Breathing Underwater

by Abbey Lee Nash

Genres: Young Adult; YA Coming of Age

Synopsis

With one word, Tess’s world could be completely undone:
Epilepsy.

Tess lives for swimming: the feel of the pool's rough edge on her toes, the snap of cold water on her skin, and the push of her limbs ever forward. In the water, she’s truly alive. 

Until tragedy strikes. And Tess is left navigating a summer of doctor visits, missed swim practices, a newly distant best friend, and a job stuck behind a counter—not sitting high in the lifeguard chair like every season before.

Instead, her spot goes to new guy Charlie. Although his messy hair and laid-back demeanor catch Tess’s attention, this isn’t really the time. She’s got to focus on getting back in the pool—and on getting back to herself.

Lyrically and sensitively written, Breathing Underwater is a slice-of-life story with depth, exploring topics like epilepsy, inclusivity in student athletics, changing friendships, and the power of love and community. With warmth and wit, Abbey Lee Nash has crafted a moving portrait of a teen girl’s journey to self-acceptance and life on her own terms.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Release date: March 5, 2024

Publisher: Holiday House

Print pages: 224

Sample

CHAPTER
ONE

If adrenaline is the body’s fight-or-flight response, then every time I race, I’m fighting for my life. Instead of fear, there’s lightning in my veins—and I’m addicted.

Perched now on the starting block, my pulse throbs in my throat as my toes find purchase on the rough surface. The girls in the previous heat thrash through the water beneath me, their arms and legs churning up froth, their fingers reaching for the win only one of them will find.

At the whistle, I drop low, mentally blocking out the swimmers in my periphery, the excited din of the crowd. It’s only the water and me. When the starter buzzes, I fly.

Though I sense the other swimmers nearby, crashing down their lanes like hungry sharks, I’m lost in a world where nothing matters but the precision of my stroke, the speed of my turns, and the win.

Inhale, exhale.

Reach, pull.

I press my palm against the touchpad and break the surface, chest heaving with exhaustion and relief. In the stands, my dad pumps the air with an exuberant fist. It’s only one race at the beginning of a summer that will hold many, but with Nationals in August and a college scholarship to secure, every win matters. Even a few added seconds can mean shattered dreams.

***

“You killed it out there today,” my best friend, Mac, says later in the locker room as we strip out of our wet suits and change back into street clothes.

“You too,” I tell her. Mac’s a sprinter. Though I’m one of the fastest on our team in distance events, she can kick my ass in the 50-meter free any day.

“So much for feeling off.”

“I was just a little run-down.” The last few weeks have been a hamster wheel of two-a-day practices and studying for final exams. This morning, I would have much rather spent the first Saturday of summer relaxing behind a book than powering through an all-day meet. But no matter how tired I am, swimming is where I feel fully alive, my lungs fully expanded. It’s in the rest of my life that I’m holding my breath.

“So tonight—” Mac starts.

“I’m thinking burrito bowls and a rom-com marathon?”

Mac slides on her flip-flops and slings her backpack over one shoulder. “Actually, Rachel invited me to sleep over.”

“Rachel?” A distance swimmer like me, Rachel is my fiercest competition on the team; tonight, I edged her out by mere milliseconds. Until this year, Mac’s never seemed to care much for Rachel or her rich, snooty squad. She and I have been basically inseparable since middle school, when my grades earned me a scholarship to Oakwood Academy. But ever since Seth King asked Mac to prom last month, she’s suddenly cool by association, despite her ancient Corolla and outlet mall wardrobe.

“God, Tess. Do you think you could sound any less disgusted?” Mac asks.

“Doubt it.”

“I was hoping you’d come, too.”

I stare at her. “Did you see the way Rachel looked at me after I beat her in the 200? Pretty sure I’m not on the invite list.”

Mac glances over

my shoulder. I follow her gaze to see Rachel brushing her hair in the mirror, flanked by her usual sidekicks, Lily and Simone. “Hey, Rach,” Mac calls.

Rachel looks at us, her brush still moving methodically through her chin-length black hair.

“It’s cool if Tess comes tonight, too, right?”

“Um.” Rachel’s eyes assess me like a worn-out sweater she’s trying to decide whether to donate or throw out. Either way, she doesn’t want it in her closet. “Sure. I guess.”

“See?” Mac says to me. “You’re invited.”

I snort.

“Please,” Mac says, dropping her voice below the other girls’ hearing range. “We always do what you want to do. It’s the first night of summer vacation, and I just want to have fun.”

That stings a little—since when is a rom-com marathon not Mackenzie’s idea of fun?

I sigh. “Fine.”

Mac grabs my face and gives me a noisy kiss on the cheek, earning an eyebrow raise from the girls at the mirror. We head out of the locker room to the parking lot, where the evening sky is painted in pastel.

