Of Misdemeanors and ***

Hayden gave me a skeptical stare and said in a rush of words, "I thought maybe I'd teach you how to swim." He looked at my blank expression for half of a moment and then quickly muttered, "Or something." Like it didn't really matter, or that he wished I would completely forget that he had said anything in the first place.

I was surprised by the offer. That wasn't where I had been expecting him to go with the conversation in the least. "Huh?" was my brilliant response. I was still staring at Hayden's back, since he hadn't yet decided to turn and face me again. "Swimming? Are you serious?" I asked with a nervous laugh. I was skeptical for a number of reasons.

Hayden turned around at that, his expression solemn. "Why not?" he said by way of response.

I laughed again, it was a high pitched weird sound that I hadn't meant to make. "Uh, it's the middle of winter? For one thing," I pointed out simply, still not sure how well his brain was functioning at that moment. "Another reason being, that I don't own a bathing suit," I added as more evidence that his idea was bizarre.

"There's an indoor pool connected to the Gym," Hayden began smoothly, defending his suggestion gallantly. "And, uh, as for the bathing suit thing..." he trailed off, looking embarrassed.

I felt my mouth dry out. What was that supposed to mean? I watched as Hayden strode over to his bed and disappeared on the other side of it, rummaging around underneath it until he seemed to dislodge something. When he emerged from behind the bed his face was almost beet red. At that point, I was starting to get nervous about whatever he had hidden on the other side of the bed, but at the same time, I wanted to know what the hell it was. In one quick motion, Hayden hurtled something at me and said, "Thereproblemsolved." He had said the sentence so fast that I wasn't quite sure if he had even spoken English.

I yelped in surprise and dodged away from the seemingly sudden attack. Whatever he had thrown at me whizzed past me and hit the wall with a muffled smack, before it slid to the floor and stayed there. Well, if nothing else, it wasn't breakable, or alive for that matter. Or if it had been alive, it probably wasn't doing too good now. He frowned at me, letting me know just how retarded he thought I was with that expression alone. On the bright side, my reaction seemed to distract him from his embarrassment. I turned and kneeled down to pick up whatever he had thrown and instantly recognized the object as a piece of clothing. Hanging from my hands was by far, the ugliest one-piece bathing suit I had ever seen in my entire life. My face must have rivaled a fire truck in its obscenely red color. In fact, move over "fire engine red", there's a new crayon about to hit the market: embarrassed-teenage-girl red. I think it's got a nice ring to it, it might just catch on.

...Alright, who am I kidding?

"Uh, its...certainly a bathing suit," I said as I stared down at the polka dotted lump in my hands. I tried not to look horrified when I pictured myself in it, but I wasn't sure I had quite managed to do so.

When I looked up, Hayden was practically boring holes into the side of my head before I met his gaze. "It's not supposed to be pretty," he defended instantly, his face still a steady shade of red.

"Well then. Mission accomplished there," I retorted, holding the bathing suit up to get a better idea of how it was shaped. What were the odds that he had even gotten me the right size? There was a black bow on the strap that I hadn't noticed initially, and somehow, when I saw it, it made the bathing suit look even worse. The real deciding factor, was the white fringe circling the waist. "Why the hell did you get me a bathing suit?" I asked incredulously, suddenly offended by the style he had picked out for me. On what Earth did he think I would wear something like that?

Hayden scowled at me. "I don't know if you know this. But, swimming in jeans and a T-shirt is pretty fucking annoying."

"Okay. Then why did you get me this bathing suit?" I asked instead, waving the object at him accusingly. "I don't think I've worn a one-piece since I was five," I added to further explain my point.

"I wasn't going to get you a damn bikini--how fucking creepy do you think I am?" Hayden asked, matching my dubious tone. "Did you want me to get you a two-piece instead?" he inquired mockingly.

I flushed a shade of red. "No, you fucking perv," I snapped instantly. Then his point abruptly dawned on me. "Oh. I see what you mean," I muttered sheepishly, my outrage fading into nonexistence. So that's why he had bought me the worst damn bathing suit he could manage. "Either way, I'm not wearing this," I proclaimed calmly, trying not to laugh as I tossed the bathing suit onto my bed.

