On Sunday, Nolan led me to the school’s indoor heated pool.

An hour before we were supposed to meet, he texted me to bring my swimsuit. That should’ve given away his intended location, but it just didn’t click in my head until we got here. That might have something to do with the fact that I hardly ever came here on my own free time.

Now, we were standing near the edge of the pool, scanning the area for a less crowded spot. The warmth felt so good in this cold weather.

“There are more people here than I thought there would be,” he said, glancing around.

I nodded. It wasn’t exactly packed, but it still had a sizable number of students who were already inside the pool.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, turning to him. “You were on the swimming team in your previous school!”

“Yup.”

No wonder he wanted to come here—he probably really enjoyed swimming.

“Do you come here often?”

“No,” he said. “This is the second time I’ve been here since that time you got me to come for gym class.”

Well, color me impressed!

“Really? But you looked pretty confident when you swam during that little race we had. You didn’t seem rusty at all. I totally thought you practiced a lot!”

Giving me a faint smile, he said, “Yeah, I was pretty surprised myself, too.”

I frowned in confusion. “You were surprised?”

He began walking past me, and I hastily followed. We went down into the water, and he pointed to another corner of the pool that looked unoccupied.

“Let’s go there,” he said. “We can talk more once we’re in there.”

“Okay.”

When we made our way there, I parked myself against the smooth pool wall and lowered myself so that my chin was touching the water.

I loved the feeling of floating that being in the water gave me.

“Back to what we were talking about,” I said. “You haven’t been swimming for the past two years? Wait, you have been here for two years, right?”

He leaned against the wall next to me. “Yeah, I transferred here about then. I thought I would have gotten a lot worse with the lack of practice, but I didn’t.”

“That’s weird.”

“I figured out what was happening, though. I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, lowering himself too until he was at eye level.

“Okay,” I said, swallowing my nervousness at being so close to his face. “Tell me.”

“Because of my ‘condition’, I can somehow do some things that I couldn’t in the past.” His voice became quieter than usual. “I remember you were kind of incredulous that I could jump down from my room to the ground floor without needing a rope. I couldn’t do that before.”

“Actually, that pales in comparison to the time you hoisted me up into the tree like I was as light as a feather,” I said, and he grinned, “but yes, I was really shocked by your strength. So, that’s why you can do all these things?”

Nolan nodded. “That’s the only explanation I can think of. Like I said, I was perfectly normal before … you know. Stuff that used to be physically challenging is just so easy for me now.”

“Wow.” As I digested that information, I happened to look up and make eye contact with a girl looking in our direction from several feet away.

Swiftly recognizing her as Claire, I smiled at her to be polite. She returned my smile, but when she turned to Nolan, she did a double take.

I couldn’t blame her for her reaction. In the last few days since I’d officially become Nolan’s girlfriend, we would sometimes get second looks from others if we held hands while walking down the hallways. Sometimes, I myself still couldn’t believe that I was Nolan’s girlfriend, so I could only imagine how odd it must have looked to them.

“What are you smiling at?” Nolan said, leaning his head closer to mine as he tried to follow my gaze.

As his head touched mine, my heart skipped a beat at the contact. Claire stared even harder.

“That’s our classmate, the one looking at us right now,” I said. “Her name is Claire.”

“I don’t remember her,” he said.

I just shook my head. “I know. You couldn’t remember who Cheryl was, and you’ve done so many projects with her!”

He shrugged. “I don’t really need to remember all their names. It’s not like they’ll still be in my life after graduation.”

“Well, they could, if you became friends!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Claire finally turning away to talk to her friend.

“But I can’t make friends,” he said.

“Why not?” I demanded. “We became friends!”

“Yes, but that was because of a momentary lapse of judgement on my part.” In response to my glare, he added, “Best mistake I ever made, though.”

“How was that a mistake? Making friends is a good thing!”

“I shouldn’t have made any friends to begin with. They’d notice how weird my behavior is. Don’t you remember trying to give me advice on my nonexistent insomnia? How am I going to explain that away?”

Now that he mentioned it, I recalled all those times I kept suggesting that he slept early so that he would be more energized in the mornings. That must have been annoying on his end, especially since he knew that my ‘advice’ wouldn’t have helped at all.

Sheepishly, I said, “You’re right. But you became my friend anyway.”

“Like I said, it was a lapse of judgement,” he said. “And probably sanity too, come to think of it. At first, I was only being polite because I felt like I owed you for helping me, but then I started to look forward to our little conversations in between classes.”

All these sweet things he was saying with a straight face and a matter-of-fact tone merely amplified the floating sensation that I was already experiencing in the water.

I suppressed the giant smile that was begging to break across my face.

“Me too. I really looked forward to seeing you in class.”

“Besides, the aging thing is another issue,” he said, speaking at a softer volume again. “Keeping a friend for more than a few years would invite questions that I don’t want to answer.”

Until he brought it up, that problem had totally slipped my mind.

There were so many aspects that Nolan had to consider before he could do something as simple as making a friend.

My heart hurt at the thought of how lonely he must’ve been this whole time.

“I guess it’s good that I already know about this,” I said softly.

“It is,” he agreed. “Hey, let’s swim for a bit.”

“Sure.”

For a while, we swam about and did our own thing, although Nolan never strayed too far from me. He seemed so carefree as he moved smoothly around in the water. His swimming strokes were relaxed but confident, as if the water was his second home.

Outside of stargazing, this was the first time I’d seen him look so at peace.