“I have a feeling about this summer,” says Mac. “It’s going to be a good one.”

With tonight’s win still thumping against my chest, I couldn’t agree more.

***

“Pizza’s here!” Rachel’s mom calls from the top of the basement steps.

“Not it,” says Rachel, pressing her finger to the side of her nose, just ahead of Lily and Simone. Rachel smiles at me, sugar-sweet. “Tess? Would you mind?”

Mac casts me a guilty glance. “I’ll get it,” she says, starting to stand.

“It’s fine,” I tell her. Any excuse to escape the claustrophobic tangle of pillows and blankets and the monster shark movie that would make even seasoned swimmers like us swear off open water for good.

“Hurry up,” Lily says, pausing the movie as an unsuspecting diver’s blood floods the screen. “This is the best part.”

Upstairs, Mrs. Kolowski is stacking paper plates and napkins on top of two pizza boxes. Her purse-sized designer dogs circle her ankles, yapping. “I would’ve thought they’d stop delivering after eleven.”

“I guess not,” I say, sliding the food off the counter.

“Tell Rachel I’m going to bed. You girls try to keep it down, okay?”

The basement’s quiet when I head back down the stairs; four pairs of eyes, including Mac’s, skirt away from mine. “What’s up?” I say casually, putting the pizza on the glass-topped coffee table. Lily and Simone dive-bomb the food like starving seagulls.

“There’s a party at the tracks,” Rachel says. “We want to go.” Her eyes narrow, predatory. “You know, if you’re comfortable with that.”

Shrouded by woods, the long-abandoned section of train track by the creek offers a semi-private place to party, but getting busted there is practically a rite of passage in Oakwood. That could do some serious damage to my squeaky-clean record and maybe even compromise my Oakwood scholarship. “My parents would literally kill me if they found out.”

“I told you,” Mac mutters. “Let’s just stay here, okay?”

Simone ignores her. “Who says they’re going to find out?”

“Yeah, c’mon, Tess,” Lily chimes in over a cheesy mouthful. “Live a little.”

“How about we decide with a friendly competition?” Rachel suggests.

Competition is to me as Seth is to Mac. “What’d you have in mind?”

“You and me, outside. End of the pool and back. Twice. Winner decides what we’re doing with the rest of our night.”

“You want to race me? I thought you wanted to go out tonight.”

“Damn,” Lily breathes.

Rachel’s eyes flash. “That’s pretty confident from somebody who only beat me today by half a second. Anything could happen at Nationals.”

Suddenly the c

competition Rachel’s suggesting doesn’t seem so friendly. She’s hungry, and she’s got something to prove.

“Can’t we just do, like, rock paper scissors or something?” Mac suggests weakly.

But it’s too late. Rachel has dangled the proverbial carrot, and I can already taste it.

“You’re on.”

We scurry like giggling mice up the basement stairs and through the darkened kitchen. Rachel quietly unlatches the sliding glass door. The pool lights make the blue water look an eerie yellowish-green. A cool nighttime breeze rustles through my pajamas, raising goosebumps on my pale skin. The backyard is surrounded by a wooden privacy fence, but the nearby houses are close enough that anyone looking through the upstairs windows can see over the fence. God, I hope her neighbors aren’t night owls.

Rachel and I slip out of our pajamas. The water is heated, but it still shocks my sleepy skin. I duck under, dodging the splash as Rachel takes the plunge.

“What stroke?” I ask.

Rachel hovers just above the surface of the water, chin submerged. Her words skip like stones. “Underwater. If you come up to breathe, you lose.”

Underwater training is supposed to increase endurance, prepare us for the pain we’ll be in during a race, but when Coach puts the tarp over the pool to keep us from coming up for air, I swear I can hear the other swimmers struggling. I tip my chin, spitting chlorine. “Fine.”

We set it up—one girl at each end of the pool in lieu of a stopwatch. I grip the pool’s slippery tile surround, purposefully hyperventilating to release the CO2 in my lungs and keep myself from needing to breathe.

“Three...two...one!” Simone shouts.

We duck under.

In seconds, my fingers brush the end of the pool, and I turn. I don’t have goggles, so I can’t really see. Bubbles brush my face and I hear the whoosh of water as Rachel turns behind me.

I pick up my pace and make the second turn with ease. Back and

and forth—two laps, three—until my chest begins to call for air. On the fourth lap, Rachel closes in behind me, and though my lungs burn, I push harder.

I am the water.

And then everything goes black, and I am nothing at all. 

 

CHAPTER
TWO

I swim slowly to the surface of my consciousness, where faces blur and voices itch my brain like a mosquito bite I can’t quite scratch.

