Relax. Inhale. Exhale. Breath. Slip through the water. Warm. It fills your lungs and surrounds your heart. White noise, filling your ears-it's all you can do to hear, the heartbeat, slow. Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.

I rise to the surface and sputter, spitting out water and taking a deep breath.
I want the sun to warm my face, but there's a shadow blocking it's way. I open my eyes, slowly, they're blurred for a moment, and then I meet the familiar night-sky eyes. I flinch back, letting out a surprised squeal. He laughs, his eyes twinkling with stars, crinkling perfectly at the corners, the dimples showing at the sides of his lips. He's sitting at the edge of the dock, his feet dangling in the water just inches from me. “Hi” is all he says as he reaches a hand out to me.
He talks about the weather and his great summer, and sometimes I hate him.
We go for snow cones—“Cherry?” He asks, knowing. Just like I know he'll get blue raspberry, like he always has, since we were five. We sit on the swings, so familiar, I almost want to laugh. He sticks out his tongue, asks what color it is. I roll my eyes, “Blue.”
I feel five again, like I should be wearing my pink rose bathing suit and pigtails—he should look goofy, with those big ears and missing front teeth. But we're not five. We're seventeen and it's the summer before our senior year. And his teeth are perfect, white and straight from years of dental work.
I wish we were thirteen again. He was so skinny and awkward, with his freckles and braces and messy bed hair, and I was the only girl who ever looked at him. He was my first kiss that summer, warm and sticky, tasting like blue raspberry, which I hate, but it was okay because it was him.
I'm glad we're not fifteen anymore, because that was the summer he wasn't around. His voice got deeper, his braces were off, and he was perfect and cute. He had a girlfriend, she hated me; and all I wanted was my best friend with his squeaky voice and crooked teeth.
If we were sixteen again I would do things differently. It was the summer we fought—he punched my boyfriend and I broke his heart.
He's watching me now, and I want to kiss him again. I laugh. “Your lips are blue.” He smiles, just a little, and says softly, “Yours are red.” I wonder what's wrong with him, but he leans forward, grabbing the chain of my swing and pulling me towards him. I gasp, and our noses almost touch. I see a new look in his star-lit eyes and I bite my lip. He kisses me and it tastes like blue raspberry, and it's warm and sticky, but there's something different as he puts a hand on the back of my neck, and I love being seventeen.