The sky was blood red as the sun crept over the treetops that fringed the skylight of Vesper's bedroom. She glanced up from where she was sat on her bed and soaked in the crimson light for a second. It was still early as she crept downstairs for the second time and made the brisk walk through the empty streets coated in fallen leaves towards the pool. The pool was deserted other than the lone lifeguard who smiled at her as she walked in. The two never spoke much as they passed each other in the morning haze but the fact that the two of them would be there was a reassuring sort of consistency. Vesper stepped up onto the blocks to dive in and then she felt her knees wobble. She steadied herself shakily bending to put her hands down and crouched there for a few moments. Maybe a dive wasn't the best idea. She sat down on the side of the pool and dangled her legs into the water feeling the familiar shock of cold for just a moment before her skin adapted. With no other bodies in the pool to warm it up the water was still crisp. Vesper lowered herself in on her hands and then her elbows and slipped into the deep end kicking off gently and swimming a few lengths slowly to warm up like she always did. One stroke – two stokes – three strokes – breathe. She tilted her head to the side and inhaled a lungful of sweet, chlorinated air. One stroke – two stokes – three strokes – breathe. Her whole body was aching, the complete lack of sleep had not helped the asphyxiation of her muscles.
"If you don't sleep," her mum had always told her when she was younger, "your body can't heal."
Vesper touched the side and turned into another length, one stroke – two stokes – three strokes – breathe. Now with everything that had happened her mother's words were just a little ironic but, Vesper thought as she turned into another length, she wasn't wrong; she couldn't sleep, and she wasn't healing. One stroke – two stokes – three strokes – breathe. Vesper stopped at the end of her length and heaved in a few lungfuls of air. She was slow today, but she had expected to be slow, she trod water trying to ger her breath back. She floated there sculling with her legs rhythmically focusing on the rise and fall of her ribcage. It was then that she realised she couldn't get her heart rate down. Panic flooded her body, freezing her limbs, and for a moment she almost went under. She quickly pulled with her arms and broke the surface again with another gasp grabbing onto the side with one slippery hand. She was lucky her rush of panic had sent a shot of adrenaline through her body because her fingers caught onto the side like a vice grip, and she held on panting for a few moments. The lifeguard, who was used to her just doing her own thing, looked up surprise etched across his face. He went to stand up, but Vesper waved her other arm reassuringly and gave him a thumbs up as if to say: 'nah I'm good.'
She clung on for a few more moments finally feeling her heart rate settling. Vesper had been in pools and around water since before she could walk, she couldn't actually recall a point in her life when she couldn't swim. In fact, it would seem more natural to her to not be able to walk than not be able to swim. Vesper had never been afraid of the water, or at least not to her memory. She'd certainly never felt like she was going to drown before, but in that moment... she shuddered. After a few more moments of shakily holding onto the side like an infant that needed arm bands she swam slowly towards the ladder out of the pool ducking under lane ropes as she did so. She climbed out pulling her goggles off still feeling a little unsteady on her legs, and the morning swim session was cut short.
"Where were you?" her mother reprimanded her as Vesper knocked back an egg cup of vitamins like they were gumdrops.
"Just at the pool," she grumbled trying to remove the dusty taste of pills from her mouth with a bowl of cereal.
"Before school?" her mother shook her head and sighed massaging her temples with her fingers like Vesper had got a tattoo, or started doing drugs – well, more drugs than she was already doing.
"Mum it's fine I'm fine," she elected not to mention the incident in the pool.
"Just take it easy Vesper," her mum said setting Vesper's school bag down on the table and sorting through it removing old papers and snapped pencils.
"I can do that myself," Vesper protested, eating another spoonful.
"Then why are there papers in here from two weeks ago Vesper?"
Vesper shook her head and kept eating deciding this was a battle she didn't want to waste her precious seconds on.
"Did you take your pills?"
Her mother never called it medication, that would imply she was sick, pills made it sound like she was on a diet.
Vesper looked up mid-chipmunk with cereal in her mouth. "Mhm," she said non-committaly.
The thought of the vitamins she had just choked down made her breakfast taste bad. "Gotta go," she waved half a hand to her mum, grabbed her bag, and was out the door before anyone could open their mouths to protest. Hair still wet from the pool and running late for school shouldn't have been her ideal start for the morning but despite this Vesper felt a lot better than she had done the night before. The situation she found herself in was perhaps one of the most familiar beginnings to the day she could've hoped for. An early morning squad session and then booking it to school as fast as her legs could carry her; okay perhaps she hadn't been in the squad training and perhaps she was walking to school not sprinting but still, the inspiration was the same and that's what mattered.
September felt colder than the previous year, she'd always been so good at dealing with the cold... Vesper shook the thought out of her head and buried her chin in her hoodie. Her damp hair wasn't helping, sending a chill down the back of her neck, and she instinctively tugged the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head to stop the biting cold spell it brought to her brain.
