Author's note:
English is not my 1st language so please excuse any grammatical errors. I accept constructive criticism regarding grammar and creative development if they are offered with genuine intention of bettering a fellow author. While I wrote this story I was going through something and felt that I needed to find a way to get it out. Because of this, you'll see some sentences that run on to another. I apologize if this annoys you. Also, this is my first fanfic.
"Because you haven't graduated!" she said.
The phrase rings in your ears long after they left her mouth. "Because I haven't graduated" you whisper dejectedly. It always rounds back to this. You close your eyes as the blood rushes to your ears and you try to take a deep breath that never quite fills your lungs. Everything is sluggish after that. You take a few more, supposedly, deep breaths while you try to blink your eyes open. You can see her in front of you but the details aren't fully clear. It's like you have your eyes open underwater. You can see general shapes and outlines but can never appreciate the details fully. It's always like you're underwater. Which is stupid because you love to swim and anything watersport based so you should be use to this feeling but there is nothing quite like the feeling of drowning on dry land.
She's looking at you and you know she's frustrated. You might not know all of the details of her thoughts but this you just know. And the cold sweat breaks over you like how the water envelopes you just as you dive in a pool. You can feel the hairs on your body start to stand and your blood rushes everywhere trying to cope with this change. "Fight or flight" you think to yourself. You know what's happening but you can't stop it this time. It's too late. It blindsided you so you didn't have a chance to prepare and possibly divert your feeling into more constructive actions. Your body is already drowning and the worst part is that even though it may feel like it, you know that you're not going to die. You know that you're not in any immediate danger and yet your body is still drowning. Drowning on dry land. You can't hear what she says clearly. You can only understand certain words. Enough to answer gruffly but not efficiently which frustrates her even more. You're not being productive and you have all of this energy which is not helping you move. You can see the bubble of water around you that separates you both. It's hard to move. It's hard to breathe. You still hear her muffled words and see her general outline but you're drowning so you can no longer open your mouth and risk losing the little air your lungs have left. You can partially breathe through your nose but even that's a struggle. Your brain feels heavy and you want to move but you just can't because your body is drowning. It's drowning and you aren't quite capable to save yourself yet so you just have to wait till it passes. Problem is, time becomes meaningless to those who drown so you can't quite grasp how long you've been like this. Has a minute passed? 5 minutes? An hour? You start to wonder how long a person can drown for.
You want to yell at her to save you but, how can she? There isn't anything she can do to save you physically because the danger is not physical. You are drowning but there is no physical water around you to pull you out of. And so you scrunch you eyes closed, tighten every muscle in your body, and breathe while you wait for the tide to lower. While the water level comes down to at least neck level where you're still sluggish but at least you can breathe without drowning. You sit in your stupid chair and wonder how long it's taking for the tide to lower. You wonder if this feels as long for her as it does you. You wonder if she'll still be around by the time you are no longer drowning and that's the moment you realize that this is how you lose her. This might not be the particular moment the relationship ends but when it does, at this point you're sure it will, and you think back on what led you both to your end, this is the moment you'll remember. The moment when you were drowning in your chair while she expectantly awaited a response.