Breath Like Water Read online

  Susannah Ramos has always loved the water. A swimmer whose early talent made her a world champion, Susannah was poised for greatness in a sport that demands so much of its young. But an inexplicable slowdown has put her dream in jeopardy, and Susannah is fighting to keep her career afloat when two important people enter her life: a new coach with a revolutionary training strategy, and a charming fellow swimmer named Harry Matthews.

  As Susannah begins her long and painful climb back to the top, her friendship with Harry blossoms into passionate and supportive love. But Harry is facing challenges of his own, and even as their bond draws them closer together, other forces work to tear them apart. As she struggles to balance her needs with those of the people who matter most to her, Susannah will learn the cost—and the beauty—of trying to achieve something extraordinary.

  “Expansive, romantic, and powerful, Breath Like Water is a novel for any young person who faced doubt and discovered in those murky depths not just strength, but grace.”

  —Gayle Forman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of If I Stay and I Have Lost My Way

  Books by Anna Jarzab

  available from Harlequin TEEN/Inkyard Press

  Red Dirt

  Breath Like Water

  Breath Like Water

  Anna Jarzab

  Anna Jarzab is a Midwesterner turned New Yorker. She lives and works in New York City and is the author of such books as Red Dirt, All Unquiet Things, The Opposite of Hallelujah and the Many-Worlds series. Visit her online at annajarzab.com and on Twitter, @ajarzab.

  For all the beautiful dreamers.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Resources

  Excerpt from Red Dirt by Anna Jarzab

  “Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the same.”

  —WALT WHITMAN

  PROLOGUE

  1,063 days until US Olympic Team Trials

  FINA World Aquatics Championships

  Budapest, Hungary

  Women’s 200m Intermediate Medley Finals

  THE WATER IS BREATHING. At least, that’s how it seems. I’ve always imagined it as a living thing, benevolent and obedient and faithful. A gentle beast at first, like a pony, but over time something faster. A thoroughbred, maybe. A cheetah sprinting across a flat, grassy plain.

  But, of course, the water isn’t breathing—it’s rippling, with the echoing wakes of eight elite swimmers as they poured themselves into one last swim, one final chance to grab the golden ring. Now they’re gone, and in half a minute, I’ll be right where they were, reaching for my own shot at glory.

  This is my first international competition. I turned fourteen in May, so I’m the youngest member of Team USA. In January, nobody knew who I was, but by my birthday I’d broken the women’s 200 IM record in my age group twice and finished first in the same event—my best—at World Championship Trials. My summer of speed earned me a lane here in Budapest. All I have to do now is not screw it up.

  Earlier, in the semifinals, I clocked my fastest time ever in this event, and I’m coming into finals seeded third overall. I have to beat that by almost a second if I want to win.

  The announcer introduces me over the loudspeaker. I wave to the crowd but my mind is far away, already in the pool, charting out my swim. I shake out my limbs and jump to get my blood pumping, then climb onto the block. I adjust my goggles, my cap, my shoulders. These little rituals feel solid and reliable. The rest is as insubstantial as a dream you’re aware of while you’re dreaming it.

  “Take your mark—”

  The signal sounds and I’m in the pool. My mind lags half a second behind my body, registering every breath, stroke and turn only after it happens.

  First: butterfly, arms soaring over the water, fingertips skimming the surface.

  Then: backstroke, concentrating on the lines in the ceiling while waves boil around me.

  After that: breaststroke, stretching, pulling, kicking, gliding.

  And finally: freestyle, bursting off the wall like a racehorse released from a starting gate.

  I go six strokes without taking a breath and snap into my highest gear for a mad-dash last push, coasting along the razor’s edge of my perfectly timed taper. No thinking, just doing. No drag, only flight.

  My hand touches the wall, and my eyes begin to burn. It’s over. Instinctively, I look for my coach. Dave’s on the sidelines, frowning, and I think: I blew it.

  He notices me watching and breaks into a rare grin. Hopeful, I turn to the board. I can’t find my name, so I force myself to look at the top spot. There it is: RAMOS. Number freaking one.

  I whoop and blow kisses at the people in the stands. They’re on their feet, chanting, “USA! USA!” American flags billow like sheets.

  It cost my parents a fortune to fly themselves and my sister all the way to Europe on such short notice, credit cards stretched to their limits. I can’t even see them in the crowd, but I know they’re somewhere in that jubilant crush of people. My heart feels so full it’s like a balloon about to pop.

  As soon as I’m out of the water, Dave wraps me in a bear hug.

  “How do you feel?” he asks.

  “Great!” I sigh and shake out my arms. “Tired.”

  “Gold, Susannah,” he says. His voice is tight with something like awe.

