Chapter X:

Intensity

Carla wasn't always the suspecting kind of girl.

Surprisingly, there often wasn't much that got past her. From Ellie's one-off little white lies that constantly supported the denial of the fact that she texted Rin in the middle of the night to her teachers repeatedly explaining to her they were too busy to email her back on time. Carla had always had an uncanny ability to pick up on the little lies that people told her from time to time.

Carla wasn't quite sure where the talent had come from but she guessed that it had stemmed from back when she had torn a ligament in her knee during a Saturday morning netball game. Carla remembered how her parents had lied to her, telling her that her knee would heal up just fine and increased room for false hope inside her heart.

It wasn't until Carla's physiotherapist told her that her third-degree ligament tear would take at least three months to heal, alongside physiotherapy and conditioning, that she started to doubt her parents' claims. It wasn't until he told her that she would most likely have to stop all sports for at least six months that she began to question her parents. But most painfully of all, it wasn't until he told Carla that she most likely would never be able to swim breastroke competitively again that she finally realised that her parents had lied to her.

After that, she seemed to be able to spot liars for a mile away. Much to the amusement of Ellie, Carla would catch people out whilst in the midst of a poorly delivered lie and begin to chastise them on the consequences involved in such a crime. It wasn't hard for Carla to spot a liar anymore; a muttered explanation here and there, eyes evading her own, the occasional fidgetiness that overcame a person as they spoke. Carla was adept at reading people but for the sake of other people's privacy, she often let her observations remain unvoiced.

The second day of competition came relatively quickly after the blur of exhaustion the night before. Ellie had walked off with Rin the moment they arrived home, her disturbingly happy tone following her as she joked with Rin all the way back to the Samezuka dorms. Sosuke chose to wait around at the school pool with Carla rather than follow Rin back, providing no explanation for his decision as he sat down beside her on the steps out the front of the pool.

Carla refused to question Ellie's sudden change of heart about prefecturals and even swimming in general. She knew full well that to ask Ellie anything about her mood swings was like entering into a maze that only had one exit and that exit was hidden behind three layers of emotionally confusing vines that looked suspiciously familiar every time you walked past them. Ellie's mind was something Carla actively chose to avoid understanding. Too much effort, she often thought to herself. Too much effort and too much pain.

Sosuke usually wasn't the person to initiate conversation between them. Often, it was Carla who started their little chats, with her bubbly personality allowing her to have an outgoing attitude toward people and talking in general. It was a genuine surprise to Carla when Sosuke had asked her a question without prior prompting and the question itself possessed a whole different tone of surprise to it.

He fidgeted before he spoke, being careful not to touch Carla due to their close proximity, and leaned back onto the step in a vague attempt to relax. From what Carla saw, his plan to relax didn't work and he spoke with obvious nervousness, something Carla wasn't used to hearing from the constantly blunt young man. "Carla..." he said. "What...what exactly is your opinion of me?"

Carla sat still for a moment, considering the question in the most professional manner possible, even though her main thought on it was 'How the hell am I meant answer this shit without looking like either a complete heartless bitch or a desperate little ninth-grader?!'. Carla sighed heavily, choosing firstly to skirt around the question rather than tackle it head on.

"I don't particularly know what you mean there, Sosuke," Carla replied with a sly smile tainting her lips. "Are you asking me for my opinion of you in a friendly sort of way or in a 'Can I trust you enough to dispose of the body I just killed' kind of way?"

Sosuke creased his brow, frown lines forming on his forehead. "I don't follow you."

"You're not meant to, genius." Carla reached up and ruffled Sosuke's damp hair, laughing at his naïveté. "I just don't know how to answer your question, is all. No need to look so serious."

"It's a serious question, Carla. You don't have to be so sarcastic about it."

