The early-morning dampness is still clinging to the trees, the soft breeze sprinkling water droplets down on the white swim cap hugging my head uncomfortably tight. I trained throughout the whole burning hot summer. I didn’t expect to be shivering the morning of the triathlon.

But late August is a crapshoot around here, with some maple trees already showing bright red color at the very tops of their crowns. The rain stopped before dawn, but the sand that clings to my toes as I walk down to take my place on the starting line is cold and wet and heavy as cement. I jump up and down, slapping my arms one last time before I clench my teeth.

“Yeesh!” I hiss as I peel off my oversized hoodie and stand shivering in my swimsuit on the shore.

A woman I don’t recognize turns and gives me a tight smile. I nod back, but her eyes slide past me and suddenly light up. “Hey!!” she shouts, waving her arms over her head. “Hi baby! Hi there!”

I turn to where she is looking diagonally across the water. A small crowd, as tiny as ants from this distance, has gathered at the end of the course, which sits diagonally across from us at the site of the old marina. It’s where the bikes are set up for the second leg of the event. I bite my lip nervously. I’m an okay swimmer and only a fair runner. The biking is my strongest of the three legs of the race. It’s where I’ll be able to make up the most time, maybe even pull ahead. One last time, I scan the far shore. It’s not like I can see my bike from here, but I can at least see the part of the beach where I left it.

I can also see a few more spectators taking their places. A few have umbrellas, one shakes out a red blanket that flashes in the hazy sun.

And one of them is jumping up and down like a crazy man.

I bite my lip, but I can’t keep from smiling when I see him. Even from this distance, I can tell that it’s Adam waving to me from the distant shoreline. The sky is overcast, but a little shaft of sunlight breaks through the mottled clouds and shines like a spotlight on his golden head. He brings his hands to his mouth and shouts something that doesn’t carry over the water, but it has me blushing anyway.

Quickly I look back down to the ground again, my ears burning. Up until twenty-four hours ago, I fully planned on completing this course entirely unnoticed. I was doing it for me, after all. I wasn’t doing it for praise. That’s what I told myself, and that’s what I believed.

But having Adam here?

It’s...

It’s really…nice.

I duck a glance back up again. He is climbing up onto a fallen log on the far shore, the better to see across the water. I clutch my arms tightly around myself, imagining they are his arms giving me one last good luck hug. It’s unbearably corny, but it seems like something Adam would want me to do.

“Good luck,” the woman I don’t recognize says as she tightens her cap.

“You, too!” I say with more warmth than I expected. “Good luck!”

She nods and turns back to the water, and I feel my smile linger for a few more moments.

Then they call places, and it’s on.

The starting gun echoes like thunder off the mountains and goes rolling across the water. I leap across the sand and hit the still-cold water with a splash.

We hit the water all together in a frenzy of splashing, with one mistimed kick catching me right in the ribs. I gasp in a mouthful of water and cough. Not wanting a foot in my face, I dive below the water line, holding my breath until I pop out clear of the maelstrom and start to swim.

Within a few strokes, the groupings are clear. I’m not in the front—I didn’t expect to be—but I am not at the very back either, and that accomplishment alone is enough to make me smile as I streak through the water.

We follow a course that hugs the shoreline. I’ve been swimming it all summer long, so it should feel familiar, but there’s something alien about it today. Maybe it’s the fact that there are people swimming around and beside me when I’m so used to doing this course alone. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m actually doing it. This thing I’ve set out to prove to myself is actually happening. Everything I’ve worked for hinges on today.

That thought sends a little fission of panic up my spine, and I kick faster, pounding through the water with a burst of frantic adrenaline. I’ve worked so hard. I can’t let a single thing go wrong today.

No mistakes, or it was all a waste.

My heart pumps fast but strong as I cut underwater, dolphin-kicking my way past the woman on my right. All those training sessions where I worked on holding my breath for increasingly longer periods of time comes in handy when I pull ahead. I’m now in the front, only five people ahead of me out of the whole group. All around me is the splashing frenzy of kicks, the water churned up so I can barely see the finish line. I can’t hear anything but my own heartbeat, but I can imagine I hear Adam cheering me on, and I want to be proud of myself, of course, but I also really, really want him to be proud of me, too. I care what he thinks of me.

I care.

I care a lot.

That realization makes me gasp, which screws up my stroke pattern for a moment. I recover quickly, but not before someone slips past me, sending me back into sixth place.

Suddenly, I’m pissed at myself. I stumble a little as I emerge from the cold water into the damp, chill air, letting another person bound past me. It’s the woman from the starting line, the one to whom I’d wished good luck. But it doesn’t matter because the bike portion is next and that’s where I’m really going to shine. And what’s even better is that Adam will see me do it.