I crossed over the drowning tile floor avoiding the bustle of smiles. Over the listerine murk towered the raised stands, where the parents sat watching intently like forest owls surveying their prey. They were just close enough to witness a perfect dive and yet just far enough away to avoid the splash. The over-chlorinated water proved chillier than the previous day. It marinated the losing swimmers as they hung there frozen in their defeat. My event had been called so there I stood at the back of a human totem-pole vying restlessly for control of my nerves. As the heat numbers ascended, my stomach tumbled upward into my chest banging every innard and bone in its path. Swimmer after swimmer shuffled toward the beige starting block, a collage of anticipation and anxious conversation. The buzzer released its deafening cries and the divers surrendered to the whims of gravity.

"Heat seven," called an elderly voice from a few paces to my right.

The swimmer in front of me climbed onto the block, accepted his fate, and exploded.

The water from my Uncle Richie's pool was launched back onto my youthful face. I was seven years old. The year I rode my bike for thirty minutes to the dollar tree without permission and upon return learnt what the word 'grounded' meant. The icy nip of the pool water eased the midsummer humidity. My sister and I dashed aimlessly amongst the palm trees in my uncle's backyard. All of them uniquely identifiable by their silly garden stone faces. The one's you can purchase from most hardwares stores after you awkwardly ask the acne-ridden teenage clerk where you might find them and they peer at you as if you just informed them that they have elves in their ears. We continued our race leaving the backyard and entering his four story victorian home through the tattered screen door. We ran circles around the expansive dining room as we made a concentrated effort towards not knocking over his counterfeit chinese vases, and then we glided up two flights of stairs into his attic. Afterwards, we scoured through the unfinished attic for treasures as we pretended that we were friends of Jones, Indiana Jones. His loyal adventuring friends fighting imaginary foes and besting monsters which lurked in the deep shadows of the windowless enclosure.

Eyes darted between pages before raising to acknowledge the opening of a door. My mother had received another call from the school. I could tell from a quick glance at her arms, folded, rigid across her chest. She only ever did so when someone had disappointed her. And lately, I struggled to blame her. The window in my sister's room lay ajar and the screen rested next to it, removed.
"It's so I can run with the wolves," she once told me with a wink and the distorted echoes of some classic rock song blaring through her radio’s speakers.
"The school called… another full day absence," were the words which crept from my mother's aching lips.
I had left the house to avoid the fallout, however, I could still hear that crunch. The crackling snap of her silver, duct-tape wrapped radio as it crashed into the zebra print walls of her bedroom.  Later that day my sister climbed through her screen-less window and was gone for a week. No note, no calls, and no forewarning. Our dogs would lie in her room and wait, so certain that any moment she would sneak back in through that screen-less window and bring back spoils from her adventure. Even six month's later that crack still lingers on her zebra print walls.
Last November we visited her in Michigan. The passing trees had a pallet flushed with burgundy and pumpkin. They lined the country roads with the embrace of their falling kin. My sister’s treatment center had been called, "state of the art," and "groundbreaking," but to me its castle walls, cocaine-white corridors, and stitched-on-smiles staff left the lingering taste of a prison cell. Our first visit had left her weeping, our second had risen a hopeful smile, but now her presence felt distant and just little bit cold as if she believed we preferred her absence. Her art had lost its beauty too. No longer did she craft beautiful landscapes of lakes and villas nor portraits of warriors, no longer did her fingers dance around pages with pen and pencil. Just like her, it merely existed. Just slugging on till they declared her 'clean,' whatever the hell that meant.
Lately, I hadn't been looking forward to high school.

"Heat eight," the elderly man on my right called out. I gave him a nervous glance and he tried to smile reassuringly.
I climbed up onto that podium and felt just a little bit like a falcon. The rough grip of the block countered any water that would have rendered it slippery. My head began to swim with anxiety, so I bit my lip and took a deep breath. In and out, again, in and out, I reminded myself. I tightened my cap and brought myself into a diving pose. One more deep breath abandoned my lips. The buzzer shrieked one final time and I catapulted into the teal blue embrace of the icy water. I thought I heard my coach yell something about form, but I could no longer hear, see, or breathe, so I merely was.