I told Coach, "I'll take care of it." I told the ref, "I forfeit, whatever, sorry." Then I put my arm around my mom's waist, wetting her but I doubt she noticed, and steered her out the gate to the front of the school. I'm sure we looked like an odd promenade because she still hadn't let go of my wrist. Behind us the whispers of the crowd swelled. My eyes stung with tears.
The second the gate closed and the crowd couldn't see us, I jerked my wrist out of her hand and whirled to face her. "What the f**k are you doing?"
She blinked and actually took a step back. "I had a dream you were drowning."
I put my hands on my hips. "They let you out of a locked mental ward because you had a bad dream?"
She cleared her throat. "I guess I escaped."
"Y escaped from the mental hospital ?" My voice echoed across the high school parking lot, over the cars and a few buses gathered around the pool
ou entrance.
She shrugged. "It wasn't brain surgery."
"It's a forty-five-minute drive. How did you get over here from Fort f**king Walton?"
This time she didn't even blink at the F-word, which was a bad sign. "I took a taxi."
I ran my hands back through my hair, or meant to, and stopped when I felt nothing but rubber swim cap and goggles. "What am I going to do with you?" I asked, exactly what she'd asked me once in seventh grade when she caught me trying to run out the door to meet Keke and Lila at Beach Reads wearing argyle kneesocks with my gym shorts. What did I do now? I looked out over the parking lot and watched a police car cruise toward us.
Officer Fox to my rescue again.
He parked at the curb right next to us and got out. "Hey there, Counselor," he called.
"Hi, Cody," she said without smiling.
He strolled over and joined us like we were three old friends who'd run into each other at the homecoming parade. "I hear they're worried about you at the hospital. I can drive you back, or"--he glanced over at me ever so briefly, then focused on my mom again--"Zoey can take you."
My mom nodded. No argument. A bad, bad sign.
He jerked his thumb toward the pool. "Zoey, why don't you go change into some dry clothes and meet us back here. Tell Doug what we're doing."
"Okay." I let Officer Fox take charge, just as he had when I found my mother the first time.
Doug leaned on his crutches inside the pool gate. He'd called his brother to turn my mom in. That's why he'd been on the phone during my heat. Or his brother had texted him first to tell him there was an alert out for my mom. I was the last to know.
Past Doug, in the pool, another heat had started. They must have repeated the one I'd ruined and begun a new one, because BENNETT was on the board. I wasn't sure whether this was Keke or Lila. I couldn't remember the order of the heats or who was swimming in what race. I was losing it.
The crowd didn't mind. They cheered for the racers in the water. Only a few spectators nudged their friends and pointed at me. Brandon sat in the stands with Stephanie like nothing unusual had occurred. Maybe nothing had.
"What happened?" Doug asked, maneuvering in front of me like he thought I might escape too.
I waved vaguely toward the outside world. "She's with your brother."
"Is she okay?"
"If she's not, maybe I can have her car," I joked.
I'd walked five steps beyond him when the nausea hit me, and I can have her car throbbed in my throat. My mom would spend the rest of her life in an insane asylum, and I could have her car!
My clothes were in the women's locker room, but I headed for the one-stall bathroom just off the pool for swim event spectators. If someone had been inside and I'd been locked out, I don't know what I would have done. I could not vomit in front of a hundred and fifty people on top of everything else. Luckily the bathroom was open and empty and cool. I calmly closed the door behind me, turned the dead bolt, and dashed for the toilet.
Retched and retched and dry heaved, doubled over with the sharpest pain in my stomach and the unbearable nausea. Started sobbing to go with it, because dry heaving wasn't horrible enough. Cried and retched with my face inches from a public toilet. At the same time, I saw myself. From across the room I watched a girl with family problems losing it in a public bathroom. That girl was not me.
A sound like machine-gun fire strafed the bathroom wall. Jerking my head up, I realized it was just someone knocking on the metal door. "I'm okay," I called over the racket, standing up straight. I'd really hoped I could vomit so I'd feel better after, but I knew now that nothing would make me feel better, ever.
God, they would not stop pounding on the door. "I'm okay," I said again. Something hard and cold moved against my cheek. I was on the floor. I must have fainted. I lay on the public bathroom floor in my wet bathing suit. Glorious.
Slowly I sat up. I braced myself with my hands on the floor--nasty--but better my hands than my face. I took two deep breaths before scooting my back against the wall and easing my way up, standing again, eyes on the door. Something told me the persistent knocker would come through the door soon whether I liked it or not, and I needed to be standing up when that happened.
Sure enough, the dead bolt turned by itself as I watched. And I probably had floor cheese on my cheek. I ran for the sink and splashed cold water on my face, bracing myself against the wall with the other hand so I didn't fall down.
The door popped open a crack. The school's elderly janitor lady peeked in. "Zoey?"
"Hey, Ms. Roberts," I sang, reaching for a paper towel to blot my face. "Thanks for checking on me." Her face disappeared from the crack. Doug burst in, shouldering the door aside. "What are you doing?" he demanded.
"Looking for privacy!" I screamed hard enough that I felt dizzy again. "Can't I have a little f**king privacy?"
"No," he shouted back, "you can't disappear and lock the door, not when your mom--"
I squeezed the paper towel into a tight ball and hurled it at him. It bounced off his chest. We watched it roll across the floor. I knew I was not crazy, I was completely normal, because I suppressed an overwhelming urge to pick up the ball and put it in the trash can. I did not litter.
"Y passed out, didn't you?" he said.
"No."
"Come here," he said, switching both crutches to one arm and holding out the other arm for a hug.
"No," I barked. "Don't touch me. Get out of my way."
He was surprised enough that he scooted aside. I walked out the door.