Free The Sea of Light by Jenifer Levin Page A

voice echoing in the background like something at the end of a tunnel—what was it? The women on my team, she said. Women, not girls, and it sounded very strange.
    That’s when I let her win the rest of me.
    I say: Okay, Bren. I will deal.
    *
    There is the thing with my dad to get through. Then I go upstairs, check to make sure he’s not still lingering anywhere in the hallway, check to see that the door to Jack’s room is closed, Roberto’s too, so no one can observe. Then I go through to my own room, quickly run a wet hand along the wall, flick on a light.
    They’re screaming for me again.
    Hey, Delgado!
    Delgado!
    I lean back against the door breathing hard and refuse to open my eyes. But only silence. I open them like slits. Shaded lamplight brightens each corner. A neatly made bed, bookshelves on either side of the bed with texts and paperbacks so neatly aligned. Each shelf top doubles as a night table. Framed posters on the wall, French impressionist art I know nothing about but once thought pretty—or maybe it was my mother who thought they were pretty, I can’t remember.
    One wall is blank with a large delineated rectangular space paler than the rest of the wall surrounding it, left by the bulletin board I took down finally and stashed somewhere in the closet. No, not just somewhere. I know the exact spot: left-hand side when you face the sliding doors, stuck behind a cardboard carton filled with old meet results and stacks of age-group ribbons in tiny silk-backed cases, the ones there are no room for any more downstairs in the den where they put up those glass showcases for my medals. There, and in the living room, entire shelves are filled with the big and small trophies I’ve won, have been winning, for how many years? fifteen years. Since the age of six. A long time to be winning.
    It was good to stash the board away, to silence all the snapshots and their voices. Putting it out of sight helped. The voices diminished, came from inside instead of from the pictures, now never sound in the day any more, only in the dark when I open my eyes. But there’s this price to be paid: my choice of clothes has become, shall we say, definitely limited. See, I’m afraid to open the closet door.
    Big brave champ, huh? Monster, animal.
    Fucking bunny rabbit, Delgado. You pussycat.
    I open my eyes all the way to an orderly girl’s room, with nothing in it any more to set it apart from other girls’ rooms in similar homes in similar towns in America. Now, though, the silence makes old remnants of ripped-apart stomach bubble up inside, the fronts of my thighs are damp, shudders travel in thin wavering lines from the knees up, then back down. I consider the closet door, how I could rummage wildly through the barrier of hanging clothes, pushing boxes of ribbons and medals aside until I can see their faces again and hear their voices again and feel them surround me the way they used to, barking like seals, holding kickboards to pound the water, the joke we would chant at each other when Kemo Sabe wasn’t around, boards splashing in rhythm: Dog meat! Dog meat! Dog meat! Then give the war whoop. Our rebel yell.
    My hand slips along the wall, shuts off the light. I bend down slightly with one foot forward, one back on the starting block, in perfect position. Always did have to work on my dives. In the dark I open eyes wide. Slide down along the wall to crouch, flabby, out of shape, thighs can’t take it any more. In one dark corner I sit.
    Dives.
    Swing the arms, grab a fatless thigh in each hand and gently shake, try to loosen up the muscles stretched long and taut so close to the surface.
    No good. Cold creeps down my. spine. Under white lights the pool glitters blue. Over the intercom, this blaring metallic voice announces lane assignments, names, school teams. I try not to listen.
    THIS IS THE 100-METER BREASTSTROKE. TWO LENGTHS OF THE POOL.
    Yes, sure. Two. Thank you very much. In case I forget?
    I lean, roll a little on