  Gold. It doesn’t feel real yet—won’t, until that medal hangs around my neck, until I can hold it in my hands while the national anthem blooms through the natatorium speakers with patriotic brio. Maybe not even then. I could have more wins here, but right now, this seems like more than enough.

  “You’re a world champion,” Dave says. “Next, I’m going to make you an Olympian.”

  FOOLFORTHEPOOL.COM

  The #1 Source for Swimming News on the Web

  Freshman Phenom Flops Flat into Sophomore Slump: What Happened to Susannah Ramos?

  By Kris McNamara

  Posted July 25

  It’s a familiar story: a kid with some talent breaks out for a split second way too early in their career, then disappears from the rosters, never to be heard of again. Sometimes it’s an injury, sometimes they can’t handle the pressure and sometimes it is plain old biology dragging them down by the heels, which is what seems to have happened to Susannah Ramos.

  You remember her. The fourteen-year-old wunderkin
d who came out of nowhere two years ago and hopped from one national competition to the next, tearing up the pool in the 200 IM, then took home a gold from Budapest?

  Well, it looks like all the up-and-comers who were quaking in their flip-flops over Ramos’s meteoric rise can rest easy. The Illinois swimmer, who enters her sophomore year next month, hasn’t placed in a single national competition since her world championship win, and though she’s got a full schedule of events at the upcoming GAC Invitational, she seems unlikely to fare any better on her home turf. If she has any hopes of triumph at next year’s US Olympic team trials in Omaha, she’s got a long way to go.

  You have only to look at a recent picture of her to figure out why. A growth spurt during this year’s long-course season transformed Ramos from a petite powerhouse into a broad-shouldered Amazon, and her new build seems to be weighing her down in the water. It’s a sad fact of the sport that some swimmers peak young and never find their way off the time plateau. Surely Ramos, who competes with the Gilcrest Aqualions Club, hopes she won’t be one of them, but the statistics aren’t on her side.

  For the sake of her college prospects, here’s hoping she can beat the odds.

  CHAPTER ONE

  330 days until US Olympic Team Trials

  THERE’S NOTHING LIKE the moment a race begins. It’s the highest height of the roller coaster, the top of the drop, all potential energy and anticipation.

  That powerful feeling of launching off the block is my favorite thing about swimming, the weightlessness of flight before slipping neatly into the water. Despite all the disappointment of the past eighteen months, that excitement right before the start never left me. Today is no exception.

  The simple act of climbing onto the block floods my body with adrenaline. My vision narrows, and all the noises of the pool—the slap of waves against the gutters, the shouting from the stands, the voice of the announcer as he calls out the names and positions of the swimmers already in the water—recede like a tide until I can hear nothing but the sound of my own breathing.

  The 400 IM relay starts with the backstroke, and the breaststroke comes next. The third leg of this race—the butterfly—belongs to me. Jessa’s behind me, hands on her hips, dripping wet and still panting; she started us off strong, touching the wall first with one of her best backstroke splits to date. Casey, our anchor, stands to the side, watching and waiting for her turn. Amber’s in the pool now, holding on to Jessa’s lead with her high-velocity whip kick, coming at me full speed.

  My skin starts to tingle, not from anticipation but from a sudden sizzling lightning bolt of fear, the fear of screwing up that blossoms inside me like an infinitely expanding fractal. That fear is an old enemy, and yet sometimes startlingly new. Even now, when I should know what to expect, it sneaks up behind me and leaps on my back, knocking the air from my lungs and wrapping its arms around my chest so tightly that I can barely breathe.

  But there’s nothing I can do about it—I’m already on the block. As Amber closes in on the wall, I make the calculation, that inexplicable formula learned through what seems like a million years of racing. I give it one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three—then I jump.

  The moment I hit the water, instinct tells me something’s off, but everything feels okay. I’m an arrow beneath the surface; the momentum from my dive, my painstakingly perfected streamline and my powerful dolphin kick are enough to get me to the fifteen-meter mark before my head breaks the waterline.

  Arms back, then out, and then I’m flying.

  My muscles are tense, and the first few strokes are a struggle while I search for my rhythm. Once I find it, my body melts into the swim so naturally that it comes as more of a surprise than a relief. I haven’t felt this good, this capable, in months. Even my left shoulder, which sometimes bugs me, isn’t a problem today. Fear loosens its grip, and a rush of water carries it away.

  By the first turn, I’m feeling cautiously optimistic, and by the second I’m almost hopeful, though I can tell from quick spot checks that my creakiness off the start has lost me some of Jessa and Amber’s lead. I’ll make it up. I’ve done it before; I can do it again. Otherwise, what has all of this been for?

  The surge of confidence pushes me harder into each stroke, and by the final lap I’ve caught up to the swimmer on my left, who passed me at the midpoint of the race. I put everything I have into that final sprint and slam into the wall like it’s done something to me. Like I’m punishing it.