Carla rolled her eyes at Sosuke's serious tone and tried her hardest to think up an answer to his endlessly complicated question. It wasn't like the two of them had talked much about being together as a couple in general. Neither of them were like Rin and Ellie, who liked each other outwardly and obviously, even though the both of them tried their best to hide their attraction toward each other. Sosuke was too serious and Carla was too friendly. They chose not to talk about their feelings on principle, simply to preserve their friendship. Simple and easy.

But Carla knew that she felt something for Sosuke, something she had trouble explaining. It was frustrating really, considering it had been so easy in the beginning to feel physically attracted to him without feeling anything at all. It had been so easy to just watch him swim, to appreciate the way his muscles shifted underneath his skin as his arms flicked over the top of the water. It had been so easy to just feel something physically for him but Carla wasn't used to the emotional side of her feelings, the attraction that developed slowly as she got to know him more and more.

Carla could deal with the prospect of a physical relationship with Sosuke but her mind seemed to stall whenever she thought of engaging in the conventional boyfriend-girlfriend conundrum. It wasn't that Carla didn't want that kind of relationship. In fact, she wanted it more and more every time she thought about it.

But with the reminder of New York Looming over her head, Carla questioned her desire for a relationship with Sosuke. She didn't think she could bear it if she grew to love him and eventually had to leave. She didn't think she could bear to see Sosuke's face as she walked away from him. Carla shook her head, laughing at the thoughts that bounced off the inside walls of her mind. God, I'm starting to sound like Ellie. This is just ridiculous.

Carla sighed, raking a hand through her loose hair. She'd yanked it out of it's ponytail halfway home, too exhausted to have it so high up on her head. What do I say? she thought frantically. What could I possibly say to him?

In the end, Carla didn't say anything. She acted on instinct by moving forward and kissing Sosuke full on the mouth without a second thought. It was a thought, a simple thought that she had been stupid enough to act upon, and Carla cursed herself inwardly in the moment. That was...until Sosuke kissed her back.

Idiot, idiot. God, I'm such an idiot.

There was something inertly off about Carla on race day morning. Ellie made the trip down to Samezuka's cafeteria on the morning of the race day alone without Carla by her side, her hood pulled up and her hair braided in advance. She'd chosen to let Carla sleep for a little while longer after she'd come into their dorm room late the night before, presumably after having a discussion with Sosuke that she refused to elaborate on.

Ellie didn't press the issue, mainly because she was tired and wanted the wonderful cure for exhaustion known as sleep more than anything but the notion for curiosity was still there. Although Ellie couldn't exactly rummage up the brain power to find such curiosity of a morning, she still felt as if she should ask Carla about the events that lead to her stumble back into their dorm room with a giddy smile on her face and vague worry sparkling in her eyes.

Ellie shuffled into her solitary corner from the morning before and sat herself down, mumbling absent-mindedly over her scolding hot coffee and raisin toast. She'd chosen to forgo bringing her laptop to breakfast that morning, as her mind was in it's usual morning tatters and the only thing that she'd be capable of writing for her Year 12 prose entry would be the collective storyline of Winne the Pooh. In short, Ellie was exhausted and as far as second-hand cures for exhaustion were concerned, food, coffee and silence seemed to work just fine.

Ten minutes after she sat down in her lovely corner of solitude, Ellie's peace was rudely interrupted by none other than Rin, who sat down in the seat beside her with his iPod earphones in and a small stack of school books and time sheets tucked under his arm. Ellie prepared herself for the new onslaught of favours her boyfriend was bound to ask her, tugging down her hood with an obvious frown.

Rin grinned knowingly at her expression. "Not feeling the best, Khaleesi? Or is it just your morning grouchiness?"

"I'm going on overtime here, Shark Boy," Ellie said in a monotonous tone. "Usually, I don't even speak to anyone until six. It's currently a quarter to six, which means it's fifteen minutes too early for me. So ask me for my opinion fast, before I seriously begin to consider beating you to a bloody pulp with my chair."

"Temper, temper. Didn't my mother ever tell you to be polite?"

"She did but then again, she had the decency to remind me of that little factor after I'd finished my second coffee. Now, explain."

