Tongue Tied

Therapy had gone surprisingly well.

Sidney attempted to do the exercises I instructed him to do, and by the end of the session any awkwardness that could have carried over from last night had been forgotten about, and we just had an overall good time—at least as good of a time as you could have during a physical therapy session.

After Sidney finished up and made his way towards the change rooms, I pulled the athletic shorts that were still damp and hung low around my hips off, and tossed them onto the bleachers, running towards the pool and doing a cannonball.

The water felt cool and refreshing against my skin, despite getting out just fifteen minutes ago. Slowly I began to do laps up and down the lanes. For the first time since Beijing, I was swimming- actually swimming- in a pool. A race solely against myself.

I was in the pool for what seemed like a few seconds. When I surfaced to the water after doing 200 M, Sidney was sitting on the edge of the pool, his feet dipped into the water and his messy, curly brown hair was sticking up in every which direction.

“Don’t you get all pruney from sitting in the water all day?” He grinned, pulling up his pant legs and splashing me with water. Shrugging from the other side of the pool, I slipped underneath the water and popped up right next to him with a splash.

“You get used to the water. Pruned skin stopped bugging me when I turned seven.”

He shrugged, and the room became silent. All the awkwardness that wasn’t encountered during the swim was creeping up and suddenly I felt very off.

“I’m sorry about yesterday.” He replied, as I pulled myself up from the pool and onto the deck. I shrugged. What more could I have done? I hadn’t exactly reacted in probably the way he hoped yesterday, hence why we were here, and hence why he was apologizing.

“It’s fine.”

“No it’s not.” He countered, and my skin started to crawl. Who was he to know whether or not it was fine? “You’re not fine.” He replied with a cool tone, and now I was really getting upset.

Obviously I hadn’t been fine in a long time.

“I am perfectly fine.” I replied, not looking him in the eyes, but adverting my gaze towards the pool. He grabbed my hand roughly, and pulled my arm so I was facing him.

“Look me in the eyes, and tell me you’re fine.” He instructed as I tried to break his gaze. Uncomfortably I looked him in the eye, but couldn’t say it. I wasn’t going to lie to myself. “See?”

“Okay, I’m not fine, okay? I haven’t been fine in a long time; three years, long time.” I replied shortly.

“And now you’re going to try and throw a bunch of displaced anger at me, and when I ask what’s wrong you shut me down.”

“I barely know you.”

“You know me enough to tell me you’re natural hair color is blonde, and that you like cheesy romantic comedies, and in your free time you bake, and that if you could go back to school you’d be a special education teacher to students who have Down Syndrome and Autism.”

“We were just playing a stupid game.” His face sunk. I wasn’t going to admit to him that part of me enjoyed last night. That would have been showing weakness, and I wasn’t weak.

“Are you like this with everybody?” I held my breath before I answered.

“Like what?”

“So up and down. Last night we had a lot of fun, don’t lie about it; and then I kissed you, which I liked, and you completely fell apart. Let me in, let me into the world of Caroline Sutton and why she has all this displaced anger, and why she’s no longer an Olympian, nor considers herself one, or why she wears a wedding ring and is ‘sort of married’, but wont confirm, but wont go on dates.” He was so sweet and I was so fucked up.

“I have a no fraternization clause on my contract.” I admitted to try and divert the question. I knew eventually it would come down to telling him the whole story. Eventually I would either break or tell him, or he would find out himself- probably from online- and come back asking questions.

He was inquisitive like that.

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Actually it wasn’t. “You just don’t want to actually open up to somebody, you’re too scared to open up to somebody that you push everyone away. That’s what Alexa said.”

I should’ve known she was behind that. Alexa always tried to put her nose where it didn’t belong. Hence the date last night.

I was torn. Just let him know now or wait for him to find out himself?

“I’m broken.” I explained plain and simple. A small, yet sad smile tugged on his lips.

“Then let me help you be fixed.” He replied, rubbing his calloused thumb over my palm. I pulled my hand away and rubbed my eyes with the back of my palm in an attempt to stop all the waterworks.

“You don’t want to deal with me, I’m so messed up. So much passed fucked up.”

“Try me.”

