Dead in the Water

I felt like a walking **zombie** that Monday, running on three hours of sleep and too much iced coffee. Junior year was eating me alive, and I was definitely losing.

"You look rough," said Chloe, sliding into the seat next to me in homeroom. She grabbed my hand before I could pull away. "Let me see your **palm**."

"You're not actually into that stuff, right?" I asked, trying to sound chill instead of terrified she'd somehow see everything - my anxiety about tryouts, my crush on Nate from the swim team, how I hadn't touched a pool since I almost drowned at camp three years ago.

She traced the lines on my hand. "You're hiding something. Big change coming."

I yanked my hand back. "Psychic readings aren't evidence, Chloe."

But she wasn't wrong.

By Friday, I was standing at the edge of the pool, chlorine smell hitting me like a memory I'd been trying to suppress. The **orange** sunset reflected off the water, turning everything liquid gold and fire. Nate waved from the other lane. My stomach did that thing where it tried to exit my body.

"You got this," he called.

I hadn't been **swimming** in three years. Not since the incident. Not since the panic. But sometimes you have to jump into the deep end anyway.

The whistle blew. I dove in.

Water rushing past my ears. The rhythm of stroke, breathe, stroke. My body remembering what my mind had forgotten. The fear dissolved into motion, into the pure liquid silence of being underwater where nothing else exists.

I didn't make the team that day. But I didn't drown either.

"See?" Chloe said later, over milkshakes. "I told you. Big change."

I looked at my hands, wrinkled from the pool, and finally felt awake again.