Rin rolled his eyes at her hostile comment and on request, pushed some semi-insignificant papers toward her. From the looks of it, Ellie deducted that the scribblings on the white surface were times from the boys individual events the day before. "Sort through them later and tell me who needs work, okay? I just have so much schoolwork on my hands. I don't know if I'll have much time for it."

"And you think I'm any different?" Ellie muttered, pulling the pages toward her with mild interest. "I'm almost drowning in schoolwork at the moment. None of us seniors have any free time at all."

"I know what you mean. I'm struggling to keep up. This English essay that I have to write-"

"Yes, I'll help you with that too."

"Jesus, I didn't even get to that. How did you know?"

"You always complain about something before you ask for the actual favour. Dead give away."

"Really?"

"Really. Might want to work on that if you're trying for subtlety."

Rin rolled his eyes and shifted his attention back to his breakfast and the small mountain of schoolwork placed beside him. Breakfast went by quicker than Ellie first anticipated, with the time ticking by faster than any other morning she'd ever remembered, but it was only at the last minute that Carla finally chose to show up.

With her hair twisted up into a horribly messy bun and her shoes still painfully unlaced, Carla rushed onto the bus with a cold piece of toast protruding from her mouth accompained by an expression that was reminiscent of the gaze of a dead fish. She was clearly tired, which could also easily be judged by the dark circles underneath her eyes, but worse than that, Ellie deducted that Carla seemed more distracted than usual. It was a subtle distancing, her eyes shifting from place to place without focusing on anything, but it was enough to worry Ellie about how her best friend would perform on the day.

Worrying and distracting thoughts, no matter how serious, were never good to have on your mind during race day. They damaged your focus and could throw your form off quicker than you realised how badly you were swimming. Ellie had already racked up a score of bad experiences in which she remembered being incredibly distracted. Thoughts, especially serious thoughts, were incredibly dangerous whilst racing. You should never think whilst you swim, Ellie thought. You should just do.

Both Rin and Ellie had managed to get the team onto the bus with a much more professional tone than the morning before, although a rather childish debate arouse from a joking comment made by Ellie. The argument's subject was primarily about who would win in a battle between Tate Langdon of 'American Horror Story' and Jon Snow of 'Game of Thrones'. The heated debate had continued throughout the tedious operation of shuffling the team onto the bus and even as Carla sat down on the seat beside Ellie with her unfamiliarly zombie-like eyes, Rin continued to yell arguments her way in defence of Jon Snow's imaginary dignity as a man of the Night's Watch.

"If you recall, Khaleesi, Jon has already taken out dead people before," Rin yelled at her with extreme assertiveness. "Count the White Walkers."

Ellie rolled her eyes as Carla chewed mindlessly on her food beside her, his arguments proving ineffective on her resolve. "Tate is a ghost. Jon can kill him all the times he wants but Tate will not die. He will just come back and beat Jon Snow's bastard ass into the ground. All whilst looking incredibly fabulous with his pretty blonde hair."

"You're a masochist."

"I know I am. I'm a masochist for Tate Langdon."

"Guys!" Carla snapped out of her daze for a split second, her voice slicing through the air like a hot knife through butter. "It's too early for debates over fictional characters. Now in my opinion, Tate would win, fair and square. Now can we please move on to more important matters like not yelling on the bus?!"

"I agree," Sosuke muttered from the other aisle. "It's too early for this kind of loudness."

"I, uh...yeah," Carla stuttered nervously, avoiding Sosuke's gaze as the bus jolted into motion. Something about her jittery nervous energy set Ellie on edge, watching her best friend with bundled up anxiety that she hadn't possessed before getting on the bus.

For Carla's sake, Ellie shook her head at Rin when he attempted to resume their prior argument and sat back in her seat before offering Carla her music as she always did. Carla declined, against their usual pre-carnival tradition, and pushed her own earphones into her ears before turning up the music ridiculously loud.