Hayden exhaled heavily. "Okay. I think I get where you're coming from there." He rubbed the back of his neck absently and looked off to the side. "Well, whatever. It was a stupid idea anyway," he announced, sounding flustered.

"No it wasn't," I blurted before my brain fully processed what I was saying. Hayden side glanced me, looking ever-so-slightly surprised. I cleared my throat, there was no turning back at that point. "I mean, I do wanna, you know, learn how to swim. And stuff," I attempted to explain. My voice, however, was rising nervously, while my brain decided to abandon me and leave me to come up with a scatterbrained sentence on my own. "Just, not in that thing," I added, thrusting a finger at the abomination on my bed.

Hayden looked thoughtful and then actually turned to look me full in the face. "Okay. I think I have an idea then. You know, if you want to do it today anyway," Hayden said.

I felt like I was standing on a stage and he had just asked me a question that I didn't know the answer to. Then, my brain suddenly kicked in, and I made a coherent sentence. "That depends on your idea," I replied coolly.

Hayden smiled suddenly, and I felt my insides twist involuntarily. "How do you feel about wet suits?" he asked with an impish quirk of his mouth.

I laughed suddenly and shook my head. "I can honestly say I've never worn one. Where the hell are you gonna get a wet suit?" He must have been being sarcastic, right?

"The Gym," Hayden replied instantly. "There's a supply room with wet suits, goggles, snorkels. You know, pool stuff," he explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

There was an absent, disbelieving smile plastered onto my face. Shadowstep Academy had the weirdest shit stocked up in their supply rooms. "Pool stuff?" I repeated with a raised eyebrow. "That's more like the type of shit you'd keep around in case you ever went scuba diving for treasure on the ocean floor," I retorted sarcastically. I shrugged and let out a sigh. "Okay," I said with another laugh, "let's do it then."

Hayden smiled at me, the expression lighting up his entire face in a way that almost made me blush. Instead, I turned my mind in a different direction. Two words repeated in my head, as I attempted to keep my face solemn and serious. Dead kittens, dead kittens, dead kittens. Nothing embarrassing about that, I told myself silently. A bark of laughter blurted out of me at the absurdity of my thought process and Hayden gave me the strangest look, like I had told him that I was considering growing a beard. It didn't matter though, because my embarrassment had disappeared all the same. "What are you waiting for? Lead me to the magical trove of scuba diving gear," I said, making a grand gesture for him to make the first move.

Hayden rolled his eyes and started walking toward the door. "You're so fucking weird," he informed me absently. He had said that sentence so many times, that I'm pretty sure he didn't even realize when he was saying it anymore. It had certainly lost all meaning to me.



There was no mirror in the closet where I had changed into my wet suit, but I could only assume that I looked like an idiot. I was in a black and gray wet suit in the middle of Winter, getting ready to swim for the first time in my life. It certainly wasn't the most comfortable outfit I had ever worn. It was too tight in all the wrong places and I felt like my chest was painfully apparent. Regardless of how stupid I felt and probably looked, it was a million times better than the bathing suit that Hayden had bought for me. I would have to do a ritual dance later and set the absurd monstrosity on fire and send it to Hell. Hayden had offered to return it or something, but I decided that my idea was much more effective and I felt like it was my duty to rid the Earth of that unfortunate evil in the form of women's swimwear.

I took a breath to ready myself for any embarrassment that would be thrown my way, and then I exited the closet. Hayden was nowhere in sight, and I had to assume that he was already at the pool. I took a cursory glance around the hall and then hurried in the direction that Hayden told me to go in order to find the pool.

The room was wide and had a dome shaped ceiling. Directly in the center was a rectangular in-ground pool with lights shining through from the bottom of the clear blue water. I felt my nerves kick in the moment that I laid eyes on the pool. It was twelve feet deep on one end and five feet deep on the opposite end. I found myself gravitating toward the shallow end of the pool as I located Hayden in the room. A moment later I caught sight of Hayden on one side of the room, staring intently at the pool, seemingly lost in thought. I stared at him, wondering when he had found time to find swimming trunks when he looked up at me.

