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Yumi entered the natatorium and saw the boy sitting near the pool. She had been looking for him in every spot of the college but he was sitting here. With a sigh, she went near him and sat beside him. "Hey!"
Mark flinched as he didn't notice the girl before. "Oh Yumi. Hello!"
"You are again here?"
He nodded slowly as his eyes were on the water.
"But why?", she asked with knitted brows.
The boy let out a deep breath. "You already know why exactly I'm here."
"Mark... please it's ok. How many times I have to say you?"
"No nothing is ok, Yumi. I feel like a coward."
She looked at him with worried eyes. "Mark please don't-"
"No Yumi. Just look at this pool. It's just water but I'm scared of it. Sometimes I just want to jump into it and have fun like normal people do but I know if I did, what the result will be." He looked at her. "I want to overcome this. This fear of mine is such a big scar in my life."
"But sometimes we can't change a few things in our life. We need to accept them and live with them."
"But did you forget what happened back in Canada?"
"No I didn't."
"Then you are still saying that I should accept this. I won't forget how much I suffered there. Remember in middle school, I always used to make excuses to avoid swimming classes? But one day, the teacher forced me to get into the pool. I was in the verge of crying. Other students were laughing at me. I felt so scared when my body got into the water. I was holding the support railing so tightly. I was scared if I left it, then I would die. Then, the teacher asked us to immerse our heads underwater for breathing exercise. He scolded me as I was not doing what he told. Next, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and put my head into the water. And when I opened my eyes, I was in the hospital", he said with a chuckle.
Yumi held Mark's hand which was beside her and looked at him. "Mark..."
He flashed a sad smile and nodded. "Yeah and then after two or three days, when I returned to school, everyone laughed at me, made fun of me and called me with bad names everyday. Some bullied me too. They told me that I am not a boy, I'm scared of water and that I'm weak."
"Then why didn't you tell me about your trauma? I could have helped you."
"I thought you would not want to be be friends with me anymore if I told you about my weaknesses. You very clearly know how much you mean to me..."
The twenty-one years old girl sighed. "You were stupid, stupid to think that I would leave you."
"Yes I realized that when you saved me from those bullies that day. I couldn't even fight back on my own."