It wasn't hard to deduct from Carla's behaviour that something was on her mind but curled up underneath her layers of Pierce the Veil songs and fake smiles, she was unreachable to Ellie. Unlike herself, Ellie could never help Carla when things were on her mind because she kept them bottled up, deep inside her soul where no one could touch them. She never liked to talk about how she was feeling, unless forced, and she never liked being the emotional one out of the two. Ellie was always the emotional one and Carla was the rational one. That was just how things were.

Things were relatively silent when they got to the pool and there was hardly any hushed conversation between Carla and Sosuke like usual, much to Ellie's surprise. In fact, Carla seemed to be avoiding Sosuke above all things, sneaking her way around him during warm-up and keeping her eyes down whenever he was near. All of these actions were so incredibly unlike Carla that Ellie suddenly felt the need to understand why she was acting as she was.

Carla's first event that day was the hundred metre back, her pet event for many years, and Ellie took it upon herself to strap her weak shoulder just before the event. Although Carla had insisted that her shoulder was perfectly fine, Ellie suspected that the constant stress on her muscles caused her more pain than she let on and in turn, insisted that she listen to reason on the behalf of her parents already expensive medical bills.

This opened up a much needed opportunity for conversation between the pair and Ellie seized the chance with two hands as she delved into a hushed interrogation, far from both Rin and Sosuke's prying ears.

"So, Carlie-bear," Ellie said cheerfully, pausing abruptly to tear off a piece of tape with her teeth before swivelling back to the conversation. "Are you gonna tell me why you're even more quiet than I am of a morning or am I going to have to force it out of you?"

Carla, none-too surprised at her best friend's observation of her mood, sighed and shook her head as she stared down at the ground with distant interest. "It's nothing really. It's really stupid actually but it's nothing serious."

Ellie frowned at the cryptic response. "I think you should tell me what 'nothing' is because I'm suspicious that 'nothing' is actually 'something'."

"Yeah, well it's 'something' that has no relevance to anything. You don't need to worry about me. I'm fine."

"You're not fine, Carla. You slept in this morning. You failed to put your hair up properly like you normally do. You listened to your own angry, punk rock music and you brought your Arena swimmers rather than your Funkitas."

"That proves nothing, Tornado."

"Uh, no. It actually proves a lot." Ellie reached down and grabbed Carla's biceps, jolting her back to reality in one quick touch. Carla turned her head in Ellie's direction, frowning childishly, and glared at the other girl with obvious disdain. "What's on your mind, Carla? You can't have some kind of worry on your mind on race day, you know that. It's too dangerous a thing to have."

"So's a fully loaded gun stashed away in my swim bag," Carla muttered harshly. "But I don't see what that has to do with me either."

Ellie groaned, switching to drastic measures in hopes of annoying her friend into speaking. "Carla, if you don't tell me what is wrong within the next thirty seconds, I will go to your swim bag, open it up and dump it's contents into the pool. Do you understand me?"

Carla shook her head and smiled, chuckling softly at Ellie's threat. "Alright. Alright...I give in. Just...don't laugh at me, okay? Remember that this is something seriously weird for me, so...yeah."

Ellie shrugged and sat back in her seat, picking up the strapping tape yet again and continued to fix up her shoulder as she spoke. "I'm all ears."

"Well, here goes," Carla sighed. "So...last night, just after you chose to go galavanting off with Rin-"

"We do not galavant."

"Yeah, right. Whatever. So anyway, last night...Sosuke and I waited outside the pool for you guys. You know, until the both of you decided who to put in the relay? Anyway, he asked me this...weird question and I had almost no way of answering it. So, I joked around it and avoided it for a bit but he caught on and asked for a serious answer. And I...reacted."

Ellie raised an eyebrow, pausing momentarily to leave the piece of tape in her hands hovering over a section of Carla's shoulder. "Um, a little more elaboration please. What was the question? And what do you mean 'reacted'?"

"Well, um-"

"Carla."

"Sorry, sorry. I'm just trying to find a way to explain it."