A rush of affection welled up in me as I stopped and watched him enjoy himself.

After a while, he emerged from the water and paddled towards me.

He pulled his goggles up to his forehead. “That felt good.”

I smiled. “You really like swimming, don’t you? How come you stopped when you entered Fairwood? I mean, you didn’t have to join the swimming club, but you could’ve still come to the pool every now and then.”

He hesitated. “I wasn’t in the mood for anything then. I’d just started recovering from the shock of being … like this. Apart from studying and sleeping, I didn’t do much.”

Despite knowing that he’d undergone a lot of struggling and internal conflict because of what happened to him, it hadn’t properly registered in my mind how emotionally taxing it must have been. If it were me, I had no idea if I could’ve returned to living like a normal student after that.

I reached out underwater to hold his hand. “Sorry. It must have been tough for you.”

“It’s okay. I’ve come to terms with it now,” he said, squeezing my hand back. “With that said, I still wish it hadn’t happened, obviously.”

“Now that you’re here, though, do you think you’d want to come back again?”

I was nowhere near half as good as he was, but I wouldn’t mind tagging along just to watch him swim.

At this moment, Nolan didn’t even seem aware of the faint smile fixed on his face.

“I probably will,” he said, turning around and floating on his back. “You know, the best memories I made in my previous school were in my swimming club. I think the reason I put this off for so long was that I was afraid that swimming would feel different now. I didn’t want those memories to be tainted.”

I had a hard time imagining him hanging out with his other club members and actually relishing group activities.

It felt like the Nolan I knew now was a completely different person from the Nolan a few years ago.

“Whoa, with the way you put it, your teammates must have been amazing.”

My backstroke was terrible, but I tried to lie back and float beside him anyway. He made it look so easy!

Nolan let out a light snort. “Well, I was one of their best swimmers. They definitely at least appreciated my contribution to the team.”

“You must have been really popular,” I said, trying to visualize him being swarmed with people.

It was an impossible task.

“I thought I told you, I didn’t really have any friends,” he said, scoffing. “I said they were my best memories there, not that they were the most wonderful memories I would ever make in my entire life.”

“Oh.”

“That label is reserved for all the time I’ve spent with you.”

Instantly, I lost my concentration and began sinking. My legs flailed uselessly as I desperately kicked them out to no avail. Great. I truly sucked at backstroke.

Despite holding my breath, a dash of water entered my nostrils. I spluttered.

“Hey!”

Nolan’s fingers curled around my shoulders. He was strong enough to hold me up all on his own as he pulled me closer. With him to steady me, I quickly found myself regaining my balance once more, although I had to grab his forearms for support.

“I knew I should’ve saved that line for when we got out of the pool,” he said, loosening his grip on me. “To be fair, I didn’t think it was that shocking.”

Between bursts of coughing fits, I managed to choke out, “You did that on purpose!”

“I did not make you choke on purpose,” he said.

My heart was still beating faster than a bullet train. “You wanted to make me flustered!”

Clearing his throat, Nolan looked away. “I’ll make sure to check that we’re nowhere near water next time.”

“You didn’t even try to deny it!”

“I meant it, though,” he said, his gaze flicking back to me. “I wanted to say it, so I said it. I didn’t say it solely because your reactions are cute, but that doesn’t hurt either.”

His green eyes that once seemed so piercing and cold had a such a gentle look in them now. I just wanted to stare into them forever while I melted into a little warm puddle.

“Um, thanks. I really like spending time with you, too.” I focused my attention on his nose. “But you already knew that. I mean, duh, why else would I be here with you, right?”

Compared to his declaration, my words sounded so feeble in intensity, but I had so many great memories—both in childhood and in school—that I couldn’t say for sure the memories I made with Nolan were the best ones ever.

If the memories he’d made with me were so wonderful compared to everything else, I wondered what exactly his life was like before he came to Fairwood.

My desire to learn more about his life in his previous school was almost overwhelming, but we were surrounded by so many others who could easily listen in on our conversation if they tried. Making a mental note to ask him more in future, I decided to put this topic away for now.

Nolan, who had just taken off his goggles, was currently adjusting the strap.

Suddenly inspired by a random thought, I said, “Just curious, but do you still need goggles? I mean, do your eyes sting when you’re underwater without them?”

I remembered that he’d seemed utterly unbothered by the rain when we were caught in it during one of our forest outings. Maybe that was because it didn’t bother him at all.

After all, he had lent me his hoodie without batting an eye and hadn’t even raised a hand to wipe the water away from his eyes.

“Good question.” He raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t tried it yet. Give me a second.”

Then he promptly submerged his head into the water.

When he rose again, he grinned at me. “Yeah, I don’t need them anymore.”

“Nice. You won’t ever have to worry if you forget to bring them!”

“But I’m used to it, so I’ll still wear them. Unless I forget, of course.” He pulled his goggles back over his head. “It feels weird to swim without them.”

“I guess you’re right,” I said. “When we’re used to something, change feels wrong.”

“I’ll admit that sometimes the outcome can be surprising,” he said. “That was exactly how I felt about you at the start, and yet here we are now.”

Maybe I was just seeing them through rose-tinted glasses, but Nolan’s smiles were kind of addictive. When did he become so good-looking?

As he gave me another one, I couldn’t help but find them contagious as well.

LotteStarburst

i'm so happy you guys are still reading this! thank you :) there's still more to come (guesstimating it at 80+ parts but there might be more, not sure)! take care and stay safe, everyone!