“She’s awake!”

“Oh, thank God!”

Someone’s crying. Why are they crying?

The faces slowly come into focus.

Mac and Rachel, wrapped in towels, cling to each other. Rachel’s dad’s pants are wet; he keeps crossing and uncrossing his arms. The other girls huddle together, their faces streaked with tears.

I’m lying on the concrete patio, in the center of a circle of worry.

“What—” I try to speak, but my words sound thick and muffled, like there are cotton balls stuffed in the back of my mouth.

A man in a black uniform hovers over me, gray stalks of short hair surrounding a brown mountain of bald. “Tess,” he booms. “Can you hear me? Do you know where you are?”

Words float just out of reach, and I panic.

“It’s okay,” the man says. “You’ve had a seizure, but your friends here kept you afloat. We’re going to take you to the hospital and get you checked out. Everything’s going to be okay.”

In his eyes, I see the same doubt that floods my chest with fear: everything might not be okay.

***

I’ve only been to the hospital one other time. In second grade, Timmy Martin said he didn’t think I could hang upside down on the monkey bars for five minutes. Turns out he was right, and I got a sprained wrist to prove it. But that was just a trip to the ER and a sling—plus Timmy felt so guilty, he gave me his dessert for the rest of the school year. Not bad when you think about it. Nothing like this.

My parents are waiting for me at the ER. They’re both in their pajamas. Mom’s lips are white, her eyes swollen behind her glasses, and I start crying as soon as I see her, even though my throat is already burning and my head throbs.

“It’s going to be okay, kid,” Dad says, squeezing my hand as he walks alongside the stretcher, his slippers squeaking on the freshly bleached floor.

The EMTs wheel me into a curtained room. On the count of three, they hoist me onto the hospital bed, using the sheet underneath me for leverage. That’s when I realize I’m basically naked in only my underwear, covered by a damp towel and a few thin blankets.

My arm hurts from the IV they placed during the ambulance ride; rust-colored splatters show underneath the foggy tape. Mom and a kind-eyed nurse help me into a hospital gown while Dad stands sentinel outside the curtain. My legs are trembling, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m cold or afraid. Maybe it’s a little of both.

The night is a blur of blood tests and scans, including one where they glue electrodes on my scalp and flash lights in my face. It’s almost dawn by the time they admit me to the hospital and only then do I give in to my exhaustion, tumbling into a fearful, restless sleep.

***

I’ve learned three things about this hospital in the few hours since I’ve been awake:

1. It has terrible cell phone reception. I keep trying to text Mac to let her know I’m okay, but nothing’s going through.

2. The cable is crap.

3. The food is revolting.

Thank goodness for Dad, who went on a fast-food mission while Mom and I wait for test results. The neurologist is supposed to come by today, too. So far, everything has looked normal—like my seizure was just some kind of freak occurrence. In the light of day, with the TV on and Mom drinking coffee while she chats on the hospital phone with my sister, last night feels far away, like it happened to dream-me.

“Okay, honey, have a good day,” Mom says into the phone. “I will.” She hangs up, then walks over to my bed and kisses me on the forehead. “That’s from Ali. She said she’ll try to come down soon.”

My sister, Ali, is five years older than me. She lives in New York City, auditioning by day and waitressing by night. She rarely comes home, and I rarely see her.

“Anybody here order a number seven?” Dad’s broad frame fills the doorway, one arm holding a brown paper bag from Paprika and the other a cardboard carrier full of sodas and an iced coffee I sure hope is mine. He’s changed into a T-shirt and jeans and his ever-present knee brace, a holdover of his college football injury. A duffel bag is slung over his shoulder.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Mom says, heading straight for the duffel. “I feel so awkward meeting all these hospital people in my jammies.”

Dad puts down the food. “I found this one wandering in the lobby,” he says as Mac steps into the room. She takes one look at me and bursts into tears.

And then I’m crying because last night did happen, and I’m here in this stupid bed with this stupid gown on, and these stupid wires attached to my arm and chest. I scoot over to make space on the bed, and Mac crawls across, tucking in beside me.

My parents step into the hallway, and then it’s just me and Mac, the way it’s always been, the way it’s supposed to be.

***

“I was so scared.” Mac dips another greasy chip into the plastic tub of guacamole propped on my thigh.

“Me too.” I sip my coffee, unsure if I want to hear the answer to my next question. “What happened?”

Between bites, Mac tells me Rachel and I were neck and neck when suddenly my body buckled, and I began to sink, one arm and leg thrashing. “I’ve never seen a seizure before,” she says, “but I knew you were drowning.”

Two summers of lifeguard training kicking in, Mac dove in after me while the other girls ran to wake Rachel’s parents. “You were so stiff. ...