"Wow," he said, pushing his mouth into a tight line. I narrowed my eyes at him. That was the look of someone who was trying not to laugh. "I gotta say, I didn't expect you to look so...uh..."

"If the next word out of your mouth isn't 'fantastic', then I don't want to hear it," I snapped with a scowl, suddenly wishing that I could hide myself behind something.

Hayden laughed. "Sure. That's what I was gonna say. Let's go with that," he replied, nodding his head in mock agreement. If he hadn't sounded so patronizing, I might have almost believed him.

...Nah, not even then.

"So let's get this over with, it's fucking cold out here," I said quickly. I had to assume that the pool was heated, if not, I was calling off the entire ordeal. I shivered involuntarily and edged closer to the pool, stopping in front of the stairs.

"Yeah, good point," Hayden said from behind me. I heard the sound of fabric moving against skin and had to assume he had decided to swim without a shirt. Which, of course, made sense. However, I hadn't thought about him being shirtless until that exact moment. I just hoped that I would be able to focus on something other than his lovely, toned torso. Unfortunately, I hadn't had time to mentally prepare myself for what Hayden did next.

His arms circled around my mid section and he started hauling me toward the pool. I had never compared myself to an animal before, but at that moment, I felt like I had died and been reincarnated as a house cat. I locked one of my hands around Hayden's forearm and wrapped the other awkwardly behind my back where I tried to grab a fistful of Hayden's nonexistent shirt. He made a disgruntled noise and jumped when my nails had dug into his back. "Ouch! Holy fuck," he breathed sharply, pausing just at the edge of the pool.

"What are you doing?" I asked in a high pitched squeak of a voice. I wasn't even apologetic for tearing a chunk out of his back. My feet were moving futilely as I tried to touch the ground and get some leverage against Hayden's hold.

"You just clawed the shit out of my back!" he protested, ignoring my question.

"I don't give a flying fuck! Put me down," I ordered, my voice still raised to an abnormally high pitch.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you pools are colder if you don't just jump in?" Hayden asked, an amused tone set to his voice. He took another step closer to the pool. Apparently he didn't care about the involuntary attack I had made on his back anymore.

As if it wasn't bad enough that I had never swam before, he was planning on throwing me into a pool when I was obviously in the wrong mindset? How stupid could he get? Based off of every movie or TV show I had ever watched, as well as my own personal observation from high school life, it was a well known fact that boys were genetically wired to enjoy throwing girls screaming into pools. Much like breathing and bleeding once a month for girls, my research showed that it was just something that had to happen for boys. It was inexplicable, but I didn't have any evidence that disproved my theory, therefore I hence forth declare this phenomenon as a fact.

"I swear to God, I will rip more skin off your back if you don't put me down," I threatened. Although, a threat seemed less menacing when it was said by someone who's voice had raised a few octaves in panic.

Hayden laughed and turned away from the pool, so that we both had our backs to it. Thank God. The panic started to die down the moment I couldn't see the pool anymore. Out of sight out of mind indeed. "Excellent decision," I started to say, but the next half of my sentence died in my throat. The reason being because I had begun to fall backward, with Hayden dragging us both straight into the pool. Water surged around my head and I scrambled to hold my breath before chlorinated water rushed into my mouth. And Hayden was a liar, the water was still startlingly cold the moment it touched my skin. Whether you jumped in or inched in like a wuss, the end result was the same. The moment we were submerged in the water, Hayden let me go and I tore to the surface, gasping for breath.

"You ass hole!" I shouted, swiveling around to locate Hayden in the water. He was just coming out of the water several feet away from me, grinning like he had never seen anything as funny as me panicking in the face of the possibility of drowning.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?' he asked, his voice on the verge of breaking into laughter.

