Learning to Breathe (32 page)

Danny and I sat down at one of the empty tables and glanced around.

“How many schools take part in this?” I asked, amazed at the amount of people waiting.

Danny shrugged.
“I think it’s usually around ten to fifteen of the surrounding schools. There’s usually no more than ten from each school though.”

I nodded.
“Still, that’s a lot of people to beat.”

He grinned.
“Don’t sweat it. You’re gonna do great! Win or lose, you’ll still have me.”

I laughed at that. “So you’re my consolation prize?”

“Damn straight! You can’t get much better than that.” He smirked.

“Is that so?” I e
nquired, amused at how confident he seemed to be about all of this.

He nodded.
“It’s great. It’s like a win-win situation.”

I let out a chuckle.
“Watch it Mr Fletcher, your cockiness is threatening to take over again.

“Pah!” he protested. “It’s not cockiness, it’s confidence! There’s nothing wrong with that.”

I nodded and he grinned. “Besides, nothing can put a dampener on my mood today. Nothing.”

That was when his gaze shifted to over my shoulder … and his grin faded.

I glanced over my shoulder t
o see what Danny was staring at: two new competitors had just walked in. One was a very pretty blonde girl who seemed to demand the attention of every guy in the room. The other, was an extremely tall, sandy haired guy who had his arm wrapped around the girl and had a very smug look on his face.

I turned back to Danny.
“What’s wrong? Do you know them?”

Slowly, Danny nodded and his expression darkened. “Yeah, I know them.”

“So, who are they?” I enquired, watching the couple take a seat at the last empty table.

Danny heaved a s
igh. “That, Darcie, is the girl who broke my heart and my ex best friend who helped do it. That is Kimmy Grayson and Lance Strafford.”

I let out a low whistle.
“Are you gonna be okay?”

He managed to tear his gaze away from them and looked at me. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

I wasn’t so sure but I didn’t argue.

Suddenly, I heard a sickly sweet voice.

“Danny Fletcher … is that you?”

I glanced up to find Kimmy standing behind me, staring directly at Danny while Lance shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other.

Danny gave Lance a curt nod before turning his attention to Kimmy.

“Kimmy. Lance. How are you both?”

I watched Kimmy flip her long blonde hair and gently flop down on the seat beside Danny.

“Oh, I’m great!” she gushed, turning her back to me, and totally ignoring my presence at the table.
“How are you?”

I narrowed my eyes at her but didn’t say anything. In fact, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to say anything since all I wanted to do was rip out her bleached blond
e hair.

Danny threw a glance in my direction and seemed to read my mind. He gave me a small smirk and then looked back at Kimmy.

“Oh, I’ve never been better. In fact, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” He gestured to me and I watched Kimmy whip her head around and give me daggers.

“Kimmy, this is Darcie – my girlfriend.”

I smiled sweetly at her and waved to Lance, who seemed to have been forgotten in all of the introductions.

Lance merely nodded at me but Kimmy glared at me with such loathing that I found myself quite disturbed by her malevolent behaviour.

“It’s nice to meet you Kimmy.” I forced myself to say, injecting as much enthusiasm into my voice as I could muster. 

“Whatever.” Kimmy waved off my greeting and turned her attention back to Danny. “Are you both competing?”

Danny nodded, “Yeah, this is Darcie’s first time taking part. She only learned to swim just less than a year ago but I really think she’s gonna kick some ass today.” He threw me a dazzling smile and even though he was probably only boasting about me to get back at his ex girlfriend, I felt a strange sense of pride.

“Oh,” Kimmy sneered. “Why the sudden interest in the competition?”
she asked, turning her nose up at me.

I shrugged.
“I just wanted to do something different.”

She narrowed her eye
s. “Uh huh, well good luck. Try not to fall too far behind me.”

“Kimmy!” Danny warned.
“There’s no need for that. It’s been two years; the least we can do is to try and be civil with each other.”

“
Fine. Sorry. But you know how I get Danny.” Kimmy smiled at him. “I can’t help that I’m competitive.”

Danny frowned at her.
“That’s no excuse to be rude.”

She wav
ed off his comment and stood up. “Whatever. See you later. Come on Lance, let’s go.”

Lance gave us each a small wave and then trotted off behind Kimmy.

I glanced at Danny. “You okay?”

He nodded.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine but only if you do something for me.”

“What is it?” I asked hesitantly.

“Kick her ass today!” Danny grinned and I laughed loudly.

It was eleven-thirty before the org
anisers had sorted out everything. There were 128 of us in total: 64 boys and 64 girls. There were 8 lanes in the pool and there was a limit of 16 boys and 16 girls per day right through to Thursday. Who took part on which day was decided by splitting us all alphabetically. Since I was ‘G’, I wouldn’t be competing until tomorrow – Tuesday.

The organisers decided that there would be
two initial races for each style of swimming. This was to determine which group you were in: the fastest swimmers would go into one group and the slower swimmers would go into the other. The four styles were freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly.

From there, there would be one heat
for each group. The top four out of each group would then compete in one more heat to decide the top two for each group. Those four would then compete in one final heat. The overall top two for each style of swimming would go through to final on Friday.

To say that my head was fried after hearing all that – well, it would have been an understatement. However, I did manage to get the gist of it. It seemed that all I had to do was be in the top two for at le
ast one style of swimming and I would be through to the final.
Easy!

