Hold My Breath(93)

My lips pull up in a tight smile, smirking at the visual in my head.

“But I win,” she interrupts my fantasy. She steps closer, looking down at the rock in her hand, shaking it in her palm a few times before glancing back up to me, now inches away from my body. “Then you have to hit eighteen. Saturday. You race like your life depends on it, and you hit that number.”

My breathing becomes ragged and my heart starts to race. What she’s asking for feels impossible, but if I promise her I’ll do it, I’ll find a way. I love her for asking—I love her for challenging.

I wink at her and hold up my opposite hand, waving her to take a few steps back.

“Deal,” I say, cocking my arm and letting my stone fly across the water, skipping five times before finally diving into the depths for good.

My heart is still beating wildly, both because of her challenge that I do the impossible, and because I’ve made it hard for her to win. She’s only skipped a rock more than five times once, and for the first time ever, I want her to win. I think I need that pressure—from her—to pull this off.

Maddy’s eyes stare straight ahead, and her mouth remains unchanged, the hint of a smile still painted on her lips as if she knows a secret that makes her just a little better than the rest of us. She brings her stone to her lips, kissing the flat, harsh edge, then brings her arm back, slinging the rock side-armed along the water.

I move my lips with the numbers as I count silently, and my heart slows down when I pass five. The rhythm is back to normal when I end at seven, and in a blink, Maddy is standing in front of me again.

“Those years when you were gone?” she says, the Elvis lip twitching—taunting me to kiss it. “Someone practiced skipping rocks,” she says, a slight waggle to her head.

I bite my bottom lip and squint my eyes at her, feeling nothing but the moment for real this time. All of those other times—everything I try—I’m not able to keep the demons at bay, but when I’m with Maddy there is nothing else.

“I hope you practiced jumping from rope swings, too,” I say, giving her exactly a half a second to catch on and stiffen her muscles in panic before I lift her over my shoulder and run up the hill. Her feet kick and her hands pound at my back, but her laughter fills the in-between—it fills up all of the blank space.

“You lost fair and square, Will Hollister,” she shouts between howls, trying to jerk loose of my hold. “This is cheating!”

“If I’m going to swim fifty meters in eighteen seconds, I’m going to need some motivation, Maddy. Time to see how that gorgeous f*cking dress looks when it’s wet and clinging to your skin!” I shout, wrapping one arm around her waist and gripping the rope in my opposite hand as I kick off from the cliff’s edge.

Maddy shouts my name, and the sound of her voice echoes off the canyon wall, around the lake, through the trees, and right into my heart. I tug her close and her legs wrap around mine before I let go and send us flying out above the water. She lets go just as our toes begin to kick at the surface, and she rises up through the water quickly, splashing her arms wildly at me, making wave after wave, until she’s close enough that I pull her to me again.

I never get to see how the dress looks wet against her skin. I imagine it, but I don’t have time to look because my need to kiss her is too great. My mouth craves her, and when our lips crash together, it’s like breathing for the first time—it’s weightless.

It’s my joy.

I found it.





Chapter Twenty-Two





Maddy





“Are there always this many people at a press conference?” I clear my throat after I speak, extra nervous now that I hear the rasp in it. I’ve been fighting a cold all week. It won’t matter in the water tomorrow. I can convince my body it isn’t sick for two minutes. But speaking to a crowd, to lights and cameras? I’m not so sure I can muster enough energy for that.

“No idea. My first one, really.” My father shrugs with his response as I work to straighten the knot on his tie. His movement forces it askew again, and I let my hands fall in defeat with my sigh.

“Sorry,” he grimaces, pulling both ends loose and holding them out for me to try again. “You know your mom can’t tie them either.”

“I know,” I say with a roll of my eyes, pausing with my eyes giving him a sideways glance. I laugh lightly and tug both ends of his tie, forcing them straight.

“You had interviews and stuff when you and Mom went to trials…and at the Olympics,” I say, tugging one last time, satisfied that at least I no longer could see the half of his tie that’s hidden in the back.

“It was a different time. We had the press, guys with notebooks, and maybe a camera. Today’s world is on people’s phones, though. Have you looked at that podium?” he asks.

I glance through the curtains, where the spotlight shines down on the wooden stand with a single mic, the surface covered in cellphones.

“That’s how they do it now,” my dad says, shaking his head.

I walk with my dad to the edge of the stage, a few other swimmers filing into their rows of seats. Only a few of us will get questions—me…Will.

“Can he handle this?” my dad asks.

Will was a different man all week. He was driven like he was that first time I saw him race when we started camp weeks ago, but his spirit was lighter. He still got lost in the moment—and those things he fights for, they’ll probably never go away. His brother…his parents—they’re his ghosts, and ghosts don’t leave. They only fade.