Sean has taken me back to the pool. The one at his high school, flanked by the simply “stunning” view of the empty parking lot. We’re inside the gate this time, and this close I can smell the reek of some awful human chemicals. It definitely overpowers the smell of the sub sandwiches Sean brought from his favorite deli, mine loaded with veggies between two pillowy slices of bread like a rainbow-colored smile. The smell has got to be chlorine, and whatever’s in the chemical is already making my eyes itch and burning the inside of my nose. It’s sunset, and I’d like to enjoy the clouds above turning pink and orange and purple. You don’t see the sunset all that much when you’re avoiding humans below the sea, but I’m so distracted by the chlorine smell that I can’t focus on anything else. And I can’t stop sneezing.

“Okay, look, I know it’s not the most glamorous place I could have taken you, but”—Sean gazes into the pool, the lights in it turning the water an unnaturally bright green—“I feel most at home here. It’s so calming. I actually used to be afraid of swimming when I was a little kid, but my dad made me take swim lessons in kindergarten. The very first day, I screamed my head off. But as time went on and I learned how to float on my back and butterfly strokes and all that, I realized I had control over what happened to me in the water. It was the only place I felt that way. Powerful, strong, that I got to decide what would happen to me and when based entirely on how I moved my body. It makes me feel more aware of myself on every level to feel the water moving across my skin.”

Sean suddenly shakes his head, taking us both out of the trance he’s made with his words. “I’m sure I sound ridiculous. Or seriously type A. Who needs to have so much control, right?”

“No, I totally get it.” Sean wasn’t literally born in the water, but it seems it could be just as much a part of him as it is for me. I spent so much time focusing on legs and how they’re used for walking, running, staying upright wearing flip-flops that I never thought a human would be so adamant about using them to swim.

“You do?” Sean asks. “Are you a swimmer?”

I laugh. “You could say that.”

A muscle in Sean’s thigh tenses, bulging against his shorts. My gut rumbles, and it increases a million times when Sean takes a step closer to me. Sean’s eyes are gentle, and he’s close enough that I can see the rich browns and ambers and golds swirling there, his own kind of sunset.