"I will kill you," I spat harshly as I waded toward him, flinging my arms awkwardly as I tried to propel myself in his direction. The water was a little higher than my shoulders and I cursed my short legs for hindering me in probably any physical activity I attempted. Only when my feet could no longer touch the bottom of the pool did I realize that Hayden was swimming in a deeper part of the pool and I was heading down a slope to the deep end of the pool. I flailed in a panic and sank beneath the water, scrambling across the bottom of the pool until I was in the shallow end again. I popped out of the water again, breathing heavily.

"Okay. Obviously I've got my work cut out for me," Hayden commented flippantly. He was treading water like he had been born in the damn water and swimming might as well have been second nature to him. I watched his arms move in almost circular motions and hated him for keeping his head above water so easily. He didn't even sound out of breath. "That was the worst attempt I've ever seen. You sink like a rock," he added unhelpfully.

I glared at him, heaving as I tried to hold still and catch my breath. "Well, you know what they say, fat floats," I said with a sneer.

Hayden grinned, seeming unaffected by the remark. "Yeah, you know what else helps you float? Moving your arms," he stated with a jubilant laugh. I was starting to regret agreeing to his stupid idea.

"I was moving my arms!" I argued, my face flushing despite myself.

"I saw. Did you notice that you were sort of just waving them around randomly? Try moving them together," Hayden suggested, sounding more like he was mocking me than trying to instruct me. He disappeared under the water suddenly and I watched as he slid beneath the surface of the water, heading in my direction. I backed up hastily and put my back to the concrete side of the pool.

Hayden emerged again, and stood a few feet away from me. He shook his hair out of his eyes and I had to admire how cute he looked with wet hair. "Okay, seriously now." He made a gesture for me to come toward him.

"No thanks, I like the wall," I retorted. I flexed my fingers and made a show of planting my hands palm down on the concrete.

"What if you're swimming and there isn't a wall around to grab onto?" he inquired snidely.

"I've avoided swimming for seventeen years. I think I can avoid it some more," I replied haughtily.

Hayden rolled his eyes. "Come on, Raven," he coaxed. There was an infuriatingly irresistible lopsided smile tacked onto his face.

I shuddered from the coolness of the water lapping against my skin, and partially from something else. "Whatever. What am I supposed to do? Instruct me already you jack ass," I snapped irritably, though I was trying to be a studious pupil. Since, if I didn't pay attention I would most likely kill myself in a swimming pool in the middle of a school. And that is a pretty embarrassing way to go.

"You don't have to go into the deep end until you can actually tread water," Hayden informed me coolly. Like he had a choice in the matter. If I couldn't tread water, then I sure as hell couldn't swim still, so obviously I wouldn't be going into the deep end. I kept my mouth shut however and nodded my head complacently. "So, uh." Hayden looked a little befuddled, and swept his hand through his hair as he considered something. "I'm not sure how to explain this," he admitted sheepishly.

I pressed my lips into a hard line to keep myself quiet for a successful half of a second. Then my words burst out of me. "Don't you think you should have considered that before you dragged me out here?"

Hayden glared at me, but there was no real anger behind his eyes. "Don't you think you should have some damn instincts to stay above water?" he countered lithely.

"I do have instincts to stay above water," I said defensively, tilting my nose derisively into the air. "They just...don't really work that well," I admitted in an undertone.

"We can fix that," Hayden assured me. A thoughtful expression crossed his features momentarily and then he smiled in what appeared to be a jolt of inspiration. "Okay, I've got it." He stared at me, with my hands still firmly clutching the wall. "But, uh, you've gotta move away from the wall first."

I sighed and complied with his request. Instantly, water gushed around my neck, sending a wave of momentary panic over me before it settled around me again. I inched toward Hayden, keeping my eye on the floor of the pool where it began to slope downward into deeper water. I stopped in front of him and leveled my gaze at him. "Now what?" I asked seriously.

Hayden was a whole head taller than me at the least, which was painfully apparent when he wasn't having trouble with water swirling dangerously close to his face. The biggest worry that he had was the possibility that his chest was get cold from staying out of the water. "Move your arms like this," he instructed sagely. His arms were moving in the same circular motions I had observed before, up close the movements were a bit easier to imitate. I caught myself staring at his biceps, and nearly bit my tongue off to distract myself.

