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parking lot getting wasted. A whole day of attending classes had just been too much for him.
    You don’t know me , I remember him saying.
    Turns out I do.
    “Today we’re going to do some races to see who gets the best time,” Lancaster announced.
    What did he just say? I wondered, giving him my full attention.
    I think I’ve made it clear that I don’t like competition. So I panicked for a second before I remembered there wouldn’t be any teams. It was just me against the rest of the class. That was a lot less pressure. I didn’t mind losing—I mean, really, is it that big a deal losing a race in a class in high school? I just didn’t want to take anyone else down with me.
    I was in the second group, so I had more time to brood. I mean I had more time to think about how much I didn’t care that Liam had bailed. Because I totally didn’t. Sure, it would have been nice to have a friend to sit next to and talk to so I didn’t look like the loser no one wanted to hang with. And, yeah, it might have been cool if that person had been the class stoner so I got some kind of “dangerous” cred.
    But that wasn’t happening, so I was just going to have to deal. It was back to my first plan for the school year—militant apathy. I wrapped my towel around me for a little warmth and hunched in on myself and put on my best angry face. I can’t deny that the expression came naturally to me.
    I took my mark when I was called. A disturbing image came to my mind of some truly catastrophic accident where I pushed off the springboard and my feet slipped and I fell into the water in a tangle of arms and legs. I wouldn’t get images like that in my head if things like that didn’t actually happen to me. I did my best to grip the springboard with my toes, just in case.
    Lucas was on my left and a guy named Charlie was on my right. We all had goose pimples from the crisp morning breeze. I trembled, anxious to get into the heated pool. Adrenaline coursed through me, which I shrugged off as a sincere desire to get the race over with.
    “You’re an awesome swimmer.”
    His words echoed in my ears.
    Shut up, Liam.
    The coach blew his whistle and I flew into motion, knifing into the water with such skill and precision that I almost whooped in delight. The strong start gave me the confidence to surge through the water with everything I had. I didn’t even think about winning. For me, right then, it was just about reveling in the feeling of being good at something.
    I reached the edge of the pool, flipped and kicked off. The momentum carried me seamlessly back into my freestyle stroke. I felt like I could go for hours. I wanted to go for hours. I never wanted the feeling to end.
    Of course, I had to stop. When I had finished the laps, I pulled myself out of the water and pinched my eyes to clear them. It was only then that I realized that the guy closest behind me was a full pool-length back.
    That made me a little smug. But that was nothing compared to when the coach announced I was the fastest in the class.
    I didn’t know what to say. I’d never won anything before. But seeing, for once, the way some of the guys in my class looked at me with approval was quite a rush. Was that why people liked playing sports? Because it made them feel so good seeing other people admire them? Having never experienced anything like it before, the idea had just never occurred to me.
    The coach cornered me as I headed back to the locker room. “So why don’t you want to join the swim team?” he asked.
    He sounded angry. It was like not wanting to join the team was a direct insult to him.
    “I’m not, you know, an athlete. I mean, seriously,” I looked down at my skinny body to try to demonstrate my point.
    “We can train you up.”
    More P.E.? Who is he kidding?
    “C’mon, coach, you can’t be this desperate.”
    Lancaster shook his head. “You may be a klutz on land, but you’re a fish in the water, son. Your time today easily qualifies