Most people swim in the mornings, but I like to swim at night. After the sun goes down, the lights on the sides of the pool turn the water an iridescent teal color. The water muffles the sounds from outside and I turn my brain off, losing all sense of time and place while I just swim in teal-colored water and tune the rest of the world out.
I'm usually alone out here, no one caring enough to intrude on my swim time, but when I pull myself up to the side of the pool, Hendrix is sitting in a chair, lighting up a cigarette. I wipe the water from my face, resting with my arm on the edge of the pool. The cool evening air hits my skin and makes me shiver.
So does the way Hendrix looks at me.
"How long have you been there?" I ask.
"A few minutes," he says. His eyes never leave mine, and the way he looks at me makes me glad to be mostly hidden in the pool.
"You shouldn't smoke," I say.
"Thanks for the lecture." He exhales smoke in rings at me, and I roll my eyes.
"It stinks, and it's not healthy," I note. I know I sound like a total downer, but I can't help myself. Hendrix has such a blasé attitude about life, like he doesn't give a shit what happens. It gets under my skin.
"I don't need a lecture about the risks," he says. "My mom died of cancer."
"And you're still smoking?" I ask, my voice rising. I'm annoyed with his cavalier attitude about everything. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Hendrix shrugs. "It's my life, Addy-girl," he says.
"Not for long, if you keep it up."
Hendrix laughs. "I should be more like you, right? All work and no play?"
"What?" My voice squeaks. "What do you think I'm doing right now?"
"That?" Hendrix asks. He doesn't finish his cigarette, though. He puts it out, halfway through, and leans back in his chair, looking at me. Sometimes I wonder what he's thinking when he looks at me like that. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to know. He's definitely evaluating me. Judging me. "Even when you're swimming, you look intense."
Intense. No one has ever called me intense before. "What, have you been watching me?"
"Yes." He speaks the word with no hesitation or embarrassment, and I have to look away, swallowing hard.
"You've been watching me swim?"
Hendrix shrugs. "Nothing better to do in this place," he says. "I've been bored."
"I thought you had friends."
"They're boring."
I laugh uncomfortably. "I'm so flattered that spying on me is less boring than hanging out with your friends."
"You should be."
"Are you getting in the pool or are you just going to sit there watching me like a creep?"
Hendrix laughs. "I don't swim."
"Why not?" I ask, sinking down into the water, up to my neck. I'm chilly, but I'm also aware of the way Hendrix is looking at me, and I'm not sure I like it. Or, more accurately, I'm not sure I'm supposed to like it. "Oh, no, wait, it's not cool enough for you, right?"
Hendrix makes a weird face, and looks away. "I can't swim."
"Can't, as in, you don't know how to swim?"
"Nope," he says. "Never had a reason to learn."
"Weren't you in military school?" I ask. "They don't teach you that there?"
"It wasn't the fucking Navy," he says.
"I can teach you." I blurt out the sentence, immediately regretting it. Why did I just say that? I don't want to be stuck spending any more time with Hendrix than I have to. Do I?
"You're going to teach me to swim," Hendrix says. I'm not sure if it's a question or a statement.
I shrug. "No big deal. Forget I even offered."
"Okay," he says.
"Okay, like you want me to teach you to swim?" That's the last thing I expected.
"Show me what you got, sweet cheeks."
*
PRESENT DAY
"Show me what you got, Addy-girl." Hendrix stands in the shallow end of the pool in my apartment building, his hands on the edges of Brady's float. "You ready to race, Brady? Think we can beat her?"
Brady laughs hysterically, but grips the edges of his float tightly. "Yes, yes, yes! Race! Go, go, go!"
"You asked for it." I feint a mock dive into the water, but don't really, instead taking my time floating on my back as Hendrix kicks Brady to the other side of the pool. Brady's laughter echoes through the room as Hendrix reaches the end.
"Touch the edge of the pool so we win, Brady!"
"Oh, you're too fast for me, Brade-man." I high-five Brady, and make eye contact with Hendrix, and for a second, I feel like I'm a teenager again, my heart racing as I look at him. All of those nights in the pool, teaching Hendrix to swim; the gradual tenuous friendship we developed, both of us guarded, prickly porcupines; and my unspoken attraction to him that I was never quite sure he reciprocated, even when he kissed me...
Of course, that didn't stop him from bragging that he did more than that, lying to his friends about me. The memory of that night flashes in my head, and I look away from Hendrix, diving back under the water and swimming the length of the pool to the other side. When I come up for air, Brady is wailing and Hendrix is standing, chest deep in the water a few feet away, pulling him out of the float. "She's right there, Brady, see?" he says, turning toward me. "He's scared because you disappeared."