Growing up in Martha’s Vineyard hadn’t been the easiest existence for Angela. Even besides the abusive home life, being the only black face in her private school classes was a too often reminder that in some ways, at least, she didn’t belong. Having Athira in the neighborhood helped some, of course, being the only two kids of colour in their gated community, but that friendship hadn’t done anything for her when swim class had come around. Angela didn’t like water, or rather, she didn’t like weightlessness, the floating in place, feeling completely powerless. For a child with control issues, swimming was less a fun pastime and more an exercise in futility. She’d looked at the pool like yet another reminder that she was different from the other kids, her blonde classmates who whooped as they cannonballed into the deep end. She could be gotten an excuse note, real or, more likely considering her deeply flawed relationship with her parents, forged. But sitting on the sidelines during open swim would only serve to make it more obvious. Black people can’t swim rang in her ears, stereotypes mocking her from all the corners of her mind every time she went within ten feet of a diving board. The only way to make the voices stop was to face them, right? So she’d suited up, stepped into the pool, and learned to swim.
Or, rather, she learned how not to drown. She assumed that would suffice.
Getting older hadn’t instilled in Angela any great love of water. She’d moved to Los Angeles for her career, not for the ocean with crashing waves that still sounded like mockery to her ears. She still didn’t like to be weightless, didn’t find it relaxing or restorative to give up control of her body to a current. But beyond that, she wasn’t so biased against swimming as to deny its health benefits, and her new gym had a pool that was open 24/7 - perfect for her hectic schedule. Plus, she’d never really advanced past the “not drowning” stage of swimming, and it was nice to think that no one would be around to see her flailing and trying not to get her hair wet. But as Angela entered the pool area, already in her swimsuit and flip-flops padding softly against the tiles as she approached the edge, she could hear the tell-tale sounds of laps. So she wasn’t the only one who’d had this idea, after all. She cleared her throat as the voice called out to her, rounding the last corner as she replied, “I’m not a ghost or a bath towel thief or something, I assure you. Just a fellow swimmer.” Her eyes widened as she stared down at the man in the pool, tracing quickly over what she could see of his form. “… Ethan?” she murmured, almost subconsciously. Broader shoulders, yes, and he hadn’t recently nicked himself shaving, but the shape of his face and his eyes were unmistakably Ethan White. “Wow. This is quite the coincidence,” she breathed, the corners of her mouth working themselves up into the best media-ready smile she could manage at this hour.
Should Ethan have been given 7 billion guesses to try and figure out the identity of his nightly companion, he would most likely, have said her name in his desperate last chance. Of course, he would never have lasted through all those rounds, for his lack of patience would, certainly, have made him walk away after the tenth or eleventh try. But if he did, she would most certainly be the last person in the world he would assume to be there, in that swimming pool...
Angela Alcott; a face so familiar yet so... distant. The dark-skinned beauty that had been, in a remote past, the first person to conquer his, then, young, naïve heart. And that had, with time, become but a ghostly entity who would, every now and then, be mentioned in the conversations shared between Ethan and her brother, Garrett. The two men were still close friends who would, very often, meet. Their friendship had endured Ethan's parting of their small hometown, their college years, and even their hectic adult lives. However, the same could not be said about Angela. After Ethan's departure of Martha's Vineyard, the two's connection slowly began to fade into oblivion. Their calls would be, each time less frequent; they would hardly ever find the time to see each other, and eventually, the two, once, childhood friends became estranged. Many years later, they would, once in a blue moon, cross paths while roaming their current city, as they had more than one common acquaintance and lived in the same neighborhood. Yet, they had never engaged in an actual conversation. Their encounters would consist of a mediocre exchange of cold looks and slight greeting nods as though they were just one step away from being two complete strangers to each other.
But that occasion was not as most times they met. That particular night was, as she had very well put it, "quite the coincidence". He chose to believe in that. COINCIDENCES. As a man of science, Ethan couldn't allow himself to believe in such a thing as a magical, higher power playing puppet master with the entire Universe. And yet, sometimes, it felt as though odds were too slim to be considered coincidental. The operation room would, more often than not, be a locale where he'd witness phenomena like those, which would make him question the nature of his beliefs and if all those peculiar situations could all be narrowed down to the concept of coincidence. That (despite the unusual location) was another of those situations. Angela didn't swim. He could clearly recall that and the fact that he never really understood her motive for not enjoying the sport he liked the most. But the point was, she was hardly ever near a pool when they were younger, and yet, there she was... That specific night. "Angela." His expression denoted slight surprise and confusion, as he tried to maintain his naturally low tone. His eyes were wider than the usual, clearly very attentive of her. His heart-rate, slowing down. His curiosity, hover, breaking through the roof. "Thought you didn't swim."
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