Rarity by D. A. Roach Read Free Book Online Page A

with me.  The smile that grew on his face was beautiful.  I was in trouble.  How could I resist this guy?  He looked amazing in his team suit - trim with broad shoulders.  He took his spot on the block, shook his limbs loose, dove in at the starting tone, and swam like a fish.  He swam so fast and only took a single breath.  His speed and lung capacity helped him win the heat!  Meg and I jumped up clapping!  His teammates were congratulating him.  He was amazing.  He took off his goggles and went to talk to his coach.  His coach patted his back in congratulations.  They were chatting a bit longer and his coach stopped and was studying Jay’s face.  Jay glanced over at us and had a grim look on his face.  The team medic came over and was looking at Jay’s face too.  From our seats, nothing looked visibly wrong.  There was head shaking and Jay looked to be arguing with them.  He must have lost the argument because he threw his goggles down and stormed off.
     
    “What the hell’s going on? Did he disqualify?”  Meg asked.
     
    “I don’t know.  I don’t think so.  Why would they need the medic for a disqualification?”  We gathered our stuff and ran out of the meet to see if we could find Jay to learn what happened.  We looked everywhere but we couldn’t find him.  I went back to the pool area and pulled one of his teammates aside to ask what happened.  They didn’t know the details but heard he was pulled from the meet for an injury.
     
    “I wonder what happened.  He looked good and even won the event.  Jay looked mad at their decision and walked out of there on his own.  Must not be too bad.” I said.
     
    “I wonder why they were looking at his face.  Maybe he got cut on something,”  Meg commented. I nodded, it was probably something simple like that but didn’t want blood in the pool.  I could ask him the next day at school.
     
    Thursday morning I was anxious to get to school to see if Jay was there and if he was ok.  I passed by his locker and saw his teammates surrounding him at his locker and laughing.  Jay looked up and had a pair of sunglasses on.
     
    “Let’s see it,”  one of his swimmer’s said.  Jay took off the sunglasses and had blood in his eyes and bruising on his cheeks.
     
    “Jesus, you look like you got in a fight and ate a knuckle sandwich,”  his buddy remarked.  I stood frozen and staring.
     
    “Brogen!”  He shoved his sunglasses back on.
     
    “What happened?” I stammered out.  I was horrified, he looked awful and it scared me.
     
    “I’m ok. They call it a subjuncta something or other,  Basically I popped a blood vessel in my eye, and my face.  Guess I pushed myself too hard to impress a girl.”  I lifted the glasses from his face and gently traced my fingers along his bruised cheek.
     
    “You look awful.  Put these back on.”  He put the shades back on.  “What’s the treatment?”
     
    “It should go away in a week, you just kinda wait it out like any bruise.  I’ll look awesomely scary for the dance Saturday - too bad it’s not a Halloween dance.”  I laughed at his joke.  He always saw the bright side of things.
     
    “That was an impressive swim.  Are you allowed to swim again or is there a chance this can happen again.”
     
    “Oh, I’m gonna’ swim again, but maybe not as hard as I did at the meet.  So if you don’t mind holding that awesome spectacle you witnessed yesterday in your mind forever when you think of me swimming, I would appreciate it.”  Jay looked awful but he was always a bright ray of sunshine and I felt better just being in his presence.
     
    “Sure.”  I saw Becca approaching and decided to take that moment to break away.  “See ya’ around Nemo.”  Jay smiled as I walked away.  The glance I got from Becca was surprised followed by threatening and I chose to look away quickly and head to my locker.
     
    When I saw Meg later in the day I told her about Jay’s