Fallout ▷ Stilinski

Chapter 12. Breathing Slow

When I was around six years old, I learned how to swim. I didn't learn from an instructor or my parents teaching me. I learned because I almost drowned. A part of me thinks that was when my anxiety started to become apparent... then once my dad left, it was in full swing. I wasn't thrown in a pool and left to fend for myself and I wasn't playing around with my brother either. I wasn't even in a pool to begin with. I was in the lake in the Beacon Hills preserve, and Scott and Stiles were with me.

Scott and Stiles, mainly Stiles, always had a knack for coming up with games that we shouldn't have been playing. We always were getting into trouble and getting hurt because of the intensity of our games. The game we were playing that day, was called Treasure Hunters. The rules were simple, one person would hide their choice of treasure and then the other two would go in search of it. It was like hide and seek with a toy. Stiles always ended up hiding his in a bush or pile of leaves. Scott always his hid his underneath a rock. And I always hid mine in snake holes in the ground. Stiles' treasure was a chess piece, because for some reason he had one at that age. Scott's treasure was a little green army man. My treasure was a ceramic bird that my dad had gotten me when he had left the state for a job a few months prior.

That day I was the one hiding my treasure, and we were in a section of the preserve just behind Stiles' house. We never ventured too far, in fear that his dad would hear us and we would get in heaps of trouble... so the hiding places in that area had been used up quickly. I wanted to win the game so bad, I wasn't even worried about getting in trouble for leaving the spot. Stiles and Scott were counting to 100 and I took a deep breath and ventured further into the preserve.

I had no idea were I was going, but I knew I had to hide my bird quickly because I didn't have much time. I stumbled across a few rocks that looked pretty hard to move, so I opted out on choosing them. I then saw the lake. It was so quiet and the water was perfectly still. There was a rock the size of my head just beside the lake, and there was moss on top of it. I knew that Stiles would be too disgusted to lift the rock, and Scott would never think to look there. I quickly ran to the rock and used all of my strength to move it... but it wouldn't budge. It felt like hours had gone by as I attempted to move the rock, but it couldn't have been because I could still hear Stiles yelling out the numbers as he counter.

With one final shove I used all of my body weight to move the rock, but my hand slid on the moss and I toppled into the water. I had never been in water that I couldn't keep my head above before that moment, so when I tried to stand up so I could breach the surface and was unable to, the panic began. I had no clue what to do with my arms and legs in order to get my head above water. It felt like I was sinking, but I was thrashing around so much I was moving slightly upwards. The bird slipped from my hands and sunk to the bottom. I didn't even attempt to get it.

Miraculously, I managed to get above the surface long enough to scream for help. I knew that once Scott heard me he would manage to find me. It didn't matter what the situation was, he was always able to find me. My mom used to say that because we were together for nine months in her womb, we had become a part of each other. My thoughts were his thoughts and his feelings were my feelings. She said we would always gravitate towards one another and always be able to tell if something was wrong.

Once again I was drifting beneath the surface and my eyes were burning. I took a breath and sucked water into my lungs. I had never felt anything as painful as that before in my life. I knew I was running out of time because humans can't breathe underwater. I learned that in science class. I'm not sure how much longer that I struggled before Stiles jumped in and pulled me out. He was the only one that knew how to swim out of the three of us. The moment I hit the ground Scott pulled me over to him and patted my back as I coughed up water. They both hugged me for a long time and we all just sat there and talked after that.