Water had always freed her.

At eight she was noisily making her way through the woods behind their home to fling down the metal that accompanied her everywhere and slip carefully into the creek. In the water, without the braces on her legs and canes in her hands, she was just like everyone else. Better, even. Without that weight on her legs {and her mind} she was as graceful as she could ever hope, darting like a fish below the surface.

At age fourteen she was shy and quiet as ever until she was back in the water. Transformed by the pull of an ocean tide she became daring and courageous, teasing and splashing anyone who dared to come near. Riding waves she could grin and be her true self, the one that seemed to live farther and farther within.

At twenty she found strength again, the freedom of a few feet of pool water lending her the courage to return furtive kisses until fumbling turned to fucking. The water washed away the fear that held her so separate and she felt like a mermaid in the moonlight, quick and sure in the water as their hands explored wet skin. The feeling lasted until they climbed out. Sitting on the concrete, dressing as the water dripped from her hair, she felt like just another broken girl.

At twenty-six she avoided swimming the same way she avoided intimacy. Operations had replaced the metal she'd despised but in her head it still remained and she couldn't trust the lying freedom of water any more than she could trust men. She moved to the desert and put both out of her head.

At thirty-two she lost both her parents and moved back into the home she'd grown up in. Alone in a bedroom that still looked like that of a teenager, she felt sure she could hear the ripple of the creek almost a mile away.

At thirty-eight, she startled awake with the sound loud in her ears. In the cool blackness of predawn she slipped out the back door. Her robe caught sticks and leaves as she made her way down a path she still remembered. The rain swollen creek swirled the debris from the fabric as she stepped clumsily over mud-slick rocks toward the deepest area. Her breath slid out between her lips and she kept her eyes open as she went under.

Water had always freed her.