March (5 months until the Olympics)
After Toronto, me and Brandon have a new rule in place. Before that, we didn’t have sex the day before a competition, because, as Brandon puts it, “Having to dive right after sweaty, rough sex with a cock up your ass is pretty much the definition of hell on earth.” But I had to get serious in Toronto, and make the rule stricter.
I woke up the morning after our synchro competition at the World Cup, and managed to get as far as the bathroom before I noticed the set of small, purple bruises on my upper arm. They were tender when I pushed them, but the muscle wasn’t sore, so I knew I hadn’t injured myself. It only took a second to make the connection, and to see the obvious pattern from where Brandon had grabbed me as he came and dug his fingers in.
When Brandon found me fifteen minutes later, I was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, shower filling the room with steam, freaking out at the terrible fantasy unfolding in my head. In it, everyone saw the bruises and knew what I was doing, and my father saw the picture in the paper and leveled those awful words against me.
Brandon figured it out quickly enough, and held me until I wasn’t hyperventilating anymore. He kept an arm wrapped around me in the shower, washed me carefully, and then pulled out a roll of KT tape and cut a Y-shaped piece, gently covering the tiny marks from view.
I loved him more than ever at that moment, even as I wanted to spit and rage and pull away.
But that incident is why I’m in my hotel room, alone and miserable, on the night before our synchro competition in Budapest, the first stop on the World Series tour.
Brandon had a Skype call planned with his best friend tonight, and I wouldn’t have asked him to come by anyway. But a late-winter storm has blown through, turning the cool springtime day into a chilly, wet night, and I can hear rain and sleet against my window. It’s not the kind of night that I want to be alone on.
There’s a knock on the door just after nine, right when I’m contemplating going to bed early. I’d been studying while buried in every blanket and comforter I could find in the hotel room, the heat turned up high, but I set my book aside and slide out of bed. I’m certain it’s Brandon, so I don’t bother to get dressed, and answer the door in my boxers.
It’s not Brandon.
“Aren’t you freezing?” Val pushes into the room without waiting for an invite. She’s bundled up against the hotel’s poor heating system: thick socks, tracksuit pants, and a hoodie that I suspect she stole from Brandon, given the way it hangs off her shoulders.
I close the door and wrap my hands around my chest. “Yeah, but I was comfortable beneath the blanket until you decided to barge in.”
Val scoffs and then proceeds to climb into my bed and curl up where I’d just been lying. “Ooh, warm spot,” she says. “Come be warm with me.”
Well, you were moping about being alone tonight. Can’t exactly complain about the company. The room is bitter cold, so I shiver and slide beneath the cover with Val, and she wraps one arm around me.
She’s beautiful in the way that classic paintings are, and right now her hair is frizzy from having been wet and dry back and forth too many times after a couple of practice sessions today. “You nervous about tomorrow?” she asks.
I stare at her, both eyebrows raised. “No, I’m fine.” She knows that I wouldn’t be nervous, not about a competition like this one.
We’re only inches apart, and this close her face is a bit blurry on the edges. I like watching Val because she’s familiar, and because I always know how to break down and understand what I’m seeing. But for once I can’t read her; I don’t know what that look in her eyes means, and it scares me a bit.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she says.
“Valerie.”
Her face goes tight, mouth set with a combination of what I think is resignation and relief. She sighs and buries her face against my chest. Brandon does the same sometimes when he’s tired or seeking comfort, so it’s automatic now to bring my hand up and run it through Val’s hair the same way I do with Brandon.
Her words are muffled against my sternum.
“What?”
She pulls back barely an inch. “I just left a meeting with Andrey.”
Her tone is level, but the temperature in the room drops.
“I’m going to do the first two events of the World Series, because I’m already here, but after this I’m done. I’m retiring from diving. I have a job offer starting on the first of April.”
Something is wrong, because when I exhale, I can’t see my breath, and yet my fingers are numb and the air around me is icy cold, goose bumps breaking out across my arms and shakes rattling down my spine.
“Val,” I manage.
She curls around me tighter, hugging me so close that my ribs ache beneath the pressure. “I can’t.” Her voice is hollow. “I can’t do it anymore, and I won’t.”
“If you can hold on a few more months, the Olympics—”
“Fuck the Olympics!” The hug is gone, and Val shoves me back, putting a chasm of space between us. Her face is twisted, furious. “Fuck the medals and the podiums and the perfect-ten dives. I don’t care about the goddamn Olympics, Jeremy. That’s your dream. That’s her dream. It’s not mine.”
I don’t understand. I’m reeling and shivering, my limbs are too heavy to move, and something is burning in my eyes, making me blink furiously to clear them. It’s a surprise when I feel tears hit my cheeks.
Valerie is crying too.
“I was practicing this afternoon.” Val wipes her face roughly. “And I did my armstand, but it wasn’t great. So Andrey is talking it over with me, and it hits me that I just don’t care about what he’s saying. I respect Andrey. He’s the best coach I’ve ever had. But I simply couldn’t find the energy to care anymore. He wanted me to try it again, and . . . I realized that I would be perfectly happy if I never did another armstand in my life.”
The first time I met Val, she was brilliant, smug, one of the best, and proud of that fact. It was only when we were in our late teens, Val just starting college, that the cracks started to show. The way she wasn’t as enthusiastic about twice-a-day practices, and how her smile wasn’t as bright when she won another competition.
And now the cracks have spread too far.
“Val,” I repeat, and this time she lets me wrap my arms around her, and I can feel hot, wet tears against my chest.
I wish I could understand, but I don’t. Val is my best friend, the person who’s been by my side longer than anyone else, and the thought of that empty space . . . of never competing alongside her again . . . it’s impossible to comprehend.
“I’m so proud of you.” It’s what I should say, and so I do. The lie burns on my tongue, but it’s worth it when she draws in an unsteady breath and starts to calm down. “You have to follow your own dreams.”
Logically I know it’s right. But my heart isn’t logical; it’s emotional, and it’s angry and hurt. I always knew I was going to go to the Olympics, but I also always knew that Val was going to be right there beside me. We’d have matching gold medals, two US winners for the ten-meter platform. It was a dream that I was certain could someday become a reality.
A dream that’s gone now, disappeared into smoke.
At the same time, though, I’m fiercely proud of her. Valerie Bergmann, finally refusing to live her mother’s dream.
Eventually Val falls asleep in my arms, and I’m able to slip out of bed and pull a T-shirt on, then flip the lights off in the room. I go into the bathroom, closing the door behind me to keep the light from waking her, and brace my arms on the counter. I stare at myself in the sink’s mirror, and the man looking back grimaces.
“You’re one selfish fuck, Jeremy Reeve,” I tell my reflection.
But the truth is, I can’t be happy for Val. I can smile and tell her that I am, but I don’t understand it. Why couldn’t she just wait until after the Olympics? We’ve been working most of our lives for this, and it’s almost physically painful to watch her throw away so many years of hard work.
Buried in the anger and frustration is a sense of betrayal. And . . . something else. Loneliness. Val and I have been friends and friendly competitors for so long that the thought of never seeing her dive again is almost unimaginable. And maybe I am selfish, because it feels like she’s leaving me behind. She’s leaving her team behind.
Eventually my body realizes that it’s had enough, and I crawl exhaustedly back into bed. Val moves in her sleep, finding the source of warmth and curling along my side.
I manage to sleep, but not well. I toss and turn, my thoughts punctuated by the beating of icy rain hitting the window. Eventually I fall asleep for a couple of hours, before waking up from a nightmare where everyone leaves me, even Andrey, and I’m alone on top of the podium, diving into the air and falling with no water in sight.