I never knew she existed until my third year here. It was the same for her. Two years without us realizing each other’s presence. It wasn’t a surprise, really. The school was large and there was no time to meet everybody here. We had two classes together, although we never really talked. It was the time when I saved her from drowning that we finally befriended each other.
Was it a coincidence that I was the one who saved her? Nobody was fast enough anyway. And what kind of person joined a pool party when they couldn’t even swim? Her, I supposed.
It was a junior trip to New York. There happened to be a pool in the hotel we were in and some people knew about it. They brought swimsuits with them and held a party after curfew. She happened to be one of them. Her friends were bothering her about it. I knew about the party, but I didn’t exactly want to go.
I did sneak a peek.
The time was so perfect too. The first thing I noticed was her with her dirty blond hair. She wore a pink swimsuit with a few white flower patterns here and there. Eli was ready, but she wasn’t going to dive into the pool. She dipped her feet in the water occasionally. The rest of her time, she wandered about the pool. Some of the other juniors were messing around, and pushed one of their friends. This caused the boy who was pushed to bump into Eli and shoved her into the pool.
People’s reaction was to laugh, although they got a tad worried after a few seconds. Yet the people in the pool didn’t even help her. And that pissed me off.
I wore a large fur jacket at the time, and it weighed me down. Throwing it to the floor, I quickly dashed to the pool and plunged in. As expected, she was at the bottom, hardly struggling. To be honest, I wasn’t a very good swimmer myself. But I managed, barely. I was almost out of breath myself when I reached the surface. Bringing her up to the dry ground, the girl was unconscious. I checked by slapping her cheeks a few times. Not that hard, though. It was a deep pool and it took me at least a minute or so to swim back up. Then again, it was partially her fault also for dragging me. I shouldn’t be blaming her.
Eli wasn’t breathing, waters in her lungs. Of course, nobody was willing to perform CPR. Even if somebody’s life was on the line… almost. Either way, it didn’t matter. I was here. If only I could remember how to do CPR. Everybody was watching me, so I had to say, “Haven’t any of you idiots called the teachers or the staffs?”
With that, I had insurance just in case I failed. I didn’t know the rhythm I had to go on or how many beats. I had never done this before, and I had never learned it. But there will always be a first time, right?
I started out in a fast pace. One, two, three. I pumped hard and rapidly on her chest. One, two, three. Come on, Talia, haven’t you seen any kinds of movies that involve things like this? Probably not. I haven’t seen a movie in a year. After a few for pumps, I pinched her nose, raised her chin, and blew into her mouth. Twice. A few more should do.
One more push, and luckily, water spurted out. She coughed, and sat up. With a sigh, I glanced around to see if any teacher was here, or at least anybody coming in to help. Nobody still. Oh, well. I picked her up like a princess, making her blush a bit. “W—what are you doing?”
“Which room are you in?”
She was denying me, trying to get off, and yet her arms were around me. Funny. In the end, she gave up since she didn’t want to stay here anymore, and whispered her room number.
Nothing special really happened after that, you should already know the rest anyway. If you didn’t, let me sum it up for you. I brought her back to her room, her head dug into my chest the entire time. She thanked me, and I went back to my room. I was leaving wet footprints still, since I didn’t really dry up or anything like that. The next day, I was greeted by her. I supposed that was where we really started conversing with each other.
The Twilight Forest 