The pool looks different from the outside.

The melancholic grey concrete of the cubic building blends easily into each misty morning, creating a vacuum of space between the rows of trees. It could hold offices or wards or labs but instead, it is home to my sanctuary. I wasn’t planning to walk in this direction today but somehow my feet have led me here. Like yesterday morning. And probably like tomorrow.

I don’t remember the last time I went this long without going inside. Even in the middle of winter, I manage to strip down to my wafer-thin bathers and dive headfirst into the biting water. My mind bursts into screams of anguish from the icy cold but I hold strong to the faith that a few laps of freestyle will warm me up. Not long until the scorching heat sets in and it will turn back into a luxury. That’s what swimming is to me now: a luxury. I hitch up my backpack and keep walking.

…

It feels strange to reach school on time. Usually, I’m frantically drying my hair, wrangling it into a ponytail while fixing the mismatched buttons on my dress as the bell rings. These days I’m seated promptly in form room as its shrill fills the air. I no longer have anywhere else to be. I don’t fall asleep in assembly or quietly tear the wrapper of a muesli bar during first period. I remember my homework assignments. I take notes. I know that teachers are smarter than we think. I wish they weren’t so smug about it. I discover that they don’t pick on me with impossible questions when I’m paying attention. I talk about the new movie everyone saw last weekend. When people ask me how I am, I treat it like a greeting rather than a question. I spend lunchtime lying in the grass outside, staring up as the clouds float by like seafoam. I listen as my friends tell me which magazines they read and which boys they like. I wish that I had the energy to care about something like they do.

…

Mum scolds me when she sees me rush towards her car. I didn’t realise how fast I was moving. My behaviour must be left over from the days of being eager to leave school, to go home and collapse on the couch while the television chirps. But today Mum and I get to spend an extra hour in each other’s company as we battle to cross the city in post-school traffic. I know Mum is itching to curse at the drivers who cut her off but she holds back the words to set a good example for me. I want to tell her that there’s no point because I know them all already but I stay silent in the passenger seat.

The hospital doors retreat as soon as they sense my presence. Mum confidently struts inside and chats to the receptionist about the number of available parking spots and those awful roadworks and the murky clouds intruding on the skies. I take out my school diary and flick back the pages eight weeks until I find the record of my first visit. There are no words, just a mark against the day. Can’t write things down because it makes them real. Mum wraps up her conversation and leads me through the twisting tunnels until we get to the children’s area. I take a seat on a novelty chair shaped like a crocodile. It’s too small and my legs are awkwardly bunched in front of me. The doctor calls my name like the announcer at an awards ceremony and Mum attentively walks towards his consult room. My feet take me in the opposite direction, heading out the way we came in. Mum is after me in an instant, yelling at me not to run. She isn’t afraid of raising her voice here. I come to a stop, partly because she told me to but mostly because she’s right. What else am I supposed to do if I can’t run away from things? I certainly don’t have the courage to face them. Mum finds a tissue to dry my tears and tells me that it’s going to be okay, we don’t know what the doctor is going to say and what it might mean for my swimming. She’s given a version of this speech on repeat for the past eight weeks but today it feels kinder, softer. Maybe because today I’m finally desperate enough to hope that it’s true. I let her take my hand and lead me back into the children’s corner, feeling small enough for the crocodile chair.

I zone out as the doctor talks in long words and sets of numbers and complicated drug names. Earlier this year, I dared to climb up to the high board in the diving pool for the first time. I stared down into the dark midnight blue of the pool, painted with small white lines. I used to be scared of the diving pool because it’s so much deeper than the lap pool. But I learnt a long time ago that no monsters are waiting at the bottom. This feels like that infinite moment between jumping off the board and entering the water. Could be anywhere, anytime.

