Penfield's Greatest Swimmer

🌊~36

A day later

Pii!

"Ok, that's a wrap for practice everyone!" Coach Sarah yelled. "Time for some announcements."

Grabbing onto the metal railing, I pulled myself out of the pool after spending hours trying to improve my speed.

Picking up a towel, I joined Coach and the others who had already assembled at the bleachers.

"Good to see everyone's form in good shape," Coach commended. "I hope you all keep it that way till next week, since we have the Penfield's Annual Swimming Competition coming up. The ones who perform exceedingly well in this three-day-event will automatically make the list for Nationals, so give it your all. Practice will start same time tomorrow, until then, bye."

With that, the regular buzz of chatter filled the air, as some of us began making our way over to the locker rooms.

Today, I'd done nothing but to keep to myself, knowing that after here, I was done for the day.

No other club activity.

I should be happy for the extra time but... all I felt right now was this hollow pit of pain in my chest. After devoting time and effort into the engineering club, all they did was to rudely kick me out and to top it all, Shola wouldn't even look at me.

On my way to calculus this morning, I sort of ran into her. Our eyes met briefly, then she turned and quickened her pace, as if I was a deadly blood sucking mosquito and she needed to get as far away from me as soon as possible. That action stung more than being kicked out of the club.

I'd hurt her, and in doing that, I'd hurt myself too.

Sighing, I headed over to the showers to wash off the chlorine. A couple of minutes later, I returned to my locker, rummaging through it for my clothes when a figure suddenly bumped into me.

"Hey!" I quickly turned around, only to find a scowling Seth shoving past me.

Alvin and a few other guys on the swim team, hollered at him, but all Seth did was to send them a cold shoulder.

I quirked up an eyebrow. "What's up with him?"

"His plan didn't work," Nana Kwame, who was perched up on the bench closest to me, replied as he stood up to pull a pair of Filla sneakers from his open locker.

"His plan? What plan?"

He sat back down again. "Remember the envelope Ishmael brought to the after party on Friday?"

"Yeah, the one that had all those incriminating pics. What about them?"

Nana Kwame looked up. "Seth was the anonymous person who sent them to Ishmael."

"What?" My eyebrows flew up. "Why?"

"Apparently..." with a grunt, Nana Kwame got back on his feet after putting on his shoes. "Seth grew tired of being Amina's 'side guy', so he hatched up a plan to end her relationship with Ishmael. His plan worked alright, but what Seth didn't expect was Amina dumping him to go after Ishmael. Now he's paying the price for not thinking things through."

"Wow." My gaze flickered over to where the big guy sat, brooding over something on his phone. "That's messed up."

"Well if you ask me, it isn't." Nana Kwame shrugged. "Seth knew that Amina didn't really love him, she was just with him for the sex. So it's his fault for falling for her."

True, but you couldn't really blame him. The heart had a mind of its own. You don't actually plan to fall in love with someone, it just happens.

"Yo, Akwasi buddy," Ethan wandered over. He'd asked permission from Coach to skip practice today so he could attend some important meeting he had with his dad. But from the way he was dressed, like those rappers in music videos who tie their neck with several gold chains, and the faint smell of whiskey wafting around him, I could tell that his 'important meeting' had absolutely nothing to do with his dad.