Hold My Breath(96)

I don’t hear them call us out, but I follow the guy in front of me. He’s lane three, and I can tell by the smug smile he gave me before he slipped his goggles on that he thinks that means he’s better.

It doesn’t mean shit.

I’ll beat him first.

We all line up behind our blocks, and I bend down to stretch out those last few nerves. It’s the same every time—a little trick my brother taught me that I will probably do until I’m too old to dive head first into the water any more. You visualize that monkey on your back, and you swing until he can’t hold on any longer. He always falls in the water.

I step up on my blocks, and I feel everything. I feel the air in this building—however slight it blows—against my face. I feel the grit beneath my feet, and the buzz in the air from everyone’s collective anticipation. I feel the steady rhythm of my heart, the pound gaining speed with each drum until I hear it hit the rate my arms need to move to. I breathe in long and deep—one last taste until I get to the other side, and then I let the noise in my head take over until it’s deafening and only one single thing rises to the top.

Maddy.

“Take your mark.”

I recognize the words. My body obeys, and I coil into position.

Maddy.

The beeping sounds. My heart threatens to break rhythm. One. More. Breath.

Maddy.

The reaction is automatic. It’s innate. I explode, and I don’t have to look to my right to know that lane number three’s shot at making the team is over. I don’t care about him anymore. I don’t care about lane four, or five. I care about eighteen. I care about that perfect line, the way my arm comes out, goes in, digs, pulls, grabs…and does it all again. I care about left. I care about right. I care about twenty. Twenty-five.

Boom-boom. Boom-boom.

The sound in my ears has become thunder. My legs punish the water. Bedlam lives behind me, peace straight ahead—I cut through it like a sacred sword—sharp and precise.

Thirty. Thirty-five.

The explosion is behind me, and I’ve long forgotten the feel of the air. All I feel now is the smooth silk of the water as it caresses my face. I disrupt it…break it—the calm gone with my arm, the perfect line, tight across, low down, fast through—above all else, fast.

Maddy.

Seconds slow, yet my breath feels endless. I don’t look left. I don’t look right. I know that the storm around me is thick and furious, and every single lane is occupied with someone who feels just as worthy as I do—no doubt, more. But they’re still not going to win. They can’t have today. Today is mine, and doubters can go to f*cking hell, because I’m done serving my sentence. I’m done feeling like I owe the universe. I don’t owe anyone shit.

I swim for me and that beat that’s picking up pace. My arms follow it—chase that sound. I drive faster.

I race…for her.

Maddy.

My fingertips graze the wall, collapse against the slick surface and the wave I’ve carried behind me comes crashing into the back of my head. My mouth gasps, and my lungs fill with sweet air. I know before I turn. My heart feels it before I see it.

It doesn’t make it any less sweet.

Eighteen.





Epilogue





Six months later…



Will





I’ve always loved coming out here before sunrise. There’s a peacefulness to the water—no ripples, no sound other than the chirping of crickets and the occasional toad. Man, nature, and the elements.

Maddy mentioned it before bed last night, those times when we were in high school and she and I would wake up at four or five, just to get our laps in before anyone else. She never invited Evan to those swims, and I always kept them a secret.

That—it’s just ours.

Always will be.

I’m not here to swim this morning, though. This just seems to be the only place I can think—where I can really find the guts to dare for impossible.

I get to the ground, sliding my shoes off behind me and rolling up my sweatpants, testing the water with my toes first. We put a new heater in at the Shore Club last week, but I still haven’t tried it. My mind can’t make sense of the snow my eyes see on the ground around us to get myself to dive into the water.

“Just a leg,” I whisper to myself, dropping my foot in slowly.

The water still bites, but the heater is definitely working. I follow with my other foot, grinning over the brim of my coffee cup, like a proud father, while I wiggle my toes in the water I now own a share of along with my uncle and the Woodsens.

The Shore Club couldn’t close. More than just what this place means to me, to Maddy and her family, to Evan’s story—the good parts—this place still has a lot of work to do. I have work to do here.

My future became incredibly clear on that Olympic podium, a silver medal around my neck, the weight of the world somehow lifted from my shoulders. I have so much to give this swimming world, and I’m just getting started.

I approached my uncle with the idea first, knowing that my savings wouldn’t be enough. I was prepared to have to convince him, or to have to find alternative investors, but I think maybe the idea of family has grown to mean something more to him, too. He and my aunt never had children, and she died young. Tragedy brought me close to him again, but that special bond that only comes from blood found its familiar place and imprinted itself on both of us. He was just looking for a way not to go back to Michigan.