I sighed and took a deep breath. The most difficult part would only be coming up.

~~~~~

“You see that baseball bat mark in the bleachers over there?” I asked, pointing towards the section. With a small grin he nodded, and I pulled my knees up to my chest. My therapists always said it was my way of telling people how I was feeling without letting them in.

“Yeah?”

“After Beijing, I came in here one night with a baseball bat and just beat up the bleachers. Most of them have been replaced, but for some reason that one was saved. I don’t ask why, I don’t want to know. But everyday I’ve been constantly haunted by them. I don’t have displaced anger, believe me those bleachers received my anger. I have displaced hurt.” At least that’s what the psychiatrists called it.

“Okay…” I guess that was code word for continue.

“Are you want to hear the Curiously Fucked Up Case of Caroline Sutton?”

“I would.”

“You asked for it, then.” I joked, pulling my sweater over my head, and burying my face into it. Within a matter of minutes everything would be exposed.

“I don’t remember most of it…. Actually. Like I remember everybody acting strange around me. All of Team USA swim acted odd while we were in Beijing. I thought maybe it was just some prank or something they were pulling on me because that type of stuff was typical… but it wasn’t. I came back to the athlete’s village one day, and there was my mom and my dad, and my coaches. I guess I probably should have guessed then that something was wrong, but I was just so happy to see them. After I cried about being able to finally see them, they sat me down and explain why everyone was acting so strange around me. That was when my life changed.”

He was still paying attention, and he looked like he was about to fall off the edge of his seat.

“My husband, Corporal JP Sutton, was in the army at the time I was in Beijing. He was three weeks from having a break to come home, and he was killed by an IED somewhere in the Middle East… I don’t know the exact details there… I continued to swim though, after I found out. It was honestly the only thing that kept me going was swimming. But then I woke up one morning, and it finally sunk in. The 200 M butterfly was my race. I held, and broke all records dating back to Athens… and none of my records had been broke since. I was kind of expected to win gold, but I woke up feeling funny.”

Chuckling, I pulled my hoodie up close to me because the draft in the room began to make me feel chilly.

“I got up on the blocks, and when the horn rang, I didn’t jump. I stood there like I was cemented to the blocks, and couldn’t move. Everyone around me: coaches, family, teammates, America told me to jump. I probably wouldn’t have placed, but at least I would have finished… but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t swim again. I felt like if I jumped in I would have drowned. So I didn’t jump. I stepped off the blocks, grabbed my bag off the deck, and pushed my way past my coaches and the media. I locked myself in a bathroom for three hours not because I had made a fool out of myself, actually I could have cared less about that. But because everything finally sank in. They finally had to call one of the guys on maintence to break the door down so I would come out. I was a mess. I spent the rest of the Olympics putting on a fake smile. The media wanted interviews why I didn’t race, why I quit, but everyone kept me far away from reporters. I was so fragile at that point that they didn’t know what I was capable of. I left as soon as swimming was over, and flew back home to start planning a funeral. Two days later was his funeral, and two weeks after that, I received a call from the mayor of Pittsburgh… apparently he wanted me to go on the Today show and apologize for how I represented the country. So I did what I was told. I apologized, and when people asked why I quit, I told them. I moved back here after everything blew down and spent the semester I was supposed to be in graduate school in between hopping bars and being basically drunk for six months, and sleeping. I finally snapped out of it one day, that was when I officially called it quits. I was done with swimming. I took swimming as the worse variable in the situation, and made it worse than what it was.”

His mouth was set open and for a second I thought he was going to cry.

“I am so sorry,” he said quietly, as I shrugged. For some reason after telling him I began to feel so much better.

“So you wanted to know why I have displaced anger or hurt, and why I quit the Olympics and swimming, and why I just basically gave up on life for a good long while… well now you know. So, am I okay? Probably not; but I slowly believe I am getting there.”

I felt relief. I didn’t feel sad, or upset, or even angry like I usually did when somebody brought up JP. I was just content. I finally felt like a ton of bricks were lifted off my chest and now I could finally breathe. Within the past week now starting back swimming, I slowly also started to feel better that way.

“You can cry if you want…” He offered, pushing his shoulder towards me, I laughed.

“I’m fine, really. I don’t need a shoulder to cry on. I actually feel… better.” And I wasn’t lying like I typically did when I was asked questions of that nature.

“So that’s why you don’t date?” I nodded.

“He always told me something like that could happen, and he always said if it did that I’d have to get back on the dating horse, and face it head on… but he was my high school sweetheart, and I never saw the need. I was content with the way I was…” Until I met Sidney; but I wasn’t going to admit that to him.

“You have to cut yourself a break sometimes.” Laughing, I nodded. This wasn’t the first time I had been told this.

“If I wasn’t so hard on myself, I wouldn’t have to be so hard on others.” I smiled.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t be so mean to me.” He pouted, and I shoved him a little bit. The man built solely of muscle didn’t even budge.

“You love these workouts. They’re the best because you get to be around a bitchy woman all day who cries when you try and kiss her.”

“I do. Very much so.” I giggled like a little schoolgirl as he rested his head on my shoulder as we watched the pool.

“I had a nice time last night, I wanted to tell you that.” He smiled, and hesitantly kissed the top of my head.

“We’ll have to do that again, sometime soon.” I shook my head.

“Fraternization clause,” I reminded him.

“I think we can work around it.”

“I don’t want to lose my job, Sidney.”

“Calm down nobody said anything about losing your job.” He grinned, and pulled my hand to his, lacing our fingers together. I looked down and smiled because for the first time in a long time I was starting to finally feel no-lie normal.