The gym’s indoor swimming pool smells like chlorine and summer even though it's November.

I come here three times a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays after school when there's no art club, Saturdays around three in the afternoon when all the kid’s classes are done and before the evening rush of the general classes and masters training.

The locker room is empty except for an old man getting dressed by the far wall. I change quickly: navy swim trunks, goggles, cap. I fold my uniform into my bag, then lock it away.

The pool area is better. High ceilings, big windows, six lanes. Only two other people are swimming right now: a middle-aged woman doing leisurely breaststroke in lane one, and a guy maybe college-age doing butterfly in lane four, all power and splash.

I take lane six in the far end. The water's cold when I slip in. I let myself sink for a moment, feeling that first shock to the body. Then I surface, adjust my goggles, and push off the wall.

I start off with freestyle; arms cutting through water, breath every third stroke, kick steady. The rhythm comes automatically now. I don't have to think about it anymore—my body just knows.

One lap, two laps, five, ten.

My mind starts to quiet. I don’t really go here for fitness, though my PE teacher says I should join the swim team because I have good form, apparently. I don’t do it for fun, either, though there's something about moving through water that feels right in a way nothing else does.

I come here because the pool is honest.

You can't pretend in water. You're either swimming or you're sinking. You're either breathing or you're not. Everything is simple.

Unlike school, where I have to brush off Itagaki’s ‘jokes’ and pretend they don't make me want to break his nose. Or at home, where I have to act like I'm fine when my mom asks how my day was because telling her the truth would just make her worry more. Even in art club, I have to produce something meaningful because my scholarship depends on it. And at church…

…I don’t even want to get into that.

But in the pool, all I have to do is move.

When I reach twenty laps, I switch to backstroke.

The ceiling tiles and the fluorescent lights pass overhead in a steady rhythm. The water in my ears makes everything sound distant and muffled. It’s just me and my breathing and the water.

I've been swimming since last year, my third year of middle school. Learned properly, I mean. I could swim before—everyone learns the basics—but I didn't know how to really swim until recently.

My parents were worried about me. I'd come home from middle school and go straight to my room. I stopped eating properly, or talking much. My dad asked what was wrong and I said nothing, which was technically true because nothing specific was wrong, it was just everything in general.

Everything was just generally wrong.

Someone from church suggested swimming, said it might help. My dad gave me money for the pool membership.

At first, I went because I didn't want to disappoint him, then I kept going because it worked—something about the repetition, the way each lap is the same but different. When you’re swimming, you have to focus on breathing or you'll choke. Your muscles burn but you keep going anyway.

And if I wanted to, I could just stop. I could let go, and sink down to the bottom.

Thirty laps.

I pause at the wall to catch my breath. The college guy has finished and is sitting on the edge of his lane, checking his phone. The woman is still doing her slow breaststroke, relaxed and peaceful.

I have a goal.

I haven't told anyone about it, and I probably will never tell anyone. It's just mine.

I started at ten laps but I could barely finish it. Now I'm at thirty-five on a good day. Forty once, but I was useless the next day and could barely lift my arms in art club.

Sixty feels impossible and possible at the same time.

Some days I think about what comes after sixty, whether I'll set a new goal or if sixty is enough. I wonder to myself if there's a point where I can say okay, I did it, I'm done now, good job, me.

Other days I think about not finishing and stopping mid-lap and just...letting go. See if someone will notice before it’s too late.

Those are bad days.

Today isn't a bad day, I think. Today is just a day, gray and ordinary. Itagaki stopped by my classroom, made his usual comments. Tanaka-sensei assigned homework. I sketched during lunch. Art club ran as usual the day before.

It’s all ordinary and fine. At this point in my life, ordinary and fine are the best I could hope for.

I push off the wall again. Backstroke for five more laps, then freestyle for the rest.

Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight.

My shoulders are starting to burn, which is a good sign. I focus on that pain.

Thirty-nine, forty.

The college guy leaves. It's just me and the woman now.

Forty-one, forty-two.

I’m tired. I'm really tired. But I've been more tired before. I can do three more.

Forty-three. My form is getting sloppy—I can feel it. My arms aren’t cutting clean through the water anymore.

Breathing is harder at forty-four. I cough out the water getting into my mouth before I can swallow it.

Forty-five.

I stop at the wall. My whole body is shaking, my vision is a little blurry around the edges.

Forty-five. Fifteen short of the goal, but that's okay. That's five more than last week. Progress is still progress, as my sister would say.

I haul myself out of the pool and sit on the edge for a minute, legs dangling in the water. My heart is pounding and I'm exhausted, but in a good way, if there's such a thing.

The woman finishes her lap and swims over. She's older than I thought, maybe around sixty.

"You’re a strong swimmer, young man," she says. "I see you here sometimes."

"Ah, well…." I'm surprised she noticed, let alone talking to me. “It’s just practice.”

"How many laps today?"

"Forty-five."

"Impressive. I can barely do ten anymore." She smiles. "Keep it up. You're doing great."

She climbs out and heads to the locker room.

I sit there a little longer as the water drips off me onto the tiles. Somewhere, a filter hums. The pool's surface is calm now, barely rippled.

When I was twelve, I read about a Buddhist concept: the idea that suffering exists because we're always wanting things to be different than they are.

Wanting to be someone else, somewhere else, some other time.

Wanting the wanting to stop.

Swimming helps with that. When I'm in the water, I'm just here, in the now, moving to stay afloat.

Everything else fades out.

Forty-five laps today. Fifty next week, maybe. And then next month, hopefully sixty.

And after sixty...I don't know. Maybe I’ll find a new goal. Or better yet, I won’t need one anymore.

I grab my towel from the bench and head to the locker room. My legs feel like jelly. My arms are dead weight. I'll probably be sore tomorrow.

In the shower, I let the hot water beat down on my shoulders and wash away the chlorine smell…or try to. It never fully comes out. My mom says she can always tell when I've been swimming because I smell like the pool for even hours afterward.

She doesn't mind, though. She said it's good that I have something I do just for myself.

If she knew what I think about sometimes, in the water, she wouldn't think it was so good.

But those are just thoughts. I don't act on them.

Not yet, anyway.

Not today.