A/N: Okay, we have a plot! Yeeey! It ties in with later stories in this series, but for now, I'm going to leave you scratching your heads and wondering how that is. :-) Hehe, you also get to meet the other third of the bizarre love triangle I mentioned in the summary... lol.
Chapter 2
The pool at my school was mostly off-limits to anyone except for the swim team and when the gym classes had their swimming unit. But on most weekends during the school year, the pool was open to anyone who could pay the fifteen-dollar entry fee—students got in free, of course. It was closed from the first day of try-outs for the swim team in mid-November to the weekend after the last swim meet—usually the first weekend in February.
After the first rush of people that first weekend after the pool's reopened—you know, mostly parents and their little kids and all the senior citizens who liked to do their water aerobics—the pool sort of emptied out so that by the end of February, the only people at the pool were the high schoolers who really didn't have much else to do on Saturday afternoon.
Hence why I was there. And unfortunately, I had company, too, in the form of Eric, my brother.
"What is the point," he wanted to know after he'd come up to me on the pool deck—we'd come separately—"of coming to the pool—and indoor pool, too—if you're just going to sit in one of the deck chairs and read a book? You can do that at home. Hell, you can even wear a bathing suit if you want. Knock yourself out."
I rolled my eyes, sitting back on the deck chair. "Eric, is there a reason why you wanted to talk to me?"
"What, can't I talk to my sister?" When I shot him a dubious look, he sighed. "Right. I have two things to tell you. Number one, I talked to Caitlin"—that was his girlfriend—"and she told me that Steve said that he had a wonderful time last night. I can't see how anyone could have a wonderful time with you, but..."
I smacked him with my book. "What was the other thing?"
"Yeah, there's a guy over there," he pointed to other side of the pool where a guy I sort of recognized from school was sitting, "has been staring at you for the past five minutes." Then he just wandered off around the pool deck.
I turned kind of red and looked over at the guy Eric had pointed at. He was staring. I turned back to my book, trying to pretend I hadn't noticed.
Well, after awhile, I got a little tired of hiding behind my book, so I got up from the chair, set my book down and went down to wear the diving boards were. No one was standing by them, so I just climbed right up and went to the edge.
Now I'm not much of a swimmer. I can swim around the deep end a little, but mostly I'd rather just jump in and jump out. As much as I hate to admit it, it freaks me out a little to be in the middle of the pool where I can't touch the bottom if I get worn out while swimming or something.
So, as one might expect from someone who isn't too good at swimming, I can't dive, either, so when I got up there on the diving board, I just plugged my nose, fought down my usual instinct to panic and get down, and jumped right it.
I sunk down a couple feet, then started kicking back toward the surface.
See, the part I always liked about swimming in a pool was that, usually, there's nothing for you to get caught in. Like, when you go to the ocean, you get caught in seaweed or something, but in a pool, the most you have to worry about is smacking into someone else who's swimming around near you.
So, I'm sure you can imagine my shock when I felt something—or rather someone—grab a hold of my foot just as I was getting close to the surface.
And then they yanked me back downwards.
You know what the first thing I instinctively do when that happens? Yeah, I gasp, letting out all the air I was holding, and all the water around me in.
And as I was starting to panic—seeing as how I was technically drowning—whoever had a hold of my foot was pulling me farther and farther down.
I tried yanking my foot away from them, but they just held on tighter. I tried kicking them with my other foot, but that just made them grab both feet and pulled me down harder. At this point I was starting to feel kind of claustrophobic from all the water pushing in around me, and I gave up on trying not to panic and just started trying to swim upward. Not an easy thing to do when you can't kick your legs, trust me. And plus my vision was starting to turn black around the edges, and my throat was burning from all the chlorine.
So there I was, unable to breathe or move really, being pulled toward the bottom of the pool, with my panic-stricken brain starting to fade out on me.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, two very strong hands grabbed me under my arms and yanked me out of the grip of whoever was trying to drown me.
And that was all I remembered, because right after that I lost consciousness.
!!!
Later, Kevin would wish that he could claim that his first kiss with Anna Foster was romantic and sweet—and would preferably come right after he confessed his undying love for her.
In reality, the first kiss wasn't really a kiss. That's because she was unconscious at the time, and he was trying to give her mouth-to-mouth.
He'd been watching her since he spotted her across the pool. He'd seen her a hundred times before at school and he'd heard about her more times than he could count.
He was the only one who noticed when she went off the diving board. He was the only one who noticed when she didn't resurface. Chad, the lifeguard who had about half a brain in his head, was too busy talking to his equally stupid girlfriend, and wasn't really paying attention to the pool.
Kevin had dove in, frantically tried to find Anna—frantically because the minutes were ticking by, and he didn't know how much time he had to find her—and then he'd finally caught a blurry glimpse of her hair, floating all around. She was even deeper than he expected, and she was going farther down with each second that passed.
He'd grabbed for her, missed the first time, then had to kick harder to follow her into deeper water before he finally grabbed her under the arms and yanked hard. Whatever was pulling her down let go, and Kevin could have sworn he heard a curse, but he didn't pay any attention, he just held onto Anna—who had gonna totally limp—and swam for the surface.
