It was finals and the swim meet just started. The air was buzzing with excitement and energy as swimmers warmed up and coaches gave pep talks. Allie stretched among the swimmers in her heat as she was waiting for the cue to enter the competition pool. Time seemed to fly by. “It's time!” a young boy called. He held the sign that says “200 IM” and the swimmers entered the pool in order from lane one to lane eight. Allie's nerves were all over the place and her heart was beating like crazy. “Keep it together,” she thought, “It's only one race, I can do this.” She faintly heard the announcer introduce each swimmer as she nervously stretched her arms and adjusted her swim cap. Then loud and clear, “And in lane six from the Potomac Valley Swim club, Allie Smith!” There was a pause for polite applause from the spectators and the applause from her swim team. The sounds of lane seven and lane eight being announced entered her ears and then an official blew the whistle for all of the swimmers to get up on the starting block. Allie tentatively stepped up. “Take your mark,” another official said. Allie bent down gripping the front of the block. A few seconds later, there was a loud beep from the buzzer and she dived in along with the other swimmers.

The adrenaline in her body took over and the first part of the race felt great. As she kept swimming, the pain slowly crept in and Allie breathed heavily in her backstroke. “This race is half over,” she thought as she reached the breaststroke length. “I'm almost done, I'm almost done,” repeated in her brain as she neared the end of the freestyle. The flags came in view and Allie held her breath into the wall while pulling and kicking as hard as she could. She finished and turned to look at her time and place. “Third place, and a three second drop, not bad,” she thought when she smiled while shaking the hands of the swimmers in the lanes next to her. She went home with the medal in her hand and kept the memory of her first finals forever.

In the months after that race, Allie entered her junior year of high school and she had way more homework than she was used to. She would try to finish all of her homework everyday and often times, she wasn't done until twelve o'clock and she didn't feel like she could swim the next morning. She would be thrilled whenever she had a dentist or doctor's appointment because it meant a day off of swimming. She still loved the sport but it didn't seem to be as much fun as it used to be and she often thought of what life would be like if she didn't have to swim sixteen hours every week.

Her grades slowly got worse and one day she just decided to quit swimming altogether. It took a few days for her to gather up the courage to tell her parents because they were so focused on her swimming life. “Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you and even though you might be upset at hearing this, it's something that I've thought about and I feel like it's the right thing to do,” she said slowly. Her parents waited and she quickly said it. “I want to quit swimming.” “What?” her parents had obviously thought that they misunderstood. “I want to quit swimming,” she said again, slower this time. The air became tense as these words sunk into her parents' brains. “Why?” was all her dad said and her mom didn't say a word. They both thought she would give up on this idea after a while but when she never did, they grudgingly accepted it.

On the day, she decided to tell her coach about her idea to quit, she swam extra hard as if it would feel her with less guilt. As soon as practice ended, she slowly put her mesh bag filled with practice equipment away and walked up to her coach. “What is it Allie?” her coach asked. “ I think today was my last practice,” Allie said while looking down. “What? Are you moving somewhere? Are you switching teams?” her coach asked all at once. Allie responded “No, I'm not moving or switching teams.” Her coach breathed a sigh of relief, “ Well, why was today your last practice then?” “I'm quitting this sport,” she said quietly. Allie looked up and waited for her coach to ask some more questions. “Alright, if that's what you really want to do then I'm okay with it,” her coach said in a tight voice. “That is what I really want to do,” Allie said and with that, she gave her coach a hug and walked away. She told all of her teammates about her decision later that day and said she would still keep in touch.

Though she only kept in touch with a few because everything was different when you couldn't see those people everyday. Once she quit, a feeling of stress was lifted from her and Allie felt free. She feels lighter that next Monday just knowing she had all the time after school to focus on homework and her studies. She happily goes on with her life, sometimes still pretty stressed but not nearly as bad as before. Months came and left, and Allie manages to maintain straight A's in the second and third quarter. Her parents while not entirely happy with her quitting swimming is happy to see the improvement with her grades. New swimmers enters her group and although Allie herself is not forgotten by her teammates, her presence at the pool is forgotten and everything goes on as if Allie was never part of the group.

During one weekend, Allie decides to do some spring cleaning, starting with her room. She organizes her clothes, taking out some lighter ones for the warmer season and putting the heavy jackets away for next winter. Next, she proceeds to clean the book shelf filled with childhood books and worn out stuffed animals on the bottom and recent books that she had bought on the top. The shelf next to it is hidden in the corner and it's filled with all of her awards won from swimming. Each box marked with some kind of memory and when opened, there would be the ribbons or medals that came with it. Allie walks over after cleaning the previous bookshelf and starts to pull out boxes and look through her past awards. This was her second time reminiscing, the first being a week after she had quit swimming.

She smiles, looking at each ribbon or medal closely in her hand and reads the name of the swim meet and the time and place she received for it. This goes on for half an hour and out of the corner of her eye, a small, shiny box catches her eye and she reaches for it. In there, she finds the single medal that she had won from her first finals. Everything comes flashing back, from the stretching prior of the race to the actual race itself. “I wonder where I would be if I had never quit swimming,” she thinks.