The closer she got to her college the more the streets began to crawl with other students trudging in towards school, some in groups, others like her alone with their headphones on, all with the same resigned expression that came from an 8:30am bell and first period homework deadlines. She wondered for a moment if her own expression blended right in, as if her biggest worry was the fact that she was going to try and fit her homework in whilst the teacher called the register. The thought made her smile despite herself, she weaved through the other students and despite being alone she enjoyed the sense of being part of a group – nothing to tell her apart. She smiled and stuffed her cold fingers in the pockets of her blazer that didn't quite fit over her hoodie properly.
By the time she reached school, the front gates were thronged with students. She slipped through the crowd, heading straight for her locker, hoping to grab her books and disappear before anyone could bother her. The 'where were you all summer?' questions from her friends were ones she didn't feel up to answering yet.
No such luck, because when had Vesper Phaine had any bleeding luck.
"Ves!"
She recognized the voice before she even turned around. Cassie, a friend from her high school who had come to the same college as her. They weren't best friends or anything, but they had enjoyed an infrequent study session together before the summer.
Vesper sighed and twisted the dial on her locker, glancing sideways just as Cassie fell into step beside her, clutching a coffee in one hand and her phone in the other.
"You look like hell," Cassie greeted, taking a sip of her drink. Cassie was always well put together, in a brunette American Doll kind of way. Even before everything Vesper could never have described herself as put together.
"Gee, thanks." Vesper yanked her locker open, stuffing her hoodie inside and adjusting her blazer.
"I mean it in a very you way." Cassie elbowed her gently in the ribs as if Vesper hadn't been avoiding her for two weeks, "late night?"
Vesper hesitated for half a second, she didn't have a good lie lined up, but the sickening feeling of telling the truth choked into her mouth like bile stopping the words. "Something like that."
Cassie took her word for it in her laid-back way, she flicked her eyes slightly judgementally over Vesper's appearance and then rolled her eyes with a little grin. "You were swimming this morning, weren't you? That's why you look so knackered"
Vesper felt her shoulders relax, of course Cassie would know that, after all there hadn't been a day that went past last semester that Vesper hadn't come into physics smelling of chlorine and seen Cassie wrinkle her nose which had always brought a quick laugh to her lips.
"What makes you say that?" She prompted, the bile and knot in her chest lessening as she settled into the easy conversation on the way to first period.
"You smell like chlorine," Cassie said, the ever-familiar wrinkle of her nose making the corner of Vesper's mouth quirk. "Also, your hair is still wet," Cassie noted playfully tugging on a chunk of Vesper's sandy blonde hair that had come loose from being tucked down the back of her blazer.
"Sorry I'm not up to Little Miss Perfect's standards of school dress," Vesper rolled her eyes and wrung out the portion of her hair. "I forgot to dry it at the pool I was in such a bleeding hurry to get here," that was true - but not because she'd been in a rush.
"Well, luckily for you I guessed you'd be running late," Cassie held up a second takeaway cup of coffee, "you're so very welcome."
Vesper's eyebrows shot up, despite her being practically missing in action for the first two weeks of school Cassie had cared to keep up their little tradition of a Tuesday morning. "Wow Cass," she smiled, and it was a genuine one, "thank you."
Cassie smiled back and shrugged as the two of them sat down for first period physics. "Did you do the homework?" she said raising an eyebrow. Vesper may have been a straight-A student, but she had never been the best at turning in her homework on time (or at all). Predominantly, she made up her grades in an uncanny ability to sit exams.
"You know what Cass I actually do," she pulled her sheet out of her bag and set it down on the desk with a half-smug smile.
Cassie laughed and slid her own equations paper over next to Vesper's.
"Check off each other?"
"Always."
The two crosschecked their answers off each other's papers and handed them back in just as their physics teacher stopped calling register.
Vesper was halfway through first period when she began to feel her chest tightening again. She took a few deep breathes trying to calm herself but she could feel the blood in her ears and she suddenly felt the familiarity in the situation to her moment in the pool this morning. She gripped the edge of the desk and attempted to count her breathes but she could feel her heart banging against her ribcage as if it was trying to break out – it almost hurt.
"Hey," Cassie hissed, "you okay?"
"Huh?" Vesper was too caught up in her own panic to hear her question.
"Ves, you alright?"
"Yeah- yeah I'm alright I just can't breathe"
"What do you mean?"
"Just give me a minute," she gasped softly.
"Sir," Cassie's hand was already up, "Vesper doesn't feel so good."
"Shut up!" She was having to focus on too much, one-two-three breaths, her heart was SO LOUD.
She was hardly paying attention to what was going on around her. She vaguely caught Cassie offering her a glass of water that she pushed away and heard her teacher say something about sending her to the nurse. She waved her hands in protest, "I'm going to be fine in a minute," she protested.
"I think we should call her parents," Cassie's voice was fuzzy behind her, the sound of her heart in her ears blocked out everything else.
"No," she shook her head violently, "please don't call my parents."