"How about you start with the question and then move on from there?"

Carla sighed, putting her head in her hands briefly before continuing on with her explanation. "He...He asked me what my opinion of him was. Naturally, I avoided the question because I have no fucking idea how to answer that kind of shit. But he caught on, like I said, asked the question again and I...I kissed him."

"Good God, Carla."

"I thought there was a no judgement rule here, Ell."

"Oh, there is but damn. You kissed him?"

Carla groaned. "Yes. I kissed him. Can we please move on?"

"Uh, no."

Carla sighed, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "I don't know what else to tell you, Ellie."

"How 'bout you tell why you're so quiet all of a sudden? You wanted to date him, didn't you? That was why you were so interested with him in the first place."

"Yeah, I guess but that was before I got to know him properly. It's more than just the desire for something physical now. This relationship between us, it...it has emotional attachments to it. And I don't know. I guess that's just...weird for me."

"Why? Because the only remotely adult relationship you had was with Matt a couple of years ago and that was basically just all screwing and no talking?"

"You knew about that?!"

"Of course I knew. I'm your best friend, Carla. I know you better than anyone. That and Aisha told me after she walked in on you guys."

"Oh my God."

"Yes. I know."

"Did you always know about that? Even when-"

"Yes. Now get back to Sosuke before you effective change the subject."

Carla groaned, yet again, and Ellie began to wonder if Carla was even telling her the whole truth, not just bits and pieces of it here and there. Suspicion aside, Ellie continued the minor interrogation and tried hard not to chastise her best friend for being a generally stupid teenage girl. Oh, how I love being hypocritical. "So...have you actually told him how you feel?"

"No," Carla grumbled. "I've done fuck all. And he's too good for me and everyone knows it."

"Don't steal lines from 'Love Actually' please. You can do better than that."

"It's true though. I...I don't know how I feel about this. Going into a relationship right now seems a bit tricky. I know that if I do enter into it, it probably won't last because I'll eventually leave for home and then New York and then-"

"Carla, you're thinking about it too much. Don't think about the future, just...I don't know. Go with your instincts. They're never wrong."

"Yeah but there's always a first for everything."

Ellie rolled her eyes and applied the last piece of strapping tape to Carla's shoulder. The two of them agreed to speak on the matter more privately back home, after prefecturals were finished and school holidays were well and truly in effect for them. There was still a flutter of apprehension bright and clear in Carla's eyes but Ellie chose to ignore it as her events slowly came around.

There was no reason to worry about anything that day. Conversations between teammates were more than often pleasant and stress of any kind was counteracted by joking comments from the people around her. Ellie was more relaxed than she'd ever felt at a carnival before. She was in the most casual sort of mood and it affected her races in almost no way at all, with her sprint races going by in mere seconds and her times nearing perfection. Even Carla was doing well, with a one-second personal best on her hundred backstroke and a free pass to the finals on all the rest of her events.

The day was going well, for all intents and purposes, but a worrying factor arose during the relay, with Carla and Ellie watching from above. The decision to put Momotarou onto the relay team had been one made by Rin, against Ellie's more on-the-fence approach to comparing the variables.

Ellie had advised Rin that if he was willing to take a risk on Momotarou, then the decision was up to him. But Ellie felt that Uozumi was the safer choice in terms of reliability. Although Momotarou came out on top after his shock performance on the first day, Ellie deducted that he was a sure risk to put on the relay team. Uozumi, although off on the day of competition, produced likeable results on every other occasion and had a more consistent personal best record than that of Momotarou. Other than that, the man had a point to prove and would most likely swim all out during the relay to make up for his poor performance the day before.

In the end, Rin had gone against her advice and put Momo onto the team. As Ellie watched the beginnings of the relay race alongside Carla, she began to think twice on her previous predicaments against choosing Momo for the race.

"Well, he got a good start," Carla observed, her eyes following the swimmers watchfully and carefully. "The guy from Iwatobi didn't exactly do well. His timing was really off."

