The Diving Board

The Pool

Every single day that summer, Caden walked past the diving board.

It stood at the deep end of the Maple Street Pool like a tongue sticking out over the water—a flat, bumpy, blue-and-white tongue that bounced when the big kids ran down it and launched themselves into the air. They'd tuck and spin and slice into the water like arrows. Easy. Like it was nothing.

Caden could swim. He could swim well, actually. He could do the crawl stroke all the way across the deep end without stopping. He could float on his back for so long that once a lifeguard poked him with a pool noodle to make sure he was still alive. He could hold his breath underwater and touch the drain at the bottom, no problem.

But diving off that board?

No.

Nope.

Not yet.

Every day he'd set his towel on the same chair—the green one with the wobbly leg, third row from the snack bar—and he'd swim and splash and race his friends and do cannonballs off the side. And every day, at some point, he'd find himself standing by the chain-link fence near the deep end, watching.

Watching other kids climb the three metal steps.

Watching them walk to the edge.

Watching them jump, or dive, or sometimes just belly-flop so hard the smack echoed off the bathroom building.

His friend Priya caught him staring one afternoon in July. "You wanna go off the board?"

"Maybe," Caden said, which was the word he used when he meant yes, very badly, but also my stomach feels like it's full of bees.

"It's fun," Priya said. "You just walk off. You don't even have to dive."

"I know," Caden said. And he did know. That was the thing. He knew exactly what to do. Walk to the end. Bounce if you want. Jump. The water catches you. He'd seen it a million times.

But between knowing and doing, there was a gap. And the gap felt about as wide as the Grand Canyon, which he'd learned about in school and which was one mile deep, and that seemed about right.

August came. The summer was getting that tired, golden feeling, where the days were still hot but the shadows stretched a little earlier. School supplies had appeared in the store windows downtown. Caden's mom had already bought his new backpack. It was red.

Time was running out.

One Tuesday morning, Caden woke up and lay in bed staring at the ceiling. His ceiling had those little bumps on it, like tiny mountains. He stared at them and thought about the diving board.

Today, he thought.

Then his stomach did that bee thing again.

Today, he thought once more, a little louder inside his head. Not tomorrow. Not next time. Today.

He ate his cereal. He brushed his teeth. He put on his swim trunks—the blue ones with the sharks—and grabbed his towel and his goggles, and his mom drove him to the pool.

The air smelled like chlorine and sunscreen and hot concrete. A lifeguard's whistle shrieked somewhere. Kids screamed and laughed. Everything was completely normal.

Caden set his towel on the green chair with the wobbly leg, third row from the snack bar.

He got in the pool.

He swam a few laps to warm up. He waved to Priya, who was doing handstands in the shallow end with her sister. He floated on his back and looked at the sky, which was so blue it almost seemed real.

And then he got out.

He walked along the edge of the pool, water dripping off him, leaving dark footprints on the hot concrete. He walked past the four-foot marker. Past the five-foot marker. Past the no-running sign. All the way to the deep end.

The diving board waited.

Nobody was in line. That almost never happened. It felt like the universe had cleared a path, and now there was nothing between Caden and the board except air and three metal steps.

He put his foot on the first step.

The metal was warm from the sun and gritty under his wet foot.

Second step.

His heart was going fast now. Really fast. Like it was trying to run somewhere without him.

Third step.

He was up. He was on the board. The bumpy, sandpapery surface stretched out in front of him—longer than it looked from down below. Way longer. The pool shimmered at the end of it, blue and deep and wide.

Caden took one step. Then another.

The board had a little bounce to it. A little give. Like it was alive. Like it was breathing.

He walked to the middle and stopped.

From up here, everything looked different. The pool looked smaller and deeper at the same time. He could see the black lane lines on the bottom wavering like snakes. He could see all the way to the snack bar, where someone's dad was buying a popsicle. He could see Priya, who had stopped doing handstands and was watching him.

Keep going, he told himself.

He took another step. And another.

The end of the board.

He curled his toes over the edge. The board dipped slightly under his weight, and a tiny thrill shot through his legs. Below him, the water moved and sparkled. It was right there. It was always right there.

His brain started making a list of all the reasons to turn around.

What if it hurts?

What if I land wrong?

What if everyone's watching?

What if—

But then another thought came. Quieter. Calmer. Like a voice from somewhere deep in his chest.

You can swim. The water will catch you. You've always known how to do this.

Caden bent his knees.

He swung his arms back.

And he jumped.

For one second—one huge, stretched-out, sparkling second—he was in the air. Just in the air, with nothing holding him up and nothing pulling him down, and the world was made of sky and light and the feeling of his stomach lifting up like a balloon.

Then the water.

It rushed up and wrapped around him—cool and loud and everywhere—and he plunged down, down, down into the blue, bubbles swirling past his ears, the pool swallowing him whole in the best possible way.

His feet touched the bottom.

He pushed off and shot back up, breaking the surface with a gasp and a grin so big it pushed his goggles crooked.

"YES!" he heard Priya scream from across the pool. "CADEN!"

He laughed. Water streamed down his face and into his mouth and he didn't care. He was laughing and breathing hard and his heart was still pounding, but it wasn't the scared pounding anymore. It was the other kind. The I-did-it kind. The kind that felt like fireworks going off inside his chest.

He swam to the ladder and pulled himself out, legs shaky, grin still stuck on his face.

He walked back to the diving board.

Nobody was in line. Still nobody.

He climbed the three steps. He walked to the end. He curled his toes over the edge.

This time, the bees were still there—but they were smaller. Quieter. More like butterflies, really.

He jumped again.

And it was even better.

He went off the board seven more times that day. Seven! By the fifth time, he tried bouncing before he jumped, and his whole body flew higher, and he yelled "WOOOOO!" all the way down, and when he came up, even the lifeguard was smiling.

When his mom picked him up, his hair was wild and his eyes were red from the chlorine and he was so tired his legs felt like cooked spaghetti.

"How was the pool?" she asked.

Caden climbed into the back seat and clipped his seatbelt. He leaned his head against the warm window.

"Good," he said.

Then he smiled.

"Really, really good."