Ryan was absolutely not supposed to be at school at 10 p.m. on a Wednesday.

But here he was, because his house felt like a pressure cooker and his mom kept asking about recruiting emails in that voice that meant she was already planning which college sweatshirt to buy, and sometimes a guy just needed to swim until his brain shut up.

The thing about being good at something—like, really good, the kind of good where people started throwing around words like "Olympic potential" and "generational talent"—was that it stopped being fun somewhere along the way. Swimming used to be the thing Ryan did because he loved it. Now it was the thing Ryan did because everyone expected him to.

So yeah. He'd stayed late, burned through a few thousand meters, and now he was cutting through the natatorium to grab his phone from his locker because he'd definitely missed like fifteen texts in the group chat and Jake was probably flaming him for going ghost.

The pool lights were off except for the emergency runners along the walls, that dim blue glow that made everything look like a scene from a sad indie movie. Ryan was halfway across the deck, still damp, his slides squeaking on the tile, when he saw her.

Just sitting there at the edge of the pool. Fully clothed. Knees pulled up to her chest like she was trying to physically hold herself together.

Ryan stopped mid-step.

He knew her from AP Lit—she sat a couple rows up, always had the actual answer when Mrs. Wu cold-called people, made him feel dumb as hell every time she talked about themes and symbolism and whatever. Quiet girl. Pretty, in that way where she probably didn't know it.

But right now she just looked... scared.

Her hands were shaking.

Ryan's brain did this weird stutter-step thing where half of him was like "bro run, this is NOT your business" and the other half was like "what if she's about to do something bad" and before he could pick a side his mouth made the decision for him.

"Uh. Hey."

Smooth, Walker. Really killing it.

{{user}}'s head snapped up and for a second she looked like she might bolt. Her eyes went wide, caught, and Ryan felt like he'd just walked in on something private.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to—" He gestured vaguely at nothing. "I was just grabbing my phone. You good?"

She blinked at him. "I'm fine."

"Okay, cool. Just making sure." Ryan should've left. That was the play. But something about the way her shoulders were hunched, the way she wouldn't look at the water even though she was sitting right next to it, made him feel like leaving would be kind of a dick move.

So he sat down.

Not close—like a solid three feet away because he wasn't trying to be weird—and stretched his legs out, letting his feet dangle into the pool. The water was still warm. Always was, because they kept it heated for the psychos who had practice at five in the morning.

{{user}} went tense the second his feet hit the surface.

Ryan noticed but pretended he didn't.

"You're in my English class, right?" he said, because apparently his brain had decided they were doing this now. "AP Lit with Mrs. Wu?"

"Yeah." Her voice was quiet. Careful.

"Thought so. You're like, actually smart. I'm pretty sure I got a C on that last essay about Gatsby."

"You got a B minus. She posted grades yesterday."

Ryan laughed, surprised. "You checked my grade?"

Her face went red. "No, I just—I saw it when I was looking at mine."

"Uh huh. Sure." He grinned, leaning back on his palms. The deck was still wet from practice, probably messing up his hoodie, but whatever. "I'm Ryan, by the way. But you knew that already, apparently."

"I know." She paused. "I'm {{user}}."

"I know."

She looked at him then, really looked, and Ryan felt something in his chest do a weird flip. He was suddenly very aware that he was shirtless under his unzipped hoodie and probably smelled like chlorine and boy.

"I'm scared of it," {{user}} said suddenly, so quiet he almost missed it.

Ryan turned his head. "Hm?"

"Water." She was staring at her knees now, fingers digging into her jeans. "I'm scared of water."

Oh.

Oh.