"Yeah, I saw that. But you're the backstroke girl. You'd know better than me."

"It's not as if bad reaction times are hard to spot, Ell."

"I know but the idea was there."

Carla rolled her eyes and continued to watch the race. Ellie did the same, although her analysis of the race was far more casual than Carla's, and kept her words inside her mouth to give her best friend the opportunity to think on whatever else was on her mind. Ellie didn't see much point to Carla's apprehensive attitude toward her pending relationship with Sosuke but that didn't mean she was going to continue talking about it.

The breastroke leg of the race dragged on, although Ellie wasn't exactly a proper judge of the event due to her constant belief that watching people swim breastroke was almost exactly like watching paint dry. Samezuka stayed ahead, although Iwatobi was slowly beginning to catch up.

The transition into butterfly was smooth and Sosuke increased the school's lead by an estimate of about half a body length. Ellie observed that he was indeed good at his specialised stroke but his movements were far more jarring and stiff than that of Ellie's, which made his style inherently less elegant.

In the end, the race was won by Samezuka's team, as expected, but it took some extreme effort on Rin's part during the final freestyle leg after Sosuke lost some serious momentum during his leg of the relay. He came into the wall a second later than expected and surprised even Ellie at his lack of stamina. Carla was in slight shock, muttering questions to herself as the race concluded.

The event of Sosuke's sudden loss of speed during the race didn't exactly worry Ellie so much, considering that her main priority after the carnival was mainly revolved around getting home and burying herself underneath the covers of her bed alongside Netflix and ice cream until she fell asleep.

But Carla, being the good-hearted girl that she was, had to find out why.

"You couldn't just accept that he had a bad day, could you?"

Carla rolled her eyes as she shut the door behind her, dumping her swim bag by her desk before slumping back against her metal bed frame. Her eyes wandered lazily and thoughtfully about the room and Ellie got the distinct feeling that she would soon be a part of some serious conversation between herself and her best friend, most likely to do with the events of the day. Ellie inwardly groaned. I hate social conventions.

Ellie's entire evening had priorly consisted of watching Disney Princess movies on her laptop, alongside Rin's running texting commentary on how incredibly boring Literature happens to be as a subject. It wasn't as if she didn't have time for Carla and her problems but it was just that she was more mentally drained than usual. Ellie supposed that made her selfish but it wasn't the first time she had acted as such.

Ellie hadn't bothered to ask Carla where she was going as she dragged Sosuke off the bus once they reached Samezuka, most likely hoping to talk about the events of the relay race. She hadn't exactly cared either, considering her exhausted mind was firmly fixed on watching movies that involved happy endings and procrastinating about homework for the remainder of the evening. But Ellie forced herself to care in that moment, now that her best friend was standing in front of her with a heartfelt confession playing on her lips.

Sighing heavily, Carla sat down at her desk before opening her mouth to speak, thoughtfulness clouding her bright eyes. "Can you promise me something, Ell?"

"Sure," Ellie said, closing her laptop as she turned to face her best friend. "What's this about?"

"It's about Sosuke," Carla replied. "Although, I'm guessing you already knew that. Can I just ask that...everything we talk about here tonight remain between us? Strictly secret, between friends kind of stuff?"

Ellie nodded, wondering what was so serious that it had even Carla stuck in a clandestine state. Putting the pieces together in her head, she responded. "I'm assuming you mean that I keep this a secret from Rin?"

"I, uh...uh-yes. I kind of need you to keep this a secret from him. He doesn't deserve to know about this second-hand...besides, this really isn't even my secret to tell."

"And from the way you're stalling, it's a major secret too. What's with the big dramatic promise scene? Have I fallen into a modern day Game of Thrones episode?"

"Oh, shut up," Carla laughed, softly kicking Ellie in the shins in light-hearted embarrassment. "Can you just take this seriously though? Because it's kind of weird to talk about for me and I just...need your advice on the subject."

"Okay...what do you wanna ask me about?"

