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You hadn’t realized what time it was until it was too late and Coach was pulling you out of the pool to deal with her. When he gives you the time, you bolt from your team’s summer practice with your swim bag. You dash to her with clothes stuffed under your arm, shoes half on, and a towel slung over your shoulders, but you’re still dripping wet as you dash.
You’d meant to leave practice, well, an hour or so early because today was the anniversary of when her grandma drove you both to the pool all those years ago. The two of you celebrated the day every year, but ten years was a big deal, so the two of you planned a camping trip to spend time together in the woods stargazing and playing games. You’ve talked about doing these for awhile, but this year your mum finally let you go, which meant planning a whole lot more was on the itinerary for your getaway. But Coach had been drilling you like mad so that you’d finally clench the championship that you had only been runners up for the previous year, which meant time had escaped you.
What you didn’t expect was her to come to the public pool in a bit of a panic and you’re not sure, entirely, of how she got here to begin with, given that her car was busted. She knows as well as anyone that she’s not allowed here, not since the digging incident on Dip Day. Coach seems furious that the ‘troublemaker’ is here because of you, even though you know she knows better and the rest of the team glowers at you with the same red hot disdain they do anytime you mention her.
When you reach her, you see the redness in her face and hear the bated nature of her breath, realizing she must have run here in a flurry, worried that you must have forgot… or were abandoning her. To calm her you place a hand to her shoulder, after receiving sniffles of consent, and lead her to the bench to sit. Looking at her face, you cannot help but feel guilty, as the tears fall like cracks on her porcelain face, for being so thoughtless, knowing what she’d been through and what some of those triggers are. After drying off your hand on your towel, you gently rub soothing circles into her back to stay her crying and breathing. She tries to rid the wetness from her face, but you don’t let her, knowing she might end up scratching herself in the desperation, and instead wipe them with your finger, cradling her face in your hand.
Once you try to apologize to her, you realize she’s not listening, well, not really, as her eyes are laser focused on the way your arm drips on the bench and the towel taunts her in the light breeze. You gaze darts between her eyes and the droplets, and the lightbulb goes off in your mind. You ask her if it’s because you’re too wet and she nods, replying with a somewhat distant air that you’re not really dry,
When you ask her if she’d like to help she bolts up, as if snapped back into reality by the thought of it, so you hand her the slightly damp towel and she quickly gets to work with a diligent yet gentle hand. She’s helped you towel off from practice before because it seems to help stay her compulsion, but this time is, well it’s different. It’s much more… intimate.
She takes one of your arms and tends to it with the care of one restoring the Mona Lisa, as if you were the same beautiful and fragile thing that she is. You can’t help but lightly laugh at how unbelievably focused she is, possessed by this compulsion to dry which is so undeniably unique to her and no one else. As she gets to your head she tenderly dries what is left on your face in the same way you attended hers, albeit if it was produced by the pool or yourself is anyone’s guess. She spends time unbearably lingering on your lips before she finishes, and playfully pokes your now dry nose as she leaves it.
When she begins wiping off your clavicle, she dances the towel close to the trim of your swimsuit, touches it just enough to stimulate you without daring to go lower. You watch her hang pause as she looks up at you with her eyes, shimmering like stars, wordlessly asking for the consent that you’ve already mentally given. You give her a nod and smile which she returns before delicately rubbing the towel across your swimsuit-clad breasts to soak up what water she can from the spandex. She’s curious as she is careful as you struggle to keep your breathing steady, lest she hear how you internally tremble under her spell. She cherishes you with each stroke as you try to stop the thoughts filling your head… wishing, wondering if she’d do this again later, when you’re alone, if you jumped in the lake… or well, something. As she grazes your heart, she holds the towel there, feeling the way it rapidly beats in your chest. She shyly smiles up at you as she leaves it there as her eyes dart between your eyes and lips and you feel yourself doing the same thinking oh no.
It’d be so easy from where your seated here on the bench to press your lips to hers, which is an idea the two of you two seem to share. As you tilt your head and lean towards her the loud blow of a whistle interrupts the two of you as you jump apart. You eye the pool where Coach continues to lean practice, glad at least him and the girls, well, didn’t see you because they give you enough grief for the fact she’s your best friend as it is.
When you turn back her, she has eyes averted and hand outstretched with the towel, dangling it somewhat shamefully for you to grab. You take it silently, finishing drying yourself as quickly and thoroughly as you can before throwing your clothes on over the swimsuit. You gently nudge her with the shoulder now dried by her touch and draped with a silky fabric, nodding your head towards your moped. You walk over silently get in sync before tossing her the extra helmet you always keep with you, just for her. She straps hers on as you play the best song in the world aloud on the speaker which earns you the smile you were so desperately missing.
When you extend your arm to her to get on the moped, she takes it readily and climbs on behind you. As you turn it on, you feel her arms snake around your waist and hold you tight, nuzzling her face into the fabric of your shirt, which mean you know everything is alright. You feel every inch of the way your bodies touch and feel her body concave away in the places you’re still slightly damp. The two of you sing along to your song as laughs fill the air the whole way to the candy shop. You promised her that you’d pay for an ungodly amount of Sherbet Fountains as penance for everything and she insists, as it’s not enough, that you snag a few ales that your dad won’t miss from the fridge when grabbing the rest of the gear in the garage before the two of you head out. You agree and she holds you so tight that you wish this which this this trip, which will only last a minute or two longer, would never end.
As she gets off the moped when you arrive, she stretches her hand out, like she was dancing in that same ballerina-like form when you met her, still just as enchanting, maybe even more. You know she doesn’t thing so, because of, well, because the burn scars from the fire never quite healed. But you know she is, painted in places like a beautiful canvas you want to study every drop of. You take it, holding it tightly as a lifeline and not letting go, even when you go into the shop to buy enough of those chewy yellow sticks she so adores to last the full weekend. As you leave the store you put one of the sweets into her mouth and her eyes light up with a fire that you swear to yourself you’ll never see go out. But even in that moment of sheer bliss as you watch the way the yellow sherbet foam dots her mouth, you know that one day it will.
Because of you.