Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

Once she reached the other end, she flip-turned and pushed off, her strong quad muscles launching her forward. Her mind cleared, just like always, and her arms and legs took over. Each time she came up for a breath, she heard a burst of noise—people chatting, little kids shouting by the baby pool—but then her head was back under where she couldn’t hear anything other than the swish, pull, and kick of her own body. By the time she reached the wall again, her muscles itched to speed up, and it felt so good to pick up her pace.

This wasn’t like school, where she was always aware of what everybody else was doing: who finished tests early, who wrote so much that they had to ask for extra paper, who hissed a “Yes!” when a teacher handed back an assignment. In the pool, she could sense where other swimmers were without wasting any focus on them. She was only vaguely aware that the distance between her and the freestyler in the next lane stretched longer and longer as she swam faster and faster. She barely even noticed when the two other lap swimmers finished and got out.

After her fingertips touched the wall at the end of her last lap, she was surprised to see an older girl standing over her, clapping.

She pushed her goggles up her forehead. It was Elisa Price, dressed for the fourteen-and-up team’s practice in a navy and yellow team suit. Annabelle was used to seeing Elisa with a swim cap on, so it took a second to recognize her with her thick brown curls loose around her freckled face.

“Well if it isn’t the girl who broke all my under-fourteen fly records!” Elisa said, and Annabelle grinned.

“I still have to shave off some time to beat your freestyle ones, though,” she replied as she pushed herself out of the water.

Elisa laughed, showing the little gap between her front teeth that made her look friendly and unintimidating, even though she was so tall and strong and finishing her sophomore year at Gray Island High.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem, judging by what I just saw,” she said.

Other high school swimmers were here, too, which meant it was later than Annabelle had realized. Her friend Jeremy’s older sister, Kayla, waved from across the pool, and two guys—Connor Madison and Jordan Bernstein—were over by the lifeguard stand, yanking off their T-shirts and pulling on swim caps as they laughed with the new lifeguard.

Thick clouds had covered up the sun, so Annabelle wrapped her arms around herself to stop shivering.

“Go dry off,” Elisa said. “But good to see you, Annabelle. And I’ll try to emotionally prepare myself for seeing my name erased from the rest of the under-fourteen record boards this summer.”

She swiped at her eyes as if she were tearing up and then gave Annabelle’s shoulder a squeeze.

Annabelle passed Connor and Jordan on the way to get her towel, and when she walked by, she heard Connor’s low voice.