Even though
I
could relax for the rest of the day, Danny was competing in fifteen minutes.

“You feeling okay?” I asked, concerned by how quiet he had been since our run in with Lance and Kimmy.

He nodded. “Yeah, as long as you’re here to cheer me on, I’ll be fine.”

I grinned. “Consider it done.” I gave him an extra lingering kiss and made my way to find my mother while Danny changed.

My mother was greatly surprised to see me pushing my way through the crowd of people.

“Darcie? When are you competing?” She looked confused.

I laughed, “Not until tomorrow. They decided to sort us alphabetically. Anyway, Danny’s competing today so you’ll just have to help me cheer him on.”

My mother smiled, “No problem. We’ll have to move to the other pool though. This one is for the girls.”

I nodded and we pushed our way through the crowd until we were out in the corridor again. The other pool wasn’t too far – just at the end of the hall
way.

I opened the door to the viewing gallery and proceeded to push my way past the closely packed bodies until I had a better view of the pool.
I spotted Danny’s parents a few rows behind me so I motioned for them to join us. After a quick introduction to my mother, we all gazed down at the pool, waiting for the competition to start.

M
y mother squeezed my arm excitedly and grinned. “So, how good is Danny?”

“He’s not good.” I told her. “He’s great.”

She laughed. “So, these other boys won’t stand a chance?”

I grinned wickedly. “Those boys will need all the luck they can get.”

My mother chuckled and then pointed down to the pool. “Look, they’re coming out now!”

I followed her gaze and was pleased to see that Danny was one of the first ones to line up.

He glanced up, searching for my face in the crowd, and winked when he finally spotted me.

I waved to him and winked back. He threw me a killer grin and
waved to his parents before he started stretching.

The announcer
called out that the backstroke would be the first style and then proceeded to call out the names for the first race.

Danny took his place with the rest of the boys who had been called out. They took their starting positions and waited.

The announcer glanced over at the referee. All of the other officials were ready: the timekeepers were poised for action and the judges were waiting, prepared for anything.

“On your marks … get set … go!” The horn blared and they were off.

The competition was intense.
My mother and I cheered ourselves hoarse but we didn’t care. Danny’s parents were pretty enthusiastic too – shouting out various words of encouragement – but they didn’t feel the need to overexert themselves like me and my mother.

Danny was the strongest sw
immer throughout the whole day and managed to come first in every single race. Even the officials were surprised at how quickly he glided through the water, judging by their stunned expressions.

When
the competition ended, everybody was still talking about him and I heard many people voicing their amazement about how he had left the other competitors in his wake. I felt immensely proud of him and couldn’t wait to congratulate him.

I, along with my mother and Danny’s parents,
made my way to the main foyer to wait on Danny. Many of the spectators left quite quickly but a few remained behind – obviously family and friends of the other competitors.

Ten minutes later and Danny appeared. He caught my eye but stopped in his tracks as the people waiting about suddenly surrounded him. They all congratulated him and patted him on the back, telling him he had done ‘a fine job’.

Eventually, he managed to escape and hugged his parents before making a beeline straight for me. Grinning broadly, he embraced me in a tight hug and kissed me.

When he pull
ed back, he smiled sheepishly at my mother. “Sorry.”

My mother
laughed and shook her head. “Pretend I’m not here!”

Danny grinned
and then hugged her. “Thanks for cheering me on.”

My mother laughed.
“Hey, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

“Hey, this calls for a celebration.
How about we all go for coffee?” Danny’s father suggested.

We all agreed and made our way to ‘The Beanery’.

The parents all sat at one table so Danny and I could have a little bit of privacy.

“You were great today!” I told Danny, grinning like an idiot.

He laughed.
“Thanks. I haven’t won the competition yet though.”

“But you will.” I told him firmly.

He shook his head. “You haven’t seen Lance swim; it’s like he’s part fish.”

I laughed and then looked at Danny intently. “Don’t doubt yourself. I believe you can do it and so should you!” I told him sternly.

He smirked. “Perhaps you should take your own advice.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “It’s not me we’re talking about here.”

“I know but don’t think I don’t know how nervous you are about tomorrow. Don’t pay any attention to Kimmy – she’s all talk.” Danny insisted firmly.

I sighed heavily.
“Was she always like that?”

Danny shrugged.
“I dunno. She was different back when we were together. She was nice, kind, and really fun to be with. Then the whole Josh thing happened and everything changed. I changed. I guess she just couldn’t cope with me being so sad all the time. She wanted to have fun and party all the time but that just wasn’t me. I told her I needed time but she wasn’t prepared to wait for me. The very next day, she got together with Lance.”

I sq
ueezed his hand sympathetically. “That sucks.”

He nodded sadl
y. “Yeah, I just couldn’t believe it. Lance was my best friend and he stabbed me in the back. He couldn’t handle the new me either … he didn’t understand why I couldn’t move on and forget about it. I guess people just don’t understand how hard it is unless they’ve experienced it themselves.”

I nodded. “Yeah, back in Langley Falls, everyone
treated me differently for about a month. After that, they forgot and moved on with their lives but I didn’t. That’s when my mother forced me to go to a counsellor – Dr Kendrick. I saw her twice a week for 6 months and I didn’t even tell her what really happened when Dad died. She never pushed me for details but I knew it frustrated her. In the end, she encouraged me to make friends and be more sociable. So, in a way, she did help me – just not in the way she expected.”