I can swim underwater!

At eight, she learned she only belonged underwater.

Smashed egg.

Her father’s hands were always on her.

Shove.

Yank.

Twist.

“Lift your bum.”

His breath sharp through his teeth. His fingers at her waist. Then the suddenness of it, the body folding, tipping—

and the water rising.

It slammed her nose. Burned up into her skull. Everything bright and chemical and wrong.

Then his hand on her head.

Down.

Only for a second.

Long enough for the world to go bruised and ringing.

She kicked.

The water shrugged her off.

She couldn't tell which way was up. Only that he was above her, waiting, impatient.

She thought: stay.

Here.

Don't go back.

She came up anyway, gasping.

“I can't—”

But he was already laughing. Already changing his grip. Scooping her up, lifting her as though she weighed nothing—

and throwing.

She hit the deep sideways.

The water folded her in half.

Spun her.

Tugged at her ankles.

The surface disappeared.

Her body came apart in the churn, a smashed egg before the boil, whiting out into blue.

Something could swallow her whole.

A whale shark.

A dark, wide mouth opening below.

She wouldn't fight it.

She wouldn't mind.

Break me, but don't put me back together.

Underwater was the truest place.

No shouting.

No hands.

No yes.

No good girl.

Just the drag and drift and the old, patient things that lived down there.

Sharks older than fathers.

Older than anger.

Maybe she was one.

Maybe he was.

She shot up for air.

“I can swim underwater!”

She wiped the water from her eyes.

“Watch me!”

And she dived again.

Cut through the surface.

Disappeared.

But he wasn't looking.

Years later, a hand at her elbow could still do it.

Shoulders up.

Breath gone short.

Something small folding itself away.

She was easy-going. Calm. Fine.

Whatever.

She didn't like being moved.

Not her elbow.

Not her shoulders.

Not her hips.

Not someone putting a hand on her and saying, like this.

Not someone deciding where her body should go.

Her body knew before she did.

Shove.

Yank.

Twist.

Down.

She learned to laugh about it.

A man once said, lightly, almost lazily,

“Bet you like being told what to do. 

For once. 

Bet you'd love being thrown around.”

She laughed.

Like a good girl.

The words were nowhere near the water.

And then they were.

Blue.

The tumble.

The hand.

The dark.

The held-under.

Something opening beneath her.

Something swallowing.

Something she could disappear into.

Her mind went quiet.

The way it always did underwater.