Carla bit her lip, staring off into open space before deciding to share her thoughts. "You know how Sosuke slowed down toward the end of the relay today? It was only for a brief second and it-"

"Yeah, yeah, I saw it. No need to beat around the bush there, Carla."

"Right. Um, well...as it turns out...last year, he sustained a rotator cuff tear whilst weight training in his school's gym. It was just after he'd been scouted for his university and he was taken into emergency surgery almost immediately after he did the injury."

"Rotator cuff tear?" Ellie gasped, her eyes widening in shock. "Exactly how long ago did he sustains the tear?"

Carla shrugged nervously, letting her eyes rest on the wall behind Ellie as she spoke. "About six to seven months ago, apparently. He said that the doctors told him it was a four centimetre tear. He had his arm in a sling for about month."

"Jesus, he shouldn't even be swimming with an injury like that. Has he done any rehabilitation for it?"

"Only about thirteen weeks of it, and that was after he got the cling off. After that, he just jumped right back into swimming, against the advice of his physio and his doctors. It wasn't until today that it started acting up again. He thought he was in the clear-"

"Excuse me?!" Ellie very nearly felt like bursting out onto the balcony and screaming to the heavens due to general frustration on the stupidity of human beings. "An injury like a rotator cuff tear usually doesn't fully heal until you've had at least four months of rehabilitation. He was nowhere near in the clear. I'm surprised he hasn't torn it again at this point."

"Let me guess, that's what your mum's told you before?"

Ellie rolled her eyes at her friend's sarcastic comment and continued on with the issue at present. "My mother is a physiotherapist for a reason, Carla. Remember that year my butterfly got really sloppy and my shoulders just seemed ached all the time?"

"Yeah, it turned out to be compression of the spine, right?"

"Yes but my mother originally thought it was an injury to do with one of my rotator cuffs. I didn't really understand why she was so pedantic about it at first - you remember how obsessive she was, right? - but after I got treatment, she told me why she was so worried about my injury. Rotator cuff injuries cause your shoulder to be permanently weak. Sosuke's probably at a higher risk of ruining his shoulder for good than you are of tearing that ligament in your knee again performing breastroke. He's probably doing it more harm than he realises."

"God...do you think he'll even be able to swim at regionals?"

"I'm surprised he can even swim butterfly at all, let alone swim it competitively. He's probably in a hell of a lot of pain when he does though. Butterfly is the worst stroke when it comes to shoulder injuries."

Carla sat back in her chair, shaking her head in shock and awe before turning her eyes back to Ellie, worry clear in their sky blue colour. "I didn't think-I mean...The way he told me didn't make it sound that bad."

"Of course he wouldn't, Carla," Ellie replied. "All swimmers do the same thing. We play down our injuries when we should be taking them more seriously. It's hard to admit when you're hurt and when you need to slow down. Obviously, Sosuke hasn't done that yet."

"What am I gonna tell him? I said I'd get some advice on how to treat the inflammation of his shoulder from you but-"

"Well, first of all, it shouldn't really be your job to tell him what to do. Being his girlfriend or otherwise." At that, Carla blushed a deep red that matched the colour of Ellie's Ancient History folder. "Secondly, even I did give you advice on how to treat it, most of those treatments would involve rest and time. Currently, there is only a three week time gap between now and regionals. He's either going to have to tough it out through the race and possibly ruin his shoulder, as well as risk Samezuka's chances of making nationals for the relay. Or he can pull out and get treatment now, which will hopefully save his shoulder from further damage."

Carla scoffed, running a hand through her hair impatiently. "Please, he had a hard enough time admitting that he had the injury to me. That's why it took me so long to get back. I mean, it's not as if he's going to give up now, he's too stubborn."

"He'd have to be, with a best friend like Rin."

"Yeah, I guess. Are you going to tell Rin about this?"

Ellie raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Okay, first you get me to swear a vow of silence and then you ask me whether or not I'm going to tell my boyfriend about his best friend's injury? You can be incredibly indecisive sometimes, Carla.

