DROWNING . . . . by Priaa Gauna

One summer about two years ago, I went to my friend Taylor house. It was a very hot day so we decided to go swimming in her pool. I don’t know how to swim so I stay in the shallow end of the pool. I really wanted to know how to swim so I asked Taylor to teach me how to swim, she said yeah. So we got started, first she taught me how to doggy paddle, I learned that fast so she started to teach me to float, I couldn’t do that. I kept trying but it was not working so we moved on to swimming laps under water. I kind of had that right, we got out the pool to eat, when we came back I really wanted to get in the deep in of the pool, but I was scared I didn’t know how deep it was so I asked Taylor, she told me it was 10 feet. When she told me that I was even more scared. I wanted to touch the bottom to see how deep it was but I couldn’t swim so I wouldn’t know how to get back to the top of the pool. Taylor told me she would hold my hand and we could go down so I can she hold deep it was, and then she would push me back up. Her mom said she was right there if I needed her so I agreed. We went to the edge of the 10 ft part and we had on the edge of the pool and our other hands were holding each other, we counted to three and we went down. We were about halfway down when I panicked and let go of her hand, I was thinking to myself that was a dumb idea to let her hand go because I knew I couldn’t swim. I felt around for her hand and I couldn’t find it I was sinking and I still couldn’t find her hand. I felt the top of her head on my hand , still panicking I pushed her head down so I could push back to the top, thinking she was going to drown to she pushed me back down. About five seconds after that I felt a hand pull me back up. When I caught my breath again we looked at each other and started to laugh.