Emily 18 Alone In The Pool At Nightrar -

The cold climbed up her calves, her knees, her thighs. She gasped—a sound too loud in the quiet—and then forced herself to breathe slowly. You’re fine , she told herself. You’re fine. This is just water. This is just night. This is just you. Emily pushed off from the edge and let herself drift toward the deep end. The pool was small by most standards—maybe thirty feet long, fifteen wide—but at night, with the trees overhead blocking out pieces of the sky, it felt like an ocean. She lay on her back, arms spread, ears submerged, and stared up at the stars.

A single tear escaped the corner of her eye and merged with the pool water. She didn't wipe it away. There was no one here to see it. That, she realized, was perhaps the most terrifying and liberating thing about being alone: the freedom to feel without editing. She flipped over and started swimming—not laps, nothing disciplined, just movement for the sake of movement. Breaststroke to the ladder. Backstroke to the floating thermometer. She ducked under the surface and opened her eyes. The chlorine stung, but the underwater world was beautiful in its distortion: the blue tiles blurring into azure mosaics, her own pale legs stretching out like a dreamer’s limbs, the LED lights casting long shadows that danced along the bottom. emily 18 alone in the pool at nightrar

Emily, 18, alone in the pool at night.

She had turned eighteen exactly two weeks ago. The cake was still in the freezer, half-eaten. The cards with crisp twenty-dollar bills sat unopened on the kitchen counter. Everyone kept asking her how it felt to be an adult. She didn’t have an answer. Adulthood, so far, felt like standing in a long hallway with all the doors slightly ajar but none of them hers. The cold climbed up her calves, her knees, her thighs