I sputter, water in my nose, down my throat, oxygen barely there, struggling to fight it all. My chest tightens, lungs straining against my ribs as I try to let in a breath but all I'm doing is plunging deeper into the water, further from the dim moonlight at the surface. I whimper, and the sound is strange in the water, a soft grunt accompanied by bubbles.

I should've learned to swim. I really should've. Just because Mother was afraid doesn't mean I should've been. Now I'm going to die with the fear I was too afraid to feel when I was a kid.

Trying to kick and pump my arms, I only feel like my limbs slide through the water, useless. My vision blurs and an incessant burning spreads through my lungs. I open my mouth, pull in a breath, not even thinking, and water floods me.

~*~

Alison lazily gripped the steering wheel, right hand on the bottom of it, two fingers wrapped around the rim with the other arm stretched out with her wrist on the top of the wheel. The song on the radio dimmed down, ended softly. I can't remember what the song was.

We hadn't spoken in an hour at that point. Silence pulled between us and I hoped it was because we were both lost in our own minds, thoughts too loud for us to speak.

I only agreed to go out with her because she had a car and I needed to drop some of Mother's books off at the library. One of my bike's tires were flat. By the time we got to the library, it was closed. I'd forgotten it closed early on Tuesdays. The two books sat in my lap, the corners of the hardcovers digging into my fleshy thighs.

The summer air streamed into the car, making my hair fly into my eyes. I was seatbelted, I always was when she drove, and my body lurched against the cloth seat as she accelerated around a sharp corner.

"Careful!" I shouted, but she didn't respond.

I glanced at her, quick enough for her not to notice. Her jaw was rigid and the jagged ends of her newly-dyed black hair were tangled in the wind, pushed away from her face to reveal heavily-pierced ears, dripping with black studs.

I tried not to wrinkle my nose at the sight of them.

She'd changed in the past months, dyeing the hair, going to her ears with a piercing gun, even getting a tattoo (which she swore she'd never do) of a mermaid on the top of her left thigh.

I laughed when she showed me, the skin there all red and hot, unshaven, with the curve of the mermaid's tail pointing straight at her crotch. She'd given me the finger in response.

At a red light, I swallowed around the words jammed in my throat. "What are we doing?" My voice was hoarse from disuse.

She didn't take her eyes from the road. "Going for a night swim."