But Mum coaxes the meaning out of his sentences and discovers that I’m mostly fine. Mostly fine. What does that mean? It’s the climactic moment in a reality television show where the orchestra swells and they show everyone’s reactions one by one in a slow-motion zoom before revealing the winner. The news is that I am mostly fine. The catch is that I may still have difficulty with some things. Some things. What does that mean? Mum asks the big question about the s-word and the doctor says he doesn’t see why it should be a problem. Mum gasps like she’s just guessed the murderer in one of those Miss Marple novels she reads a few pages of at a time. Now it’s her turn to cry and the doctor hands her a tissue. He asks me why I haven’t swum when he never told me I couldn’t and I can’t think of anything to tell him except how scared I feel. The doctor confesses that running may never feel the same, but you never know, with these modern drugs. I might luck out and find one that works. I’ll never run anywhere again in my life if it means that I can swim, I say. Your mother tells me that you won a lot of races, he says. I ask him to please stop talking in the past tense.

…

I continue walking by the pool every morning. Mum is confused. She doesn’t know why I leave so early if I’m not going in and what I must do to pass the time when I arrive at school with a couple of hours to spare. I tell her I’m taking it slow. She tells me I have nothing to fear. I tell her it’s a big moment. And she tells me to take my time. A few days later, I make it inside the building but the sight of my friends racing back and forth while my coach yells is too much. I rush back home as quickly as I can muster. I catch Mum before she leaves for work and cry into her blouse, car keys clutched in her fist. She tells me she has a plan. I ask what it is. She says step one is getting into the car so she can drive me to school. I say okay. She passes me her flask of hot tea and lets me dot my blurry eyes against her best handkerchief. When she pulls up to school, I tell her that I’m going to quit. Don’t be fucking stupid, she says. I thought you didn’t want me to learn bad words, I say. You already know them, she says.

…

Mum takes me to the pool on a Sunday afternoon. She doesn’t seem to understand why I linger in the foyer, but I’m stuck staring at the trophy cabinet. Half the blue ribbons have my name on them. I’ve got another cupboard full at home. I used to chase records, feverishly count how many more ribbons I could win with each new season. Now, for the first time, I don’t know if I will ever hold another one in my hands.

The primary school kids are kicking up a flurry of white water in the lap pool, so I sit in the stands and watch them. They are screaming, laughing, crying. Their technique is terrible, but they are learning. I want to be there with them—back at the beginning. Shrouded in the safety of promise and potential.

It didn’t take many lessons before I could swim in a straight line up and down the length of the pool with my eyes closed. I knew exactly how many times I’d need to break the surface to breathe. I loved the first breath in a race, nervous, and the last breath, desperate. The sensation of slamming my hand against the wall. I loved sitting next to the water at the end of a long session and feeling the droplets peel at my skin. I felt the pride of pinning up my first blue ribbon, and the worry that it would be my last. I was never the best; and even if I were, I could always be better.

Someone calls my name. I turn around and see my coach standing by the edge of the diving pool. My body begs me to walk over there.

I dip one toe into the water to test the temperature. It’s nice and freezing, just how I usually like it. But I’m not sure how I rate my skills with frantic freestyle anymore. I turn and ask my coach what she recommends. She points to the diving board and tells me to jump in. When my face goes white, she clarifies that she means the shorter one. I’ll be right here, she says. She’s never steered me wrong before, so I grip the steel bar and take the few steps up to the first diving board. Let’s count together, okay? my coach says. I close my eyes. One. Two. Three. The water is solid and thick but it quickly melts against my body and I burst through like a pin to a balloon. The spray goes everywhere like confetti. The tips of my toes touch the bottom of the pool; no monsters here. I open my eyes underwater. I’m surrounded by indigo. My long hair floats in a misshapen mass around me, suspended in the calm. Each and every part of my body is alive in the cold water. I kick to the surface with one hand on my chest. My heart is intact. I turn to face the ceiling and swim survival stroke to the edge of the pool. I’m not worried about ribbons anymore. The only blue that matters to me is the water. My water, my body, my home.