Water Beast by Nikoletta Gjoni

Imager by Clark Tai on Unsplash

​I.

I practice late at night with the door locked in a darkened house. I make sure the tub is filling while my parents are doing their own wind down routine—cold cream and Dove bar soap and Letterman booming from the old TV on their old dresser, the cacophonous roar of audience laughter slipping over the sound of running water

I sit and wait on the edge of the porcelain tub, my knees bumped together like two heads pressed in thought, and I count how many hairs are springing up on my legs, thinking about whether running around half naked with pimpled, pockmarked, hairy skin would be the best thing for my psyche

​Once in the tub, I sit on my knees and see the same legs are now distorted in the sloshing miniature waves like I’ve been a wound cut open and my flesh is the blood dispersing in water—no lines or boundaries to hold me in, only the melting molecules of an idea.

​I dip my face in and count my breaths and every few Mississippis, I pull it out to the side just long enough for one sharp inhale before going back under. I time it and I time it and I time it until wet hair falls in my eyes and fills my nostrils and clamors its way inside the corners of my mouth like a tentacled haunting from the drain, and I convince myself that I am ready.

II.

At the swim team tryouts, I never make it off the bleachers. I watch the other girls dive in and pulse and propel their way through the lanes. Their arms cut and glide through the teal water like fins, mouths open like gawking trout to suck in oxygen before they submerge again. That’s where I went wrong, I think. I used my nose. This nose that stalls and spurts in the blooming seasons and wakes me in fits of sneezes. How could I rely on it for essential support while in the water?

The girls time themselves perfectly, one after the other, like a dotted line of mythic water beasts, slick flesh with pearled droplets rolling off bony shoulders and long legs, not a hair or peach fuzz in sight. When the coach calls my name, I pretend it is not me and when she turns around, clipboard in hand, I pull the towel closer around my shoulders and get up to slink away unnoticed.

III.

I never tell my parents I tried out for the swim team and when they find out my best friend makes the cut, they hug her and say things like well done, Katie and that’s impressive. My mom turns to me, spatula in hand, asking why I never tried out and wondering out loud if this is the start of our conjoined, braided, co-dependent friendship splintering—if we would at long last be finding our own hobbies.

I feel a crack inside my chest when Katie laughs but doesn’t respond with something like no way and the crack grows into a gorge when my dad adds it will be healthy for you girls, you know?

That night, I once more have my ear pressed to the door like a conch shell to catch the waves of a live audience roar drifting through. I tiptoe into the bathroom and lock the door behind me. I sit on the edge of the tub, knees clinked together like buoys in lazy waters, and I wait for the tub to shapeshift into a great lake or ocean. I climb in carefully and sit on my knees, laying parallel over the surface like a diving board waiting to spring. I catch a breath and hold it tight, a bubble of compressed wishes I push deeper towards my belly and plant like a seed. And when my face melts into the water, I count the Mississippis again before lifting my head up off to the side, this time opening my mouth, exhaling, inhaling again, and going right back under.

"There is always next year."

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Nikoletta Gjoni’s work has appeared in the 2023 Rising Stars London Independent Story Prize anthology and has been previously nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau short story prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction. She was a 2024 scholarship recipient for the Salty Quill Writers Retreat and will be a 2026 writer-in-residence at the Chateau d’Orquevaux. View Gjoni's publications at: www.ngjoni.com