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He nods along. “So why are you still doing that? You still trying to see how long you can hold your breath?”
I continue fishing a hand through my wet hair. “Yeah,” I eventually reply.
“Well you should wait for me to get here. What if you passed out? If I wasn’t here, you’d die, Mister,” he says, nodding with wide eyes. He’s so young, he doesn’t know that there are worse things than death. And for the last few years, surfacing has felt like one of those things.
“I like swimming alone,” I counter, trying to get him off my trail.Let me play roulette and leave me the hell alone, kid, I think to myself as he repositions himself on the wall, kicking his feet a little.
“I could count for you, you know,” he offers. “I taught my little sister how to count, I’m really good at it. I can go up to 600 if you need me to but really, I don’t think you can hold your breath that long anyway.”
I snort. “You’re right—I can’t hold my breath for 10 minutes. But I count for myself,” I say, disappointment washing over his features at my response. I get out of the pool, and for whatever reason, he does, too. Like he’s not done with me yet.
“I told ya, I taught my four year old sister how to count,” he says somewhat indignantly, if a kid his age can even be indignant.
Then I process his words. He’s got afour-year-old sister.
My chest seizes as if I’m trapped below the surface, holding my last breath. My hand falls from the back of my neck, and I find myself clutching at my bare chest as I blink down at this kid. His eyes study my hand and come back to my face, brows pinched quizzically.
“You okay, Mister?”
“Cohen,” I say, my tone sounding foreign as I fight and struggle against the anxiety wrapping around my spine. “My name is Cohen.”
He offers me a pudgy hand. “Dad says you shake hands when you meet another man,” he says, wiggling his hand to get me to shake it. “And my name is Albert Jr.”
I shake his hand, all the while focused on not passing out. “Nice to meet you Albert Jr.”
He loops his towel around his neck like a boa, and nods behind him toward the far off locker room door. “I have to go. If you want me to count for you next time I’m here, I will.”
I smile, albeit a small, crooked and forced smile, as Albert Jr trots off and disappears behind a blue steel door. I look around the indoor pool space. Old butter colored tiles checkered with light blue ones, rusting steel on the fixtures, cracks in the concrete, and from the ceiling condensation drips.
Swimming laps has always been my punishment. I’ve never looked around here until now. Never noticed the dilapidated state of things. This morning, I see this place for what it is, and it feels more like a prison than ever before.
The potent aroma of ground and brewed coffee beans wafts around my head, permeating my focus. I flip the switch on the soundboard and wait for the corresponding light to flicker.
The coffee smells good. I haven’t enjoyed the smell in so long.
Yesterday, Lance made coffee.
The day before that, Lance made coffee.
Everyday for the last four years that I’ve been here, Lance has made the coffee.
Today, the aroma nestles into me deep, making me long for things I haven’t had in ages. With my hand hovering on the soundboard switch, I let my eyes fall closed for just a second, the smell of the roasted beans taking me back.
I can hear my ex laugh as if it was yesterday.
The metallic clink of the glass carafe against her to-go mug. “I need extra coffee after last night,” she says, wiggling her brows. She dragged her nails along my belly, in the space between my jeans and shirt. Rocking to her toes and placing a coffee-infused kiss on the corner of my mouth.
I don’t miss her. We ruined each other with sharp words and painful emotional jabs. But I miss the closeness. Sharing habits with another person, knowing another person like you know yourself but being excited by their presence nonetheless. I miss that.
My eyes jerk open, my heart racing, the smell of coffee roiling in my stomach, making my palms damp and my throat itch.
“Black,” I hear her say, “Just black.”
I don’t turn, but I know it’s Scarlett. And now I know she takes her coffee black. The rumbling in my veins seems to settle as Crave moves on all around me, preparing for a scene, unaware of the dark memory that threatened to sink me on dry land.
Another minute of tinkering and the soundboard is functioning, so I duck behind the set as Aug counts down to roll.
As soon as the slates clatter, there’s a loud sneeze.