I put all of my focus into my own arms as I moved them in circles. "They don't have to be such precise circles," Hayden said with a soft laugh.

My face reddened, and I was glad for the coolness of the pool. "Oh," was all I said. "Um, how is this helping?" I asked in order to draw attention away from my ability to take instructions too literally.

"You might as well practice moving your arms at the same time before you take another shot at swimming," Hayden said matter-of-factly. "Alright, that's pretty good," he added, motioning toward the movements I was making. "Now, try picking your feet up and doing the same thing," he ordered.

I hesitated, and gave him a skeptical look before I complied with the request. I lifted my feet underneath me and moved my arms in the circles that Hayden had showed me. Much to my surprise, I stayed above the water for at least fifteen seconds before I started to sink. I slammed my feet down the instant water splashed into my eyes. "That," I paused and took a breath, "didn't work," I accused as if he had tried to hold my head under water. Not that he would have had to, since I was pretty good at taking care of it all on my own.

Hayden was laughing at me, which only made me angrier. "Of course it didn't. You have to move your legs too, Jesus, that's just common sense." He drifted away from me absently, kicking his feet and propelling himself backward. "I dunno how you've avoided swimming for so long," he commented inattentively. "It's awesome."

"It's highly overrated," I replied gruffly. I noticed that his ears were under water and wondered if he could even hear me. When he didn't respond and just continued to float away from me on his back while he stared up at the ceiling, I decided to make a second attempt at keeping myself floating. After observing Hayden's technique, I leaned back and barely kept my face from disappearing beneath the surface of the water. Everything was muted, yet my breathing was loud and clear. It was eerie, in a way. I kicked my feet lightly and drifted so slowly that water barely moved around my face. Hell, this was way easier than whatever Hayden had been trying to teach me. Why didn't I just float on my back whenever I went swimming? It was effortless. He really made a big deal out of nothing. Honestly, if I had known I could just lean back and relax in water, I would have done it years ago.

The back of my head collided with something and I snorted, jolting upward without meaning to. "Hey, careful," Hayden said, though I couldn't quite see him. "Look at you, swimming in the deep end like a pro," he added lightheartedly.

I would have retorted, but the moment I jolted upward, I had begun to sink yet again. And unlike a few moments before, I couldn't touch the bottom of the pool whenever I started to freak out. I flung my arms through the water and tried to surge to the surface again, though I failed until I made a conscious effort to move my arms in sync. Even though I was making progress, I felt like my air was running out much faster than I was comfortable with. Which only made my thoughts sporadic and sent me into a blind frenzy to reach the surface of the water. A moment after my thoughts had scattered, Hayden's hand closed around my wrist and he yanked me upward sending me soaring to the surface while he sank momentarily. I took a deep breath before I attempted to tread water while I sought out the edge of the pool.

It was much further away than I would have liked. Before I could make a break for it, however, Hayden appeared beside me, heaving while he caught his breath. "Are you all--" he had begun to ask, but I rudely interrupted him when I hooked my arms around his shoulders, trying to use him as a floatation device. He gasped and sank underneath my weight, sending me plunging into the water again. I snapped my eyes shut to avoid the sting of chlorine, which only seemed to make the whole situation worse when everything went black. Beneath the water I sputtered where I had inhaled a bit of water. Oh God, I was going to drown in a swimming pool and I was trying to take Hayden with me.

Hayden's hands were pulling at my arms until he finally got one free. He hooked his arm around my waist and swung me around in front of him, dislodging my other arm as well. By then we had hit the bottom of the pool, which I discovered when I had kicked wildly and scraped my foot along the concrete. Hayden's arm was still around my waist, but that was a very small comfort when I was drowning. Unexpectedly, Hayden lurched upward, pulling me with him as he rocketed toward the surface again.

The moment my head was out of the water I gasped for air and forced my eyes to stay open. The edge of the pool, something stable that I could grab onto. I wanted to reach it, but my arms had decided that moving wasn't the best way to deal with my current situation. Instead, I had locked them around Hayden's torso at some point. Apparently my body had wanted me to go down with the ship.

