first started using drug, hardcore ones. I can’t say that I had a bad childhood or that I turned to drugs for an outlet. Nope, I did drugs because I could. The feeling that you get when you are in that high is unbelievable. I didn’t want to think about anything after the accident. I did my laps just thinking about all the plans that we had, all the dreams we made.
I am completing my last lap when a movement catches my eye, so I pause. The other swimmer is leaving the pool. Just looking at her ass is making me hard. Since I noticed Olivia I think my hormones are overly stimulated. She takes off her swimmers cap, and glorious brown hair cascades down her back, just like in those fucking shampoo commercials, where everything seems to go in slow motion. I feel like I am experiencing something epic. I feel hot. I guess my dry spell is coming to an end. If I can’t have Olivia maybe this girl can help me out. She starts walking to the locker rooms. Shit. I swim to the end of the pool and get out.
“Stop,” I call out. She jumps. Great, I startled her.
“Fuck, you scared me,” she says as she turns around, her hand against her chest and her cap dangling from her finger.
Fucking A, its Olivia. Should’ve known nobody makes my body feel this alive but her. And here I thought I was cured.
“Stalk much?” she asks, lifting her prefect eyebrow at me.
“Aren’t we full of ourselves?” I shoot back. “It’s the campus pool, Olivia. I can come when I want to.”
“I use the pool every weekend at this time and I have never seen you before. Anyway, was there something you wanted?”
“What?”
“Well, you did say stop, so I just figured you needed something.”
“No, I just thought you were someone else,” I say.
“Okay, well, bye then,” she says as she turns back around again to head to the locker room.
I run my hand through my wet hair and across my face. Why did she always reduce me to a wimpy teenager? I am an adult.
A ye madre mía y todos los Santos. Nix without a shirt and wet. Can’t I catch a break? I feel my knees go weak and my breath becoming shallow. Good thing he is a few feet away and couldn’t hear my heart beat. It is literally coming out of my body. Those abs and tattoos, I have to freeze myself before I go over and start licking the water off of his chest.
He scared me because I am used to being here alone. I needed those few laps before I started my weekend. It helps me unwind from the week of stress. I could clear my head and just submerge myself in the water. So it was a surprise when I heard him yell for me to stop. I should’ve known it was him, because my body reacted violently to his voice.
I turn around to go back to the locker room. I turn back to him before I lose my nerve.
“Hey, Nix, Mandy told me that she invited you to Myrtle Beach later today. Hope to see you there.”
“Okay,” is all he says. I leave feeling like I really want him to know the real me.
I can hear the commotion downstairs. The music is playing loudly and the girls are laughing, talking about the beach. It's almost time to go, and I have my stuff ready. I slip my bikini under my clothes, even though I doubt anyone was going in the water. It's beginning to get cooler out, which means a decrease in water temperature.
“Livi, what are you doing upstairs?” Mandy asks me while she looks at me lying on my bed. I've been lying here in the silence of my room staring at the ceiling and thinking about the club and my morning swim.
“Mandy,” I say, rolling up into sitting position so that I can to talk to her. “Do you think he'll come?”
“Probably not. He's not the type to go to hang out with the college crowd. He prefers to work on his music in his free time,” she says sounding like she's hiding something.
“You talked to him, didn't you?” I ask her accusingly.
“No. I only invited him to Myrtle Beach, I promise,” she says while holding out her pinky, extending her arm towards
Amos Oz
Charles de Lint
Chris Kluwe
Alyse Zaftig
Savannah Stuart, Katie Reus
William C. Dietz
Betty Hechtman
Kylie Scott
Leah Braemel
The war in 202