was glad to have Gerard by my side all the time, because he was like me. He is me.
But inside the pool, in the water Gerard went away. He disappeared among the tiny and invisible molecules of bleached water. I can't breathe, I get stiffer, I tense up thinking that Gerard will never come back.
I lose focus and start to drown.
I can hear my swimming instructor yelling outside of this fluid layer. He asks me to move faster.
I don't want to fail him (again), so I try harder, I try to do it, I try to obey. I want to win, I want to feel good once I make it to the end, once I see that no one can catch me.
And if you stay, all I'm asking for is.
I try to open my mouth and get some oxygen inside of my lungs when my face is able to reach the surface of the water, still trying to coordinate my limbs while my neck fights to stay atop.
But then... all the stuff I had wanted to tell my dad, the shit I wanted to scream at the bully girl at school, the suggestions and things I wanted to ask my instructor so that he could help me understand how to do this properly, became a bundle of knotted strings in my throat.
I can't. I just can't.
Gerard isn't waiting for me like before. He's not sitting in the bleachers, or standing on the other side of the pool, watching out for me. I feel lonely, and my goggles fill with water.
Stupid goggles! They're broken!
I can't breathe, I stiffen up and my goggles flood. How could I make it to the other end without Gerard cheering me up? HOW?
I try to relax again, and I try to move. I shouldn't stop moving, I shouldn't... I shouldn't lose, but my throat--with the knot--isn't letting air into my lungs, and they collapse... not entirely, but everything is blurry.
without a sound, without a sound... and I wish you away
My instructor keeps asking for perfection and speed. I just need to keep going, just one fourth of the whole distance left. Just one fourth.
Gerard finally comes back, I can hear his voice inside my head.
Yet, I fail. I drown in my thoughts, I drown in the water.
The others made it before I did. My sister looks at me, confused, she also made it before. She's always been faster.
So I make it. And I stop swimming, and start coughing all the water from my throat, my pulse increases a bit more.
I just want to cry. Three 8-year-olds have made it before me, too. I fear the bad things the instructor will point out to me.
I pull back my tears, I keep the goggles on so that no one notices how red my eyes are.
But Gerard is there again. He's with me, on the other side.
"What's wrong?" he asks me.
But I say nothing. I want to ask him to leave me alone, to stop talking, but the words are trapped inside my throat again, and they travel down my stomach and my gut twists.
Rather, I ask him, "Don't let them humiliate me," inside my head. He listens.
"What did you do wrong?" he asks me. "Did you do your breathing right? Did you drown?" my instructor asks smug. I swallow my pride, I swallow my rage and I immerse my head back down, into the water, trying to practice my faulty breathing.
I look up, and Gerard smiles at me, trying to bring me a little bit of peace. And then I see him plunge in the water and drown. I see his eyes and mouth rounding up, he's scared. He drowns... no one else sees him but me.
Let's say goodbye the hundredth time and then tomorrow we'll do it again... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read this in Spanish: Lecciones de Ahogamiento
