Summer Swim by Mia Archer

Author:Mia Archer [Archer, Mia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-08-08T20:00:00+00:00

16

Left Out

“I didn’t know I could do that,” I said.

“The fact that you didn’t know you could do that was your problem,” Coach Arnold said.

I stood next to her looking out over the pool. I guess I was so excited at winning my race that I had to go and talk to someone.

I would’ve talked to Riley, but she was talking to the girl with no name and Allison. That wouldn’t have been a problem except Sydney was hanging around them too and she was getting a little too close to Riley for my comfort.

She kept shooting me glances and I knew that meant nothing good. She was going to cause trouble. I knew it. I didn’t know how, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was going to do her best to get back at me for beating her.

I turned my attention away from them. There was no point in worrying about something I couldn’t affect. Riley would do her thing over there and maybe we’d chat later if we had the time.

So I focused on what Coach Arnold said instead.

“What do you mean?”

She turned to me and grinned. “You’ve said it yourself. You spend all your time looking at how good people are on paper. You never stop to think that maybe there’s more to this sport than times on a sheet you get from the state athletic association.”

Now that brought me up short. All this time I figured I was just being clever about things. I was checking the odds and making sure I actually had a chance against some of the people I was going up against.

“So you’re saying that by looking at the times on those sheets I’m psyching myself out and setting myself up to lose?” I asked.

Coach Arnold fixed me with a half smile. “I didn’t say that. You did. Might be some truth to it though.”

I looked out over the pool with new eyes. All this time I thought I was being clever. All this time I thought I was taking an interest in the sport where everyone else acted like they didn’t care what they were going up against.

And all this time I’d been getting in my own head and maybe holding myself back because I was busy telling myself what I was able to do against the competition before we even got in the water.

“All that extra swimming you’ve been doing with us and the lifting you’ve been doing with Riley probably helped a lot too,” Coach Arnold said.

I looked at her in more than a little surprise. “You knew about that?”

“Of course I did!” she said. “I wouldn’t let one of my swimmers do something like that without approval.”

I frowned. “But I didn’t ask for your approval.”

“Nope, but Riley did,” Arnold said. “Came in and said she wanted to help you out and asked if it was okay to take you along when she was lifting.”

Now there was an interesting surprise.

“She didn’t mention anything about that,” I said.

Coach Arnold shrugged, never taking her eyes off the pool or the swimmers in it.

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