The Diving Board

*Gulp* Dear God, what was I doing up here? How do I get myself into these messes? Why did I take the boys up on the dare to do this just to save face? Am I really not as brave as I thought? I wonder if I wet myself right now what would be more embarrassing? Standing on the diving board, twelve feet above the water, knees knocking, hand and shoulders shaking in uncontrollable fear. This is the furthest up I had ever been in my eleven years. I stared at the rippling blue water of the twelve foot pool from the high dive watching the sun reflect and dance across the water like fireflies, promising me a refreshing bath of warm pool water, only if I had the guts to jump. The longer I stared at the water, the more the water seemed to taunt me. "You can't do it. You are too much of a chicken to break the even surface of me. You don't have the guts!" Gulping again, I dared to hazard a look down at the bottom of the ladder from the high dive. I felt like I was thirty stories up. At the bottom stood my cousin and his friends, staring smugly up at me. The looks on their faces calling me the coward that I was, just waiting for me to climb sheepishly back down the ladder and run crying into the girls locker room. But then, I happened to look at Tanya. Her eight-year-old face staring intently back at me. The look of anger on her face at the taunting boys, but what I noticed more was the look of confidence in her eyes. "Come on and jump! We don't have all day!" One of the boys yelled, followed by a chorus of other cat calls and snarky comments. "Shut up! She's gonna jump just let her alone for a minute!" Tanya yelled back at them. She turned back to gaze up at me, her green-gold eyes showing her faith in me as if to say "You got this! Show them you can do it!" I smiled tremulously at her and looked back to look at the water below my dripping toes. "Get her down! She is too chicken!" one of the taunters yelled. I saw the life guard stand up and start to climb down his perch to come fetch me. No way! I was not going to let the beefy high schooler come up the ladder and drag me back down. I was already humiliated enough! I would never be able to show my face at the public pool again! With one last glance at Tanya, I turned, sucked all the air I could into my lungs, closed my eyes and jumped. I fell for what felt like an eternity. I was sure that I was falling to my death into the depths of Hell from whence I would never return. The warm summer air rushing around my body as I plummeted toward the water. The blood pounding furiously in my ears. My own heartbeat drowning out all sounds around me. When would I hit? Was this a test? Would I live to see tomorrow or would I shatter into a million pieces upon impact? Just before I hit the water, I heard one sound and one sound only. The sound of my cousin, Tanya, yelling, "ALRIGHT!" I plunged into the bright blue depths, the warmth enveloping me in a watery caress. Air exploded from my over inflated lungs as my feet touched the bottom of the twelve foot pool. Forcing my eyes open, I stared upward and saw the watery sun above the pool. The chlorine burned my eyes and my now empty lungs were starting to crave oxygen. I crouched and pushed off the bottom of the pool with my feet, sending me rocketing to the top. I broke the surface of the water and sucked in fresh air. I could hear Tanya yelling excitedly and taunting the boys that I was NOT a scaredy cat or a chicken or a wuss. She was dancing around and pointing at them and taunting them. I wiped the water from my eyes as I treaded water. I made eye contact with the boys and promptly stuck my tongue out at them and then swam toward the ladder of the pool, pulling myself out and shaking my head. Tanya came running up to me, ignoring the life guard yelling "No running!" she grabbed me and hugged me. "See! I told you you could do it! Those guys are idiots." She kept up a steady stream of confidence building chatter as I went to grab my towel. The boys, who were now bored with the fact that they couldn't make me cry, took off to play a game of Marco Polo in the six foot. ignoring us completely. I turned to Tanya, "Thanks. I was scared as heck to do that." "Yeah," she said enthusiastically, "I know! But you showed them! Bunch of idiots." (this was her favorite word at the time.)she grabbed her towel, "Come on, let's go to the Dairy-O for a large chocolate cone. You deserve it!" The moral of the story~ Chocolate Ice Cream fixes everything!