Surviving High School

Sara pretty well. As far as Emily knew, Sara had barely talked to the other kids at school. She’d certainly never brought any friends home, or even mentioned anyone by name.
    “Yeah, we used to get that a lot,” said Emily. She paused before asking, “Were you and Sara—friends?”
    “I wouldn’t say that,” said Samantha, pulling on her suit. “We—never mind.” Her eyes moved back and forth, as if she were thinking intently about something. Finally, she closed her locker door and tucked her hair under a swim cap. “What a hassle,” she muttered, shoving loose black strands under the rubber. “You ever just think of shaving it all off?”
    “Not really,” said Emily, wondering why Samantha had changed the subject so suddenly. She tried to imagine the beautiful girl in front of her with a shaved head.
    “Hair,” said Samantha, pulling her swim cap on tight, “is overrated.”
    As an elementary-schooler, Emily had gone on a class trip to Oregon and watched the salmon swimming upstream. The fish beat their tails fast against the current, leaped from the water, and then dove back in, defying the river to push them to the ocean.
    “Mrs. Turner,” she remembered saying, “they’re doing the breaststroke.”
    Since then, Emily had imagined herself as a salmon when she did the breaststroke, reaching her arms forward and yanking her torso out of the water. The stroke was the sport’s messiest and most violent—requiring the swimmer to assault the water’s surface.
    Today, Emily attacked the pool with particular fury, pretending it was Dominique’s stupid robot face. But as she completed a few laps, she realized it was something else that had truly upset her. Emily’s conversation with Samantha replayed in her head:
    “Were you and Sara—friends?”
    “I wouldn’t say that.”
    Sara had never mentioned any enemies, but she must have had them. Any great swimmer did. Yet something in Samantha’s tone had indicated more than an in-the-pool rivalry. But what else could it have been? As far as she knew, there was no Sara outside of the pool. She was the Machine, built to crush records and nothing more.
    When Emily reached the far end of the lane, she realized she’d been swimming at full speed, blowing past the girls in the other lanes. As she grabbed the side of the pool, she sucked air, and her arms began to ache.
    Great , she thought. And I’ve still got two hours of practice to go.
    As Emily’s breathing evened out, she looked up to see her father silhouetted against the sharp overhead lights. His impressive gut cast a large shadow over her.
    “Kessler!” he said. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    Kessler? she thought. Really?
    “Just taking a little break— Coach .”
    A few of the other girls were treading water, watching this little exchange.
    “And who around here said you could do that?” Coach Kessler looked slowly and deliberately over each of his shoulders as if checking for phantom assistants. “You stop when I tell you to stop.”
    “But, Dad—”
    “Coach.”
    “Fine. Whatever.”
    He crouched down and brought his face a few inches from hers.
    “You just bought yourself another hour in the pool—”
    “But—”
    “You want to go for two?”
    Emily shook her head.
    “No, sir.” Looks like being the coach’s daughter won’t get me any special treatment , she thought. Kind of the opposite.
    “That’s better,” he said. He turned and walked a few lanes over, deliberately ignoring her to check in on a few of the weaker swimmers. As Emily turned and positioned herself against the side of the pool to push off for a round of backstroke, Dominique’s head surfaced in the next lane.
    “Making trouble already, eh, Swimbot?”
    Emily’s heart was still beating hard from her sprint aminute earlier. She ignored Dominique and concentrated on her form: feet pressed against the wall shoulder-width apart, her legs tensed, ready to push off.
    “Backstroke’s not your race,” said Dominique. “You might just want to, you know, forget about it. Concentrate on some strokes where you actually stand a chance of winning.”
    Dominique arranged her body against the side of the pool as Emily had, and the girls turned their heads to look at each other. Emily was still breathing hard, and Dominique smiled, recognizing her weakness.
    “I’m trying to remember—have you ever beaten me at backstroke?”
    “You haven’t seen me swim it in competition since May,” said