Uneasily, Hayden edged toward the wall, dragging me along with him while I offered no help whatsoever. It took all of my focus to convince myself that I wasn't drowning again when the water splashed me in the face as he moved. Hayden grabbed onto the side of the pool and kept us both floating while he tried to catch his breath. "What," he took a deep breath and let it out, "the fuck, was that?" he asked sharply. I couldn't exactly see his expression, since I was busy clinging to him for dear life, but from his tone alone, I had a feeling he wasn't too happy with me.

I was breathing heavily, but at least I was out of danger, so I was calming down. With that calm, came the sudden realization that I was pinning myself against Hayden's bare chest. On one hand, he was relatively warm for someone who had been in water for the past hour or so, on the other hand, my brain cells were starting to fry themselves like moths on a bug zapper. "That," I began shakily, "was me trying to kill you." The joke was the only thing that came to mind while I attempted to regain control over my arms to disentangle them from Hayden.

"Obviously. Holy shit," Hayden heaved a sigh of what sounded like relief. "You were doing fine until you ran into me, you dumb ass," he snapped, shifting to the side like he could scrape me off on the wall like gum on the bottom of his shoe.

I yanked my arms apart and swiveled rapidly so that I was facing the wall to slap my hands down on the concrete like it was trying to escape me. "You got it?" I heard Hayden ask me, and then realize that his arm was still around my waist.

I nodded and replied, "Yeah."

Hayden's arm released me and he moved several inches away, though I couldn't quite bring myself to look at him yet. The silence that stretched between us was when I started to feel the embarrassment clawing its way out of me. It would have been something entirely different, if I had freaked out when we were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and I had plunged into the ocean and been swept away by the waves. That was something that I could freak out about and get away with. But no, I had freaked out in a swimming pool that was probably only twenty feet wide that I had been floating perfectly fine only a few minutes before.

"Seems like you've got some panic issues," Hayden commented finally, breaking the silence.

"I guess so," I admitted under my breath. I cleared my throat and started to pull myself along the edge of the pool, toward the nearest ladder. "I think that's enough swimming lessons for the day," I added without looking at Hayden. I pulled myself up onto the ladder and exited the pool gladly.

Hayden sank beneath the water and swam to the shallow edge of the pool while I searched for a towel or something to dry myself off with. "Why do I get the feeling," Hayden had begun to say as he climbed out of the water, "that I'm never getting you back in a pool?"

I glanced at him over my shoulder, but he wasn't looking at me. I scoffed. "You're wrong about that," I replied easily. Chances were, I would figure out how to swim even if it killed me. Which, if I kept up my current success rate, it just might. I peered out one of the high windows in the room and noticed that the sun had sunk way further into the sky. "Oh shit, what time is it? Do you think Leon and Damion are back yet?" I asked, turning to look at Hayden again.

In the midst of pulling his shirt back over his head, Hayden nodded his head. "Probably. Wanna go check?" he asked distractedly. He raised an eyebrow at me thoughtfully. "If I wasn't mistaken, I'd almost think that you were excited about drinking now," he added with a sly smile.

I rolled my eyes dramatically. "Yeah. Being around three idiots who will be drinking and acting even dumber than usual will be so much fun," I replied sarcastically. What he didn't need to know, was that I really was excited for the drinking to start. I didn't plan on drinking myself, which is what would make it all the more fun for me when they were the ones stumbling around like my favorite moronic friends.

Hayden walked up beside me and dropped a towel around my shoulders. Where the hell had he gotten that from? "Uh-huh," he deadpanned. "You aren't foolin' me. You're so stoked," he taunted cheerfully. I almost forgot to retort when his arm draped around my shoulders inattentively as he started to lead me toward the door.

I stiffened physically and practically felt my brain shut down. My mind wandered to how normal the whole situation felt. I could fit under his arm perfectly, if my brain just wouldn't spin in circles until I freaked myself out. I shoved Hayden sideways and made a face at him as he stumbled and grinned at me. "Whatever," was the only response I could come up with, without seeming suspiciously like he had embarrassed me.

That bastard.