Chapter 5

One of the inevitable results of teenagers being away from home and in close residential proximity for even a short period of time was the opportunities for relationships to form. Not so much amongst the junior high students who had an earlier lights-out time and a staff member sleeping in a barracks-style dormitory with them, but definitely amongst the senior high students who had twin-share rooms. Because we were now in the tenth grade and therefore senior high students, we were able to stay up until the later lights-out and hang out in the common area between the two wings of the dorms we were staying in.

It had been two days since the games of the Blue Balls Olympiad. The following night was movie night, replete with popcorn (air popped for the sake of nutrition, of course). I was already sitting down when Nao came in with some of the other girls. She looked at me and our eyes met for a moment, then I saw her mouth tighten slightly. She looked away and sat down on the other side of the room. The movie was a comedy, but that’s all I remember. I spent the entire time trying to work out what I was supposed to have done wrong, and stealing glances at Nao as she sat watching the movie with her knees tucked up under chin and her arms hugging her legs. When the film was over, she stood up and slipped away back to the girl’s wing. I didn’t even get a chance to try to talk to her.

The next night was the last one of camp. That night’s activities involved the team sitting there whilst Coach and his staff laid out the first few meets for the year and went through the rules and procedures. No drugs, no law problems, one hundred percent attendance unless you had a medical note, minimum ‘B’ average in all classes and if you missed a practice, you’d miss a meet for every absence. A bit of a shock for the newcomers, but it was a bit of a yawn for the rest of the team. Some of us had been through this bit about the rules four or five times now. We were dismissed a little earlier than usual so that we could get started on packing up our belongings. We’d be out of the dorms before breakfast the next morning, and back to regular classes the next week.

I was coming back from the showers when I saw Josh, one of our teammates from the year above us, trying to work his moves on her. They were sitting on one of the sofas in the common area between the two wings of the dorms we were staying in. Nao was sitting with one leg folded up underneath her, leaning in towards him and laughing that beautiful laugh of hers. Josh had a reputation around the school as a ‘pump & dump’ operator who went through girls like I went through socks. He wasn’t particularly discreet about who he was ‘pumping’, or how he went about it either.

As I watched them talking, he casually laid his hand on the knee that she was pointing towards him. She didn’t move it away. I felt a sick, heavy feeling in my stomach. I hung around the common room, pretending to watch TV, but really keeping an eye on Nao and Josh. I tried to find an opportunity to say something to her, to warn her about Josh, but she spent the rest of the evening talking to him. Before a chance to talk to her arose that night, one of the coaches came through the door calling for lights out.

For the third night in a row, my sleep was restless and broken. I dreamed that I was in the pool, swimming hard. I reached the end of the lane and tumbled through a turn, kicking off the wall solidly with both feet. After I saw the first ten-metre marker, I tried to break the surface, but I must have been down deeper than I thought. I wiggled my body and began kicking, trying to force my body out of the water. I knew I was swimming upwards, but I never seemed to surface.

My lungs were beginning to burn from lack of air. Frantically I began reaching my way up, but I couldn’t get out of the water. Just as my body gave in, I choked, and feeling the first gulp of water hit my lungs, I woke up breathing hard. I was tangled in the blankets and upside down in the bed. I clawed my way out of the covers and lay there, breathing heavily, listening to the light snores of my roommate.