Thirty Nine Minutes (COMPLETE)

Chapter Four: Swim to Me

Helen struggled into her wetsuit. She may have been a diving instructor, but she hadn't been in the ocean for months. It was an odd sensation to have the neoprene hugging her so tightly.

There was only one communal changing room in the facility, and fortunately, Craig's tank didn't seem linked to it. She reached around the back to zip up the tight suit.

David's words still rang in her head from that morning. As soon as she had walked in, he had pulled her into his office and near enough demanded that she get in the water with Craig and begin a kind of flooding technique with him to end his phobia. His eyes had been cold, dispassionate.

Three weeks had passed since she'd started work as Craig's therapist, and they had barely seen each other since. Despite all this, she was starting to see through his persona, his mask. It wasn't that hard to realize there was a whole iceberg underneath those still waters. Despite his tail, he was more human than cetacean, to her anyway. She pulled her long hair back and wrapped it into a bun before grabbing two coffees from the machine in the lobby. Stubborn or not, today was the first day in the pool with Craig now all the inductions were behind her, and David wanted to see her work.

He was sitting in the corner of the tank when she walked in, with what looked like a natural sponge in his hand, brushing down his tail. He hadn't noticed her come in, and continued to preen and scrub the silvery gray skin.

"Morning, Craig," Helen chimed as she pressed the intercom into his tank. "Want a coffee?" He eyed her but didn't nod or shake his head in response. Slowly, he pulled himself up on the glass and broke the surface of the water, trying to subtly expel the excess water that presumably had been sloshing around inside his mouth and nose. Helen pretended not to notice and smiled as warmly as she dared without appearing insincere. "How are you this morning?"

He was watching her sceptically. "Are we going in the pool today?"

She looked down at her wetsuit. "This was the only thing I had clean, actually."

That one second as she walked up the steps to his shelf, that glorious moment where he actually fell for her silly little joke, her heart soared to the heavens. His bemusement quickly fell into an eye roll.

"Rebecca said you liked coffee," she said as way of apology, reaching the top of the ladder and sitting herself on his shelf, dangling her feet in the water.

"I do." He took the coffee and cradled it as his arms continued to lean on the side of the tank, looking down at the contents of the disposable cup. "No cream?"

Helen shrugged, offering her own cup, which he refused. "I didn't drink any, I swear."

"I'm fine," he grumbled, clearly not fine.

"Look, Craig? It's okay to be nervous, but I won't ask you to do anything you're not comfortable doing. I'm here to help you, not to judge you."

He said nothing, only taking a sip from his coffee, trying to hide his miniscule wince. Helen thought better than to tell him he didn't need to be so polite with her if he didn't like black coffee.

"What?" he asked as he looked at her.

"Nothing. After this I'm going to the pool. Ten minutes okay with you?"

He nodded, but very woodenly, one finger circling around the rim of the paper cup. Helen hoisted herself up and left, only looking back to see his tail swirling to and fro in the glowing blue water.

*****

The chlorine smell was oddly pleasing, reminding Helen of going to the local pool at the weekend with her sister and mother. Unlike the public pool however, this water was tepid rather than warm, which was not all that strange considering how huge the space was. Helen swam a few lengths, an eye occasionally checking the mouth of the tunnel for when Craig decided to show. Every now and again her attention would drift to the opaque mesh drawn across the deep free diving drop. Was his phobia so bad that he couldn't even look at deep water?

A flash of gray darted beneath her, and his closely cut hair broke the surface of the water. Craig's usual grin met her as he drifted alongside her, meeting her speed easily. "Legs really aren't built for swimming, are they?"

"People can still swim, and do extraordinary things in a world not designed for them." Helen continued to push herself through the water. "People can even hold their breath way beyond what you might expect."

"Can they beat thirty eight minutes?" he grinned and dipped back into the water, swimming way beyond her with that dynamic tail that seemed to push him through the water with almost minimal effort.

"We're not here to brag, we're here to challenge and heal," she said to Craig as he reappeared. "Of course you can swim better than me, you're designed for life in the water."

Craig fell silent, his face sinking into the water until only his eyes and the top of his head was visible. Helen, sensing the moment, pressed on. "Show me your basic swimming technique first, please. Let's focus on the task at hand." She stopped herself before she admitted she knew David was coming to watch. There was an interesting chemistry at play between Craig and David, in fact it was what had convinced her to stay. Craig might have been a stubborn little mule, but he was not unflappable, particularly around David.

Helen went to sit at the edge of the pool whilst Craig did lengths at the bottom of the shallow depth, barely a meter below the surface. Back and forth, he darted like a minnow. She knew he was showing off, and by the looks of it he would probably burn out in a couple of minutes. Her prediction was not unfounded, and after only nine minutes Craig resurfaced, red in the face and panting, which soon turned to a scowl when he saw Helen's disapproving face.

"You're pretty quick, aren't you?"

"Of course I am!" He sounded offended. "You know, for a therapist you say some dumb things."

"I want you to watch me, Craig," she said, ignoring his comments. "I'm going to swim to the net."

And there it was. A streak of fear cracking his mask, showing what he was really thinking. An aquatic creature he may have been, but he had positioned himself the furthest he could feasibly get from the net, from the dark chasm beyond.

"Watch her." The command bellowed out from the observing booth, and Helen and Craig both looked up to see David standing at the glass. Carefully, Helen snuck a peek at Craig, and the poor boy seemed to visibly shrink. Craig could take as much as he got from anyone, apart from David. With David he seemed not just respectful, but almost frightened. He nodded and fixed his eyes on Helen, although he looked somewhat glazed. Helen swam out to the net after fitting her free diving fin on her feet.

"Seriously? That's your solution?" Craig smirked at Helen's fin and shrugged, but didn't move from his corner.

"It's standard diving gear, now stop procrastinating. I want you to swim to me. We're not going beyond it, just to me."

He didn't move, casting a wary eye over to David who stood like a sentinel over the both of them. Little did David know, his mere presence was undoubtedly causing Craig's confidence to circle the drain. "Try to concentrate on me, Craig. Just swim to me: not the net, not anyone else. Just me."

With one final look at David, Craig pushed off from the side, his arms in a breaststroke even though he didn't need it. She could hear him breathing in and out of his nose as slowly as he could manage. He kept his head high above the water, using his arms more than his tail.

"Just swim to me, Craig."

There it was. A barely hidden terror flitting across his irises, soothed only by his breathing that sounded like it was in danger of becoming hyperventilating. "Take your time, Craig. Almost there."

He kept looking up at David, and every time he did, his breathing got ever more erratic. There was nothing Helen could really do about it, and an anger boiled in her belly that she was forced to plaster over with a thick layer of professionalism. "Almost there," she said.

But her kind words did not break the towering wall of his phobia. Helen saw it before it really began to take a hold of him, and kicked off her fin. His skin went white and trembling, pupils contracted and glazed, retreating into his head, into an alternate reality to escape the terror of this one. As Helen swam as fast as she could, she could hear his breathing becoming a wheeze, his arms constricting and he began to sink beneath the lapping surface as his body shut down in his terror.