Skin and Water
Copyright© 2025 by Danielle Stories
Chapter 4: The Poolside Summit
A week passed. A week of walking through school feeling like a ghost, a sideshow freak. A week of avoiding my parents’ pained, guilty eyes at home. A week of dreading the inevitable.
The email from Coach Evans arrived on Monday afternoon. Mandatory team meeting. Pool bleachers. Tuesday after school. Street clothes.
The following day, we filed into the natatorium. The familiar scent of chlorine, once so comforting, now smelled like anxiety. We didn’t joke or shove each other. We just sat on the cold, hard bleachers, a group of twenty girls, waiting for our fate.
Coach Evans stood before us. She was a young, usually energetic woman, but today her shoulders were slumped. “I’m not going to sugarcoat this,” she began, her voice echoing in the cavernous room. “The situation is unprecedented and, in my opinion, deeply wrong. But it is the reality we are facing. Before we ... proceed ... I want to hear from you. However you’re feeling, it’s valid. The floor is yours.”
For a moment, there was only the hum of the filtration system.
Then Allan Silva stood up. “How is this legal?” she demanded, her voice sharp as a blade. “This is sexual discrimination. They’re funding the boys’ team and not the girls’. That’s a Title IX violation, isn’t it? We should sue the district!”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the group.
Ann Acosta spoke next, her voice so small we had to lean forward to hear. “I ... I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t do it. My church ... my family ... It’s a sin. It’s immodest.” She started to cry again, soft, hopeless sobs. “I have to quit.”
The word quit hung in the air, toxic and final. My own throat tightened. Quitting felt like a betrayal of everything I was, but so did the alternative.
Symone stood, putting a protective arm around Ann. “Quitting is what they want!” she said, her voice fierce. “They want us to go away quietly so they don’t have to deal with the problem. But if we quit, they win. They take swimming lessons from us. Is that what we want?”
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