"You need to relax," said Sylvain. "If you're tense, you'll sink." Ali shot him a stern look. Every muscle in her body was like a stretched wire. "I'm relaxed." The cool seawater reached up to their waist, while small waves playfully crashed over them. The sand was soft beneath their feet. Ali felt the strong sun burning her skin, while her gaze swept over the deep blue waters. Sylvain raised his eyebrows. "You're not relaxed." He pointed to her tense shoulders, her palms clenched into fists. "Look at yourself. We're here to swim in the Mediterranean, and you're acting like you're going to be tortured." Ali shrugged. She was pretending to be indifferent, but in reality, she couldn't believe she was really there. With him. And that they were doing what they were doing. I'm in southern France, she thought, and Sylvain is teaching me how to swim. Who would believe it!
Sylvain was waiting for a response from her side, so she muttered something hurried and ominous about the virtual drowning torture. His lips flickered. "Come on," he said. "It's simple. You just need to... sit." Ali looked around – there was absolutely nothing where she could sit – then shot him a suspicious look. "Sit?" He indicated what he meant by lowering his body into the water, which seemed to lift and carry him peacefully; it was as if the boy was relaxing in an invisible chair. Then Sylvain leaned back and floated, weightless like a feather.
"See? It's easy." Hesitantly, Ali lowered her body into the water in the same way. But as soon as she lifted her legs from the sand, she sank like a rock. She started wildly flailing her arms and legs until she stepped back onto the sand. Then she turned toward him, whispering angrily, "I can't sit in the water!" Sylvain tried to show that he sympathized, but his eyes sparkled playfully, and the corners of his lips lifted into a smile. "It was... a little accident." "Accident?" Feeling the salty taste in her mouth intensely, Ali was unable to string more words together to form a sentence.