First of all, I just want to let you know that I wrote this piece for a competition. The word limit was 1000 words, which is why it's really short. I won the competition but I just want to know what you guys think. Thanks
I’m falling. I’m not hitting solid ground which must mean... there it is. I submerge into the cold water, gasping for breath. I don’t open my mouth because it would mean water in my lungs. I try to save as much of the oxygen I have. But eventually, I have to breathe out. I don’t remember much. All I remember is my lungs burning for air. And then darkness.
I lived. Carly didn’t. I was lucky. Carly wasn’t. My best friend died that day. It was innocent fun that turned into a deadly nightmare, one that keeps me awake every night and has done for the past four years.
In the months after her death, I gave up swimming. It was stupid really. I knew that if she’d have lived, she’d have hated me for giving up my dream. Actually, she probably cursed my sorry little soul from heaven the day I announced that I wasn’t swimming anymore. I was destined to be a professional swimmer, the newspapers said. I wanted that. I really did.
I simply couldn’t swim anymore. I couldn’t swim, knowing my best friend had died in water. Sure, it had once been my sanctuary, but nowadays, my worst nightmares brewed within. Looking at water made me feel sick. It made tears burn in my eyes and even now, I can remember the desperation I felt as I began to drown; I can feel my lungs burning for air. It scarred my very soul.
#FF0000 ">See, Carly was more than my best friend. Her death was something tragic; a black spot of ink on a clean white sheet. That mark slowly spreads before your very eyes until finally, it's no longer white. That was what my life was like after Carly. Her death was the small black dot of ink on my white sheet life. Everything was perfect. Maybe that was just Carly though - she had a knack for making anybody feel better. She cared for others more than she did for herself. I always told her it would be the death of her. Ironic really, considering she died to save me.
I’m seventeen now and I’m standing at the water’s edge of the school swimming pool. The Coach is watching me with wary eyes, the way he has every day after school for the past four years. He’s scared to approach me yet even more scared to just leave me alone in fear that I’d go through with it and have a fit in the water. I know, Coach, I know. I’ve had the same thoughts for the past four years.
The water swirls beneath me and I’m still stood here as the pool begins to empty. It’s getting later and people are beginning to go home. But not me. I’ll stay here until I absolutely have to leave. It’s routine. I stand at the side of the pool, letting loneliness engulf me and silent tears slip down my face. I don't brush them away. I let the grief come.
“Summer?” Coach asks warily, his brown eyes the only thing that gives away his discomfort. He brushes his sandy blonde curls away from his eyes as I turn my gaze to him.
“I want it to stop,” I confess, my voice barely above even whisper. He nods as if he understands. Of course he doesn’t, though. He doesn’t understand my need to be here every day after school, trying to force myself into the water. He never will.
“I know,” he whispers. “I know.” I give a short, curt nod and turn my head back towards the water, slipping back into the normal routine of ignoring him.
I’m so tired of the same routine, even if it brings me comfort. I’m tired of the knowledge that I’m suppressed even now by all my childish fears. I’m tired of the fact that I can’t let go of my past. I’m terrified to remember my past, yet also terrified to forget. I’m scared to think of a future because I’m scared of the unknown. And I’m balancing on the border-line.
“Summer,” she whispers. I know it’s not really her. I know it’s simply my mind playing tricks on me. I let out a small sob and close my eyes but her face - with her honey-blonde locks whisping around her shoulders - burns the back of my eyelids. My eyes flash open like lightning but her face is still in my vision, chasing away all the sanity in me.
Don’t, I beg the voice inside my head. That’s all it is; a voice inside my head. It’s a face conjured by my sub-conscious because I miss her. Because I want her to be here. She’ll never be at my side again. She’ll never laugh her wild, crazy laugh. She’ll never get angry at me. How I wish even to see her anger! Anything.
NO! If I think that, the visions will get worse, the voice will become clearer. It feeds of my needs, hopes and wants. It will continue to eat away at me. It always has done that. It always will. I need to wash away her face from my vision. Not to forget. But... don’t they say pouring salt into a wound makes it better?
Upon realising this, I lift my head. Her ghostly shimmer is getting duller. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, reaching out into thin air, as if trying to touch her face. Then I turn my gaze to the water.
The water swirls below me in ripples, like the calm before the storm. I shiver slightly; it reminds me too much of the night Carly died for my liking. My body is frozen and I can hardly dare to move in fear of making one wrong move. I begin to wonder what it will be like to plunge into the water, to feel it rush over my skin, opening its arms like a welcoming friend.
The water was my friend until it took away Carly. It was my friend until it stole the most precious thing to me. Friends don’t steal from one another... do they? They don’t take what is yours. They don’t destroy it completely, ripping it to shreds. At least, they shouldn’t.
It’s hard to let go of a friend. It was my last thought before I let go of my fear, and gracefully dived into the water, as if picking it up and teaching something that a student picked up quickly. It was effortless - easy.
I was home.
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