  Casey explodes off the block, soaring over my head. I heave myself out of the water, limbs shaking with the aftershocks of enormous effort. It’s a familiar, gratifying feeling, one that reminds me that, whatever happens, I worked my ass off. No hay peor lucha que la que no se hace, my abuela always says. There’s no worse struggle than the one that never begins.

  I may be struggling, but there’s no denying I began a long time ago. And still, here I am.

  The first thing I usually do after a race is look for Dave, but this time I’m too busy cheering for Casey as she tears up the pool, scraping out a lead of half a body length. Everything happens so fast; it’s not until she jams the heel of her palm into the timing pad that I realize we’re winning. That we’ve won.

  I turn toward Dave, beaming with a mixture of shock and pride, expecting to see a look of, if not joy, then certainly approval on his big, ruddy face.

  But he isn’t smiling, he’s glaring—at me.

  What? I mouth.

  He holds up his left hand and creates a circle with his pointer finger and thumb. At first, I think he’s telling me everything is OK, but then he turns his hand over, giving me the same gesture except upside down, and I realize he’s literally spelling it out for me: d. q.

  I shake my head and exchange a bewildered look with Jessa and Amber. Casey’s still in the water, accepting tepid congratulations from the girls we beat.

  Over the PA, the announcer broadcasts our first-place finish. Dave must be wrong. I replay the race in my head, searching for any mistake I might’ve made, and come up empty. My times have taken a hit, but I’m impeccably trained, and I know the rules.

  Except...there’s that weird feeling I had when I entered the water, that something was wrong. It hits me again and this time I can’t shake it. I feel suddenly exposed, like in one of those dreams where you look down to realize you’re naked. I’ve always stood out on a pool deck, even before I shot up six inches, because I’m one of the few brown kids on a mostly white team. But this is different; it feels like everyone knows something I don’t, and they’re all waiting to see the truth crash down on me.

  It’s excruciating.

  Dave points at one of the officials who was assigned to watch our lane for infractions as he scurries over to the judges’ table. They huddle, whispering, then break apart. Dave turns his finger to the ceiling and, as if on cue, the announcer gets back on the PA.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the judges have disqualified the Gilcrest Aqualions for a false start by Susannah Ramos on the butterfly leg of the 400-meter intermediate medley relay. The first-place finish in that race has been awarded...”

  I stop listening as a wave of hot shame pours over me. Amber puts a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” she says. “It happens.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I say with forced lightness. Sometimes I wish she weren’t so nice. I don’t deserve her comfort, or anybody else’s. I failed them. I failed, yet again.

  My muscles are shaking from exertion and I feel kind of faint. I need to warm down, drink some water, scarf an energy bar. But I can’t move. My gaze locks on Dave.

  He’s looming over the judges’ table, arguing against the DQ the way he would for anyone else—wild gestures, flying spittle, red-faced bluster, the whole pageant drama. But I can tell his heart’s not in it. It’s not the judges he’s angry with; it’s me.

  After the judges have ca
lmly and firmly told him to get over it and go away, Dave stalks over to me. I wrap my goggles around my hand, tight enough to hurt, and stand my ground with my chin up and my mouth clamped shut. There’s nothing Dave has say to me that I’m not already thinking. He can’t make me feel worse than I already do.

  “Disqualified!” he shouts, swinging his clipboard like he’s about to hit me with it, though he doesn’t. “At our own fucking meet!”

  I take a deep breath. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

  “What the hell was that?” he asks, loud enough for everyone around us to hear. Amber, Jessa and Casey wisely make themselves scarce.

  “It was an accident,” I tell him. “I made a mistake.”

  “A false start isn’t a mistake—it’s a fuckup,” Dave hisses. “You’re too old for this shit!”

  My jaw is clenched so tightly that my head starts to ache. “I didn’t do it on purpose. It won’t happen again.”

  Dave folds his arms across his chest. The tattoo on his bicep peeks out from under his sleeve: Olympic rings. His medals, two bronzes and a silver, hang in frames on the wall of his office, not twenty feet from where we’re standing. Every time I wonder why I put up with this sort of treatment, I tell myself: He’s an Olympian. He makes Olympians. That is why I’m here.

  He scowls at me like I’m a speck of dirt on his shoe. I’ve grown a lot in the last year, but I’ll never be as tall as him. No matter how old I am, he’ll always look down at me.

  “It will happen again,” he snaps. “Or something else will. For the past year it’s been one problem after the next, except this time, it’s not just you—your teammates are suffering because of what you did. That win was theirs, and you lost it.”

  “The win was ours,” I remind him. “And so was the loss. I swam that race, too.”

  “You might as well not have. I could’ve put one of those plastic duck toys in the pool in your place and it probably would’ve had better splits!”