Midnight Catfish Paddle

The pool lights were supposed to be off at 10 PM sharp, but here I was, splashing around in the dark like a certified idiot, trying to teach myself how to not drown.

"You doing okay, Marcos?" I whispered to the neighborhood stray cat perched on the edge. He'd been watching my nightly swimming attempts for a week now, judging me with those yellow eyes. I'd named him Marcos even though I was pretty sure that was someone's actual indoor cat who kept sneaking out.

Marcos meowed, unimpressed by my mediocre doggy paddle.

I was doing this, obviously, because Jordan had joined the swim team. Jordan, with their perfect hair and their perfect backstroke and their perfect laugh that made my brain short-circuit. Jordan thought I was just "into creative writing" (true) and "not really into sports" (also true, until suddenly it wasn't).

The water hit different at night—quieter, almost private. Like the pool was just for me and my dignity and this judgmental cat.

I practiced my breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Definitely not hyperventilating. Marcos the cat stood up, stretched, and then—

NO. NO NO NO.

The cat slipped. There was a splash. A very un-catlike splash.

"MARCOS!"

I didn't think. I just dove. The water swallowed me whole, dark and cold and terrifying, and I was thrashing toward this cat who was definitely not built for swimming, and we were both gonna drown, I was going to die trying to save a cat I'd known for seven days, and—

My fingers closed on wet fur. I kicked, hard, something I'd been too scared to do during my "practice" sessions. We broke the surface. Both of us gasping.

I hauled Marcos onto the concrete, where he immediately shook himself off and started grooming like absolutely nothing had just happened.

I floated on my back, staring up at the sky, chest heaving. I'd just swam. Like, actually swam. Without panicking. Without dying.

"You're welcome, you ungrateful little goblin," I panted.

Marcos ignored me. But his tail gave the slightest twitch of acknowledgment.

The next day at lunch, Jordan asked if I wanted to come watch swim practice. I lied and said I had writing club. But I went back that night, and the night after, and Marcos watched, and I got better, and I realized I wasn't doing it for Jordan anymore.

I was doing it for me. And for my catfish-paddling witness, Marcos.

The water didn't scare me anymore. Mostly because I'd done something scarier: I'd let myself be seen at my worst, and survived it anyway.