And the only thing he could think the entire time it was happening was, "Oh, God, if she dies, Alex is going to kill me."
!!!
A/N: :-) Hehe... Yeah. Go review, please.
Chapter 2
The pool at my school was mostly off-limits to anyone except for the swim team and when the gym classes had their swimming unit. But on most weekends during the school year, the pool was open to anyone who could pay the fifteen-dollar entry fee—students got in free, of course. It was closed from the first day of try-outs for the swim team in mid-November to the weekend after the last swim meet—usually the first weekend in February.
After the first rush of people that first weekend after the pool's reopened—you know, mostly parents and their little kids and all the senior citizens who liked to do their water aerobics—the pool sort of emptied out so that by the end of February, the only people at the pool were the high schoolers who really didn't have much else to do on Saturday afternoon.
Hence why I was there. And unfortunately, I had company, too, in the form of Eric, my brother.
"What is the point," he wanted to know after he'd come up to me on the pool deck—we'd come separately—"of coming to the pool—and indoor pool, too—if you're just going to sit in one of the deck chairs and read a book? You can do that at home. Hell, you can even wear a bathing suit if you want. Knock yourself out."
I rolled my eyes, sitting back on the deck chair. "Eric, is there a reason why you wanted to talk to me?"
"What, can't I talk to my sister?" When I shot him a dubious look, he sighed. "Right. I have two things to tell you. Number one, I talked to Caitlin"—that was his girlfriend—"and she told me that Steve said that he had a wonderful time last night. I can't see how anyone could have a wonderful time with you, but..."
I smacked him with my book. "What was the other thing?"
"Yeah, there's a guy over there," he pointed to other side of the pool where a guy I sort of recognized from school was sitting, "has been staring at you for the past five minutes." Then he just wandered off around the pool deck.
I turned kind of red and looked over at the guy Eric had pointed at. He was staring. I turned back to my book, trying to pretend I hadn't noticed.
Well, after awhile, I got a little tired of hiding behind my book, so I got up from the chair, set my book down and went down to wear the diving boards were. No one was standing by them, so I just climbed right up and went to the edge.
Now I'm not much of a swimmer. I can swim around the deep end a little, but mostly I'd rather just jump in and jump out. As much as I hate to admit it, it freaks me out a little to be in the middle of the pool where I can't touch the bottom if I get worn out while swimming or something.
So, as one might expect from someone who isn't too good at swimming, I can't dive, either, so when I got up there on the diving board, I just plugged my nose, fought down my usual instinct to panic and get down, and jumped right it.
I sunk down a couple feet, then started kicking back toward the surface.
See, the part I always liked about swimming in a pool was that, usually, there's nothing for you to get caught in. Like, when you go to the ocean, you get caught in seaweed or something, but in a pool, the most you have to worry about is smacking into someone else who's swimming around near you.
So, I'm sure you can imagine my shock when I felt something—or rather someone—grab a hold of my foot just as I was getting close to the surface.
And then they yanked me back downwards.
You know what the first thing I instinctively do when that happens? Yeah, I gasp, letting out all the air I was holding, and all the water around me in.
And as I was starting to panic—seeing as how I was technically drowning—whoever had a hold of my foot was pulling me farther and farther down.
I tried yanking my foot away from them, but they just held on tighter. I tried kicking them with my other foot, but that just made them grab both feet and pulled me down harder. At this point I was starting to feel kind of claustrophobic from all the water pushing in around me, and I gave up on trying not to panic and just started trying to swim upward. Not an easy thing to do when you can't kick your legs, trust me. And plus my vision was starting to turn black around the edges, and my throat was burning from all the chlorine.
So there I was, unable to breathe or move really, being pulled toward the bottom of the pool, with my panic-stricken brain starting to fade out on me.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, two very strong hands grabbed me under my arms and yanked me out of the grip of whoever was trying to drown me.
And that was all I remembered, because right after that I lost consciousness.
!!!
Later, Kevin would wish that he could claim that his first kiss with Anna Foster was romantic and sweet—and would preferably come right after he confessed his undying love for her.
In reality, the first kiss wasn't really a kiss. That's because she was unconscious at the time, and he was trying to give her mouth-to-mouth.
He'd been watching her since he spotted her across the pool. He'd seen her a hundred times before at school and he'd heard about her more times than he could count.
He was the only one who noticed when she went off the diving board. He was the only one who noticed when she didn't resurface. Chad, the lifeguard who had about half a brain in his head, was too busy talking to his equally stupid girlfriend, and wasn't really paying attention to the pool.
Kevin had dove in, frantically tried to find Anna—frantically because the minutes were ticking by, and he didn't know how much time he had to find her—and then he'd finally caught a blurry glimpse of her hair, floating all around. She was even deeper than he expected, and she was going farther down with each second that passed.
He'd grabbed for her, missed the first time, then had to kick harder to follow her into deeper water before he finally grabbed her under the arms and yanked hard. Whatever was pulling her down let go, and Kevin could have sworn he heard a curse, but he didn't pay any attention, he just held onto Anna—who had gonna totally limp—and swam for the surface.
And the only thing he could think the entire time it was happening was, "Oh, God, if she dies, Alex is going to kill me."
!!!
A/N: :-) Hehe... Yeah. Go review, please.