“Alexis! You need to slow down, I don’t want you slipping on the wet tile.”

I skid to a halt as I hear my mom yell from behind me and instantly regret coming to a complete stop, my feet flying out from under me and I land hard on my backside. This was not the ideal way to start my first day of swim lessons as a level four. A quick glance around the room reassures me that nobody saw my brief moment of clumsiness and I let out a sigh as I rub my hurt butt and look up at my mom who is giving me that eye-glinting disappointed look. 

“Sorry momma, I’m just so excited!”

She rolls her eyes and smiles as she reaches a hand out to help me up as my little sister giggles and reaches for me too. She’s only one while I’m nine.

“So where am I supposed to go to meet my swim person? I hope she’s a girl. I hope she’s nice, do you think she’ll be nice?” I ask.

“Well I’m sure they’ll be nice whether they’re a girl or boy, sweetie.” she responds.

Looking around excitedly I search the room for the person holding the sign that says ‘Level 4’ and finally spot him at the end of the deep section of the pool near the entrance. We had passed right by him. I grab my mom’s hand and tug her along toward my group and as we finally get near enough my mom kisses me on the head and sits down on the dull silver bleachers with my little sister. It has only been a few days since I was at the pool so I’m used to the room’s appearance: plain white walls with safety signs scattered around, the pale yellow of the tiles, the dirty silver bleachers, the big intimidating diving board, and of course the smell of chlorine that makes my nose burn.

“Oh you must be Alexis, right?” the instructor asks me.

I shyly nod my head and sit down on the edge of the pool as my legs dangle into the water and my feet instantly start adjusting to the cold temperature. There are about five of us in the group, nobody else looks scared of the idea of swimming in the deep end, but I am terrified. Don’t get me wrong, I love swimming, but the thought of swimming in an area where I won’t be able to touch the bottom makes me tremble in fear. The instructor doesn’t tell us his name, so I decide to give him one; I’m going to call him Eric. Eric has short brown hair and he looks very average, nothing very special about his appearance.

“So, guys, I want you to all swim down to the end and back so I can see how strong of a swimmer you are.” Eric says.

My stomach ties up in knots as I hear those words and a million thoughts race through my head: What if something goes wrong? What if I can’t do it and then everyone makes fun of me? What if I run into someone else? What if I’m too slow? What if I’m not strong enough? Eric’s voice pulls me out of my worrying,

“Alexis, how about you go now?”

My eyes widen and I look at him. I’m absolutely terrified.

“I guess.” I respond

I slowly slip into the water and look down at the blue waves I create. Biting my lip I look over to see if my mom is watching but she’s not, because my sister is being fussy. I know I have to do it, I don’t want to be the baby in the group. So, I take a couple deep breaths and put my goggles on and try to calm myself before plunging forward into the deep water. As soon as my head’s under the water everything goes quiet, the voices of everyone above disappears and I am left with my own thoughts and the tranquil feel of the water. As I swim I smile to myself. This isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. That was until my arms starting getting sore and I couldn’t kick my legs anymore. I decide to take a short little break to rest my limbs, hopefully I’m near enough to the end to grab the wall though because I am awful at treading water. The next time I come up for air I straighten myself so, had there been a bottom, I would have been standing on it. But there is no bottom and I am only halfway to the wall in either direction. I start trying to tread water but I know it’s hopeless because I have never been able to successfully do it. I’m able to stay above long enough to catch my breath and take a huge one before it happens. I’m going under.
Everyone is always so confident that in a situation such as this they would never panic. And I guess I was one of those people too; I always thought that I’d be able to stay calm and think clearly but that was far from how I reacted. I began to sink and started to flail my arms around in an attempt to get back to the surface but to no avail. I was too distraught and my arms and legs were much too tired to help me rise back up to the chlorine filled air. My lungs burned from holding my breath for so long and I had no choice but to gasp in an attempt to acquire fresh air; but all I was able to get was a lungful of water. As soon as the water filtered its way into my mouth I started coughing to try and expel it but that only made everything worse and I inhaled even more water. It was then that my eyesight began to fade. I saw little black dots at first but that quickly turned into larger ones like the blot tests they show you at a therapy appointment. The last thing I saw was a woman diving in and making the water shatter like glass.
Since that fateful day I haven’t been able to enter any body of water for fear of going under. Back then pool parties were a huge thing, but I was never able to go to any of them because of my fear and anxiety. Whenever I smell chlorine or get too near the edge of a beach or pool I panic and can’t break myself out of that fearful trance.

“Alexis, are you okay?”

I blink a few times as the memory of that day starts to fade and I look over at my brother. I’m not alright. We’re at that same pool today,  and I thought I’d be able to handle it, but as soon as the smell of chlorine reached my nose I froze like a deer in headlights. I shake my head once in response to his question and take a deep breath.

“No, I’m not alright. But I have to do this.”

He smiles and wraps his arm around my shoulders and I take my first step toward the water.