Page 19 of Secrets (The Sins Trilogy 2)
He gets into the water first. “We’ll start from the shallow side, get you comfortable. And I’m going to teach you how to float.”
I look at the steps, then Tony waiting patiently. The water only reaches to his hips. It’s probably logical to start from here, but…nobody tries to drown you in the shallow end of the pool.
And this isn’t just about me learning to enjoy water. I’m trying to avoid a repeat of what happened yesterday with Sam.
“No,” I say.
“What?”
I draw up whatever courage I can muster. “Let’s do it from the other end. The deeper side.”
Surprise crosses his gorgeous face. “Are you sure? It’s—”
“More realistic. Exactly the kind of the scenario I need to prepare for.” If I let him talk to me in that gentle tone, I’m going to cave and take all the little baby steps I can’t afford to indulge in.
“We can still do it slowly,” Tony says. “Like learning how to play the piano. You didn’t start with Chopin your first day.”
“But I can’t.” I lick dry lips, moving my leaden legs toward the deep end. “If I take six months to learn a piece…nobody’s hurt. But this? This is life or death.” Like the girl I couldn’t save. Or myself when I was drowning yesterday. I was lucky because Tony showed up in time. But the girl… I hope she made it somehow, but I don’t have the faintest idea what happened to her. And not knowing makes it worse. If I’d been able to swim back then, I could’ve saved both of us.
I stand at the edge of the deep end. My stomach grows jittery and weird, like I’m about to get on a crazy roller coaster with a horrible safety record. Tony moves over, and now the water’s to his upward-tilted chin.
I flex my toes, my legs feeling unsteady. Water really scares me, even though, intellectually, I understand that once I learn to swim, it won’t be scary at all. I inhale. “Okay. I’m going to jump in.”
“Whenever you’re ready.” Tony opens his arms.
See, there he is, ready to catch me, just in case. I’m going to be okay. Nothing to fear. I can do this. Millions of people swim all the time just fine. As soon as I hit the water, kick and move my arms just like I’ve seen on TV.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I push myself off the ledge. A scream wells in my chest, but I don’t get to let it out, since water immediately swallows me. I try holding my breath, feeling bubbles tickling my skin. Oh my God, the water’s so heavy! I kick like crazy, my arms swiveling like a windmill. Except I don’t feel myself going anywhere. My toes brush the bottom of the pool.
My hands hit the solid muscle of Tony’s torso. I grab him tightly, and he pulls me up. I gasp as my head breaks the surface, my legs going around him so I don’t sink back down.
“I’ve got you,” he says. “You all right?”
I swipe the water off my face, sputtering and breathing hard. “No. It’s so annoying. Why can’t I kick myself up? People do it all the time on TV.”
“You’re too tense.”
“So?”
“Can’t float if you’re tense. You have to relax.”
“I’d be relaxed if I weren’t sinking!”
“Iris, I know you’re in hurry, but you can’t rush this. You have to give it time.”
“But it looks so easy! Why can’t I just do it like…” I try to snap my fingers, but they’re too slippery, and I end up looking silly instead.
“Just because it looks effortless doesn’t mean it is. When you play ‘Mazeppa,’ it looks easy. But is it?”
“Of course not,” I say mulishly, because I know exactly where he’s going with it, and he’s right. “But don’t tell me it’s going to take me years to learn how to float.”
“No. But it’ll take longer than a couple of minutes and just jumping into the deep end. Can you trust me to teach you how to do it?”
I sigh. He has a point. I could spend the next several months flailing around, or I could let him lead me in this. “Okay.”
Tony spends the rest of the morning helping me become comfortable putting my head into the water—like, submerging it—and learning to float. He says the confidence of knowing that I won’t sink like a rock will help. And it does, because after about an hour and half of trying, I can float, although I can’t quite propel myself forward very well.
“See? There you go!” His eyes sparkle, and he seems prouder of me than I am.
