Shades of blue surrounded me. My world was moving so fast, but that's the one thing that I could see. And I felt vaguely cold.

My arms propelled me through the water, pulling me through space and time. As I moved at the speed of light, everything was still. Speed was the only constant. My muscles were burning, crying to stop, but they were stuck in a never-ending cycle, forced to carry out their duty. My arms kept moving, and my legs kept kicking, faster than my mind could keep up, and gave up trying to. I focused on how I felt strong. I was not fighting the water, I moved with it. I felt free.

I always feel free when I swim, like I'm the only one in the world. Hell, sometimes I feel like that when I get out of the water, like this feeling follows me. But this is the only time when I'm happy to feel that way. I don't like the isolation I feel when in a crowd of people, where I'm supposed to be having a good time, not off in my own world. But here there is only isolation, and the way I feel is natural. I'm not just allowed, but I'm supposed to feel that way.

But of the water was the real world, where things were expected of me. I suddenly remembered that my lungs weren't burning - I had learned by then that they were expected to be - so I peeked my head out of the water, drew in a quick breath, and plunged back in. It would cause hysteria if I didn't. Apparently it's not normal to swim the way I do, because I'd found out over the course of my life that apparently I'm not normal. But I didn't try to explain myself to people who couldn't understand. Bad things happen when I do.

Finally I saw the dark blue line that was looking at me from the bottom of the pool meet its end, and I braced my hands for impact. My palm slapped the cement and I whipped my head out of the water, sending water droplets flying. It took a second to readjust to the real world. The sky was covered in gray clouds, casting gloom onto the earth. But the atmosphere down here was anything but gloomy. After a second I could process the loud cheering and splashing behind me. Turning around, I saw that all the other girls were still swimming. Their arms were slowing down, and you could tell it was taking all their willpower to keep going. I felt bad. It wasn't like they could stop, get out, and say they'd had enough. You have to keep going, because even if you feel like dying, it's better than giving up.

I felt pressure on my arm, and as soon as I knew it I was pulled out of the pool and wrapped in a slightly damp towel. My teammates were huddled around me, and I could feel the excitement buzzing off of them like static electricity. They started patting me on the back.

"Nice job, Basil!"

"You did it again!"

The girls laughed. Hannah, a girl in my lane, started bragging. "I knew we would win if we put you in the race!"

"Yeah!" Another girl said. "You know, it's so ridiculous how a senior in high school could do the 500 in five minutes! That's so awesome!" She was speaking a little loudly, and I noticed that some girls from another school were within earshot. A couple of them looked over in annoyance.

I glanced up at the scoreboard. Sure enough, etched on the boxes in little red dots was "Lane 5 - 5:22" Huh, three seconds faster than last time.

"You have such good lungs!" Said Hannah. "You barely need to take breaths, I'm jealous."

"Yeah, it's amazing!" Added Paisley. "I don't get how you can only take like two breaths every lap, how do you do it?"

     I laughed, and my stomach twisted. "Oh... I've just been swimming for a lot of years." I waved it off.

     "Geez!" One of my teammates laughed.

     Gina put her hand on my shoulder. "Hey, the 500 was your last race, so you can rest now."

I smiled. "Yeah, I am pretty tired."

More people came over to talk to me and congratulate me while I waited for the race to be done. And it seemed like there would be a lot of time for that, because it didn't look like the other girls would be done anytime soon. But I didn't really feel proud or anything, I always won. Not to sound cocky or anything, but it was true. I pretended to be relieved for the others, but I didn't really care. I wasn't in swim to win. I always tried to feel grateful, and to not take my wins for granted, because I knew other girls would love to win all the time. But instead I always just felt guilty, like I was cheating. It wasn't my fault, but I had some sort of unfair advantage that I just couldn't control.

When the race was over, I walked over to the side to put my stuff away. My coach, a burly man with little black sunglasses, gave me a high five. As I walked past the boys, most of whom were throwing a water bottle up to the roof of the bathrooms, I tried to avoid their gazes. I could feel some of them looking at me, which made me feel stiff. It's awkward enough to see the guys you know in a speedo, but it's even more awkward when you're wearing a skintight suit, no makeup on, a rubbery cap covering your entire head, and goggles that make you look like a bug. I really hated that outfit. Especially my cap. I considered my hair to be my best feature, so I really had nothing going for me if it was covered up.

When I got to the fence at the side, I shuffled around with my bag, and my phone fell out. It really was a mess in there. I cursed and picked it up. Good, no cracks.

Messages
Mom: Congratulations! Dad said you won first place! So proud sweetie!

I smiled and texted back a thank-you. I had forgotten that my Dad and little brother were in the audience for a moment. I looked over there, and spotted a tall, bald middle-aged man and a 13-year-old boy with curly black hair. They were intently watching the water. There must be another race going on.

"Basil!" One of my teammates called to me from the side of the pool. "Come on!"

I put my stuff down quickly to join them. Hurriedly, I started trying to tear off my goggles. For some reason, they decided to be annoying that day because they refused to come off. I put them back over my eyes to try to to get the back off first.

But suddenly, I saw something glinting off the plastic. A spark of golden light. It was strange.

The spark was growing bigger, like a kindling fire, and soon it was bright enough to blind me. I had to briefly close my eyes. I couldn't see what it was through the water droplets and fogginess of my goggles, but I could easily see the light against the cold gray sky. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. A fire, started from nothing. Perhaps it was like a car headlight? I looked around. Was anybody seeing this?

     As I looked closer, inside the light, it looked like there was the outline of... a boy. I couldn't explain it, but for some reason, I felt joy.

I tried to rip my goggles off, but they were still stuck. The back of them were sticking to my cap, probably because I made them so tight that they wouldn't fall off in the pool. I could feel them pressing dark circles into my face, and I sucked in a breath.

I finally got them off, ripping my whole cap off in the process, and my dark hair leapt out and fell on my back. When I looked up, there was nothing in front of me. An empty sidewalk and grass. No light, just gloom. I blinked several times. Did I hit my head during the race?

BZAA! - The buzzer for the next race rang and snapped me away from my thoughts. I guess I had already missed the last one. I tried to forget about what just happened and ran to go join my teammates on the side. I sat cross legged near the edge and watched the swimmer below me pass by. Flying water droplets found their way to my skin, and I focused on that to clear my mind. I wrapped my towel more tightly around me, and with the corner of it I wiped the drops off of my leg.

"Rihanna and Paisley are in this one," said Hannah. She pointed to the green cap bobbing up and down in lane 3 and the gold striped swimsuit flashing under the water in lane 6. "We gotta cheer them on!" She cupped her hands around her mouth and screamed their names.

"Yeah, of course!" I laughed. And as we cheered, even though we knew the girls couldn't hear us, it was fun. I felt my teammates around me, their shoulders bumping into mine and making me feel like part of something. They didn't resent that I won every race, they praised me for it. So I tried to cheer for them too.

But somehow, I feeling of emptiness ran through me. I think I knew that I was supposed to feel happy, but I felt numb instead. And then I felt sad. I put my arms down. Cheering surrounded me, everyone with smiling, hopeful looks on their faces. And I frowned, unable to keep the smile on any longer because it felt wrong. I put my body on autopilot so it could do what it needed to keep up my reputation while my mind starting wandering away from that place, away from the pool. And even though I was trying not to, I thought of that golden boy again...