“Lavender ice cream?” Charlotte wrinkles her nose in distaste.
“You’d like it!” I laugh, “and you will love Europe.”
Emma picks up her phone. “I’m going to be late for the meet!” she squeals. She crams her notes into her bag, shovels the last of her pastry into her mouth, and licks her fingers. “Wish me luck!”
Two hours later, Charlotte and I make our way to Fish Market—Waterford High’s aptly named natatorium. The meet has started, and it’s already crowded; the air is dense and muggy. At the top of the bleachers, I sit down beside Charlotte, who sits beside Mason.
Below us in the swimming pool, bodies skim across the water like Arctic seals.
“No swim team this year?” Charlotte asks Mason, who eats the remainder of her half-eaten croissant in one bite.
“Only one Jensen twin is getting a scholarship, and it won’t be me.” Mason grins.
Tate McCormick squishes down beside us.
“Why don’t they swim in bikinis?” Tate snickers. “I’d come to watch that!”
“You are watching,” Charlotte points out.
“Hydrodynamics,” I say at the same time. “Loose fabric drags, causing friction, slowing the swimmer …”
Tate stares at me, open-mouthed.
Booooom! The starting horn blares. Everyone seated in the bleachers screams. My whole body tenses. Noise. Shouting. People.
Now is not the time. Now is not the place. Bodies press into me on either side, hot and sticky. The air gets heavier … sweating … footsteps …
Blurry images shift into focus, prompting a tidal wave of memories.
My fingertips grip the bleacher. I close my eyes.
… Breathe … Count …
I push my trembling lips tight, resisting.
But it is too loud. Too hot. Too muggy. Too crowded.
No matter how hard I resist, it still feels as though I am in a nightmare, unable to run, unable to move. My defenses are weak.
“Sophia?”
I open my eyes. Charlotte’s hand is on my arm. She is watching me anxiously. Her eyes are wide with concern. Like I am fragile. Mysterious. Dangerous.
I am pale, sweating. It’s obvious—something is wrong with me.
Weeks of progress are rapidly deteriorating.
… It’s coming on again … l have to make it stop …
Cramped bodies are closing in around me. I feel like I can’t breathe.
“I need water.” Standing, I step backward, collide into a man’s knees, and then hasten down the bleachers.
At the bottom of the stairs, I turn right. Students barricade the double doors. Throngs of sophomores linger in the lobby. There’s no way out. I reach the water fountain and lean up against the brick wall. Focus. Push it back.
I squeeze my eyes and press my palms flat against the wall. I recite the elevations of South American capitals. The populations of African countries. When neither tactic works, I recite the series of numbers my father makes me memorize: 14-36-53 … 55-65-96—
Booooom! Another horn blares. Fresh, cold air sweeps in through the open doors. The crowd thins. I watch the swimmers dive into the water and glide beneath the surface—one is far ahead of the others, only breaking the surface for air halfway across the pool.
I push my hands against the brick wall behind me. I trace my fingertips in the grooves, counting. I fight off the sensations: oxygen burning in my lungs … heat searing my throat … I wonder if I can hold my breath longer than the swimmer flip-turning at the wall of the pool and gaining another two body lengths on the swimmer in lane four.
Now I hear my mother’s voice. Remember, Sophia, so you control them—so the memories don’t control you …
I had been practicing with my father for months. After he spent the day at the embassy, he would come home and we’d walk to the swimming pool.
He instructed me how to do the simpler strokes first—Australian crawl and breaststroke—streamlining the technique to fit my narrow build, teaching me to float on my back, faceup, if I got tired and needed to rest. Then he taught me the harder strokes—butterfly and backstroke. Once I’d learned those, he taught me speed. If there’s a shark, you only have to swim faster than the person behind you, he always said with a wink.
After I could tie him in a hundred-meter sprint, he taught me to hold my breath. Count rhythmically. Release my mind of fear and simply count to 120. One steady beat after the next. No bubbles. Never bubbles.
At first, I could only stay below for thirty seconds before I would inevitably claw toward the surface, gasping for air. My father never pushed too hard, and I enjoyed the thrill of being like him. One weekend, my parents chartered a ketch to sail off the coast of Djibouti for a few days. In the late afternoon of our second day, I was reading Bonjour Tristesse in the stern when I saw my father checking the radar constantly.
He picked up a pair of binoculars and scanned the horizon. He shouted something down to my mother.
Moments later, my mother emerged from the cabin, holding a Galil sniper rifle and spitting ammo wrapping from her teeth.
“Ninety seconds,” he told her.
Hammering bullets into the Galil’s chamber, she propped it next to the helm. Then she unclipped a Beretta from a thigh holster underneath her white linen skirt.
My father moved for me. Gripping my arm, we dashed from midship to bow. “Sophia, you need to go below,” he said.
“Belowdecks?” I asked, frightened, glancing back at my mother.
“Below the surface, Sophia. Into the water. It’s warm. Hold tight to the anchor chain and hold your breath. Count, honey. Count to one hundred. That’s it. But don’t break the surface—they can’t see you, Sophia. Do you understand? No bubbles. You have to stay hidden, and that’s the only place! Now go!”
While he said this, I heard a boat cruising toward us. Its engine idled a few seconds before bumping into the fiberglass hull on the starboard side. An anchor was thrown over—it landed on the deck, meters from where we crouched, concealed under a cover of the mainsail.
My father took my wrist. “Go now, Sophia! Do not break the surface until I come for you,” he whispered, scrambling away.
Gunfire erupted. Raspy voices shouted. I wanted to return to the cabin and stay beside my parents. Instead, I crawled to the front of the boat and slid over the edge.
Huddling near the anchor at the bow, I hunched over and watched through a scupper—four armed men with bandannas covering their faces leaped onto our ketch.
Once they boarded, I followed orders. I slid into the ocean, took several deep breaths of air, then submerged, using the anchor chain to descend three meters underwater.
At first, I floated idly beneath the surface. After seventy seconds, I grew anxious. With every passing second, I gripped the chain tighter, swaying with the formidable current, trying to not let go. It was dark all around me and so deep I heard nothing from the surface. I felt only the pulsing of my heart and the aching burn of my lungs.
But my father had told me to wait.
So I held there, suspended between the black abyss beneath and the danger above. I pressed my lips together so they wouldn’t open. I clung to the anchor chain because that was my link to survival.
The next thing I remember was an arm fastening around my waist. He pulled me to the surface. Choking out water, I gasped for air. My father swam us to the stern, grabbed hold of the ladder, and, in one motion, pulled me out of the water.