Chapter 10 - Both - Crashing

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Ocean

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I climbed from the pool and wanted to stomp away but I was stopped by my team. Our school had won every match. We had not only won the day it was a flawless victory. It was a time to celebrate. And the winners for each swim needed to be announced officially.

Not to mention, this was a first for our school. We had never had a complete victory like this against St. Reece's. This was a momentous day, and I knew that. The problem was that I didn't feel like celebrating at all.

I had not lost a single match, not technically, because the only person that beat me was my teammate that swam in the lane next to mine. If it wasn't always a set rule that the individual races were swam with two or more sets of swimmers then I would have won. Or if I could have been paired with anyone but Makai every time.

There had been almost two dozen races in total, so why then were all but one of my races paired with the one guy that made me feel uneasy?

I don't know what it was about him. It was beyond Brittney calling him hot. It was beyond all the girls in the school thinking he is hot. It was beyond him beating me all the time. I couldn't even bring myself to look at the guy more than I needed to because there was just something about him that made my heart race and my palms itch. He was not right I tell you. Something was off about him.

Almost immediately after the miniature award ceremony all the spectators in the stands started to leave. Our coach was still praising us and promising a victory party of some sort. And the St. Reece's team was leaving, their shoulders drooped after their defeat but still in high spirits nonetheless.

I searched the crowd for my girl. I needed to see what Brittney was thinking, and how she was acting.

I found her after a minute. She was watching the scene intently, but her eyes weren't on me. She was watching Makai like he was her next prey and she was a hungry lioness.

Dammit. He stole her from me. She is going to leave me. That shallow fucking bitch. I should have listened to everyone when they tried to warn me. I should never have gone out with her in the first place. She was fickle and dropped a guy for the next hottest thing.

That didn't make it any easier though. That didn't make this crushing sensation any less unbearable.

I hadn't even been paying attention to the fact that my team was leaving without me. They were heading back to the locker room while I was still standing near the corner of the pool and staring blankly at the stands.

I also didn't notice that every ounce of strength within me was seeping away. I was too oblivious to everything at that moment.

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Kai

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I was worried about Ocean. The way he was just standing there staring at the stands. I knew what he had seen, I saw it too. I had felt her eyes on me and turned to see who it was. I knew that she was going to turn her sights onto me but I had no interest in her whatsoever.

The coach was talking about some lunch that he wanted to take us all to for having won every match but I couldn't pay attention to him while he talked. I was too busy staring at my teammate to listen.

Something was wrong with him. Something seemed more off than just him being upset about the fact that I beat him. He just didn't seem right for some reason.

I started to walk with the group at first. We were heading back to the locker room to change but I noticed that Ocean wasn't moving with us. I let the group pass me as they went ahead of me.

"What is he doing?" I was confused. Now it was just the two of us left out here. I wanted to go talk to him. I wanted to go see if he was alright because I didn't think that he was. The problem was, he probably wouldn't talk to me if I did.

Just as I sighed and was about to drop my head to look at the floor I saw that Ocean was swaying from side to side. It looked just like it did before the last match when I had to catch him from falling.

I felt my stomach drop and knew what was going to happen. I dropped my goggles and my towel and took off running. I had to get to him as fast as I could. But I wasn't fast enough.

I watched as Ocean swayed on his feet and fell forward. The problem was that he was standing at the corner of the pool not far from the ladder. If he fell in the direction it looked like then he was going to hit his head.

The horrific scene was playing out before me just as I had imagined that it would. Ocean fell straight toward the ladder and I watched as his head made contact with the hard metal surface.

I instantly saw the bright red smear of blood that was left behind as he finally fell into the pool face first.

"OCEAN!"