"Ellie, you know what I mean," Carla exclaimed. "You're the vice captain of the team. You have the reputation of team to think about as well."

"Yeah but I'm not Rin. I take individual performances seriously, not relays."

"Okay but just...please don't, okay? I mean, it really isn't my secret to tell and so the same rules should apply for you-"

"I get it, I get it. No mentioning this to Rin. Full stop, end of conversation. Now, onto another note...did you talk to Sosuke about how you feel about him?"

Carla, yet again, managed to conjure up a blush that dominated her entire face before she built up enough courage to respond. Ellie hardly ever got to see her friend truly embarrassed. Carla had notouriously tough skin and not much phased her in terms of humiliation or threats. To see her blushing at the thought of a boy made Ellie smile as a sick sense of triumph surged through her veins. Finally, she shows she has the ability to actually feel humiliation like a human being. She can be worse than me sometimes.

After recovering from her little internal freak-out, Carla smirked and replied to Ellie's question. "It was more of a brief sort of talk about that," she said. "We kind of got a bit...distracted after that."

"Oh my God," Ellie groaned. "You didn't seriously make out after he told you he had a career threatening injury, did you?"

Carla expression was answer enough. "Sorry. Got carried away."

With a slightly disturbed smile on her face, Ellie laughed at Carla's confession, to which Carla laughed along with her. It was nervous laughter, which quickly transitioned into causal giggles before conversation resumed once more.

"Oh Jesus," Ellie said, che king her phone as the clock ticked over to twelve. "Well, as long as you both don't start ripping each other's clothes off in front of me, I'm all good."

Carla laughed. "I can make sure of that, Ellie. You going to bed?"

"Yeah, I probably should. I have to start helping Rin with the time sorting tomorrow. I'll most likely end up writing his training program again. I swear that's the only reason I'm his girlfriend. He asks me to rewrite them constantly."

"Mm...hey, just for the last time...promise me that you won't say anything to Rin?"

Ellie froze in the midst of pulling off her hoodie, her fingers locked on the hem of the heavy material. She supposed that the right thing to do would be to go along with Carla and keep the knowledge of Sosuke's injury a secret like they originally planned. But something felt inherently wrong about hiding a fact like that from Rin, as if it were a crime for Ellie to keep secrets from her boyfriend. There were too many variables, too many things that could go both wrong and right by agreeing the Carla's promise.

In the end though, Ellie chose allegiance to her best friend over the nagging thoughts in the back of her mind. "Sure," she said. "I won't say anything."

Her reasoning for her decision was simple. Even though she very much would have liked to have told Rin about the secret that his best friend was keeping from him, Ellie knew that, just as Carla had said, it wasn't her secret to tell.

And so, Ellie chose to keep her mouth shut. For the sake of common decency.

A.N: Did not intend for this chapter to get so long. No, I most certainly did not.

In terms of Sosuke's injury, I thought that a rotator cuff tear was the closest to what I think he actually has done to his shoulder. They're quite a painful injury and hard to accurately fix. A lot of rest and physio is necessary for recovery. One of my swimming friends actually had to quit swimming altogether after he sustained the same kind of injury. So yes, quite a nasty injury but it fit characteristically and even if they go into detail about his injury next episode, I probably won't change it if I'm wrong. Too complicated to do so.

Secondly, Episode 9 is just *violent sobbing*. Haru, my baby! And goddamn it, Sosuke, don't swim on your injury. DID YOUR DOCTORS TELL YOU NOTHING?!

Anyway, thank you to SheepRainbow and My Father's Daughter for reviewing. Thank you to everyone else who favourited and followed as well. Your reviews on this chapter would be appreciated, especially since I experimented with Carla's character a bit more in this chapter and I'd like to know your point of view.

Other then that, I should probably stop procrastinating and start studying for my Science exam soon. Until next time (in which, I will be in tears because Sosuke :'( )...:)