Adjusting the Fulcrum: Adjusting the moveable wheel beneath the diving board to control the amount of spring the diver will receive for a forward or backward take-off.
MONARCHS VS. SHARKS. That’s what the sign says outside the swim complex. Not the most logical pairing since it means taking bets on cute vs. ferocious. Ladybug vs. Grizzly Bear. Crickets vs. Tornadoes. Nobody wants to bet on cute, which is usually to our advantage. But tonight, I might get swallowed alive because my head is not where it should be before taking the board.
It doesn’t help that every season, without fail, some ring-leading jerk from an opposing school tries to fluster our team by flapping their wings and calling us the Butterflies. Tonight’s wannabe champion of snark was Andover Co-Captain Rick Shay, a scrawny prick that never grew into his enormous teeth. No big surprise there since Ricochet, as Chip likes to call him, has been a bootlicking asshat since recreational swim.
But once Chip dove into the pool and kicked their asses, the taunting stopped. That’s how a Monarch does it. Silent as a butterfly.
The same is expected of me.
The locker room is explosive with swimmers keyed up by how many heats they won, making it hard for the springboard divers to prepare. But there are only a few minutes left before the moment of truth. Mine, and Rocco’s.
Chip taps me on the shoulder. “You ready?” He’s bouncing on his toes, amped by how hard he crushed it out there.
“Almost. I need a little extra edge.” I open my locker and pop the tab on a can of Phoenix.
“Can’t say I blame you.” Chip grabs the can and takes a few sips off the top.
When he hands it back I chug the whole thing.
The team is gathered in the common area, waiting for me to lead them to the pool. When I round the corner the whooping and hollering gets louder and echoes in my head, matching the beat of the vein throbbing in my temple.
Ace claps me on the back. “We’re gonna slaughter those Sharks and leave them bleeding on the dock.”
“Andover might need to rethink the food chain,” Trey adds.
Coach Porter enters the locker room and we fall into a hush. “You guys ready to rumble?”
“Yes, Coach,” we say in unison.
He puts a hand to his ear. “I couldn’t hear you, ladies. I asked if you were ready to rumble?”
“Yes, Coach!”
“That’s more like it.”
He stops me on my way through the door. “What about you, Mackey? You ready?”
I give him a quick nod and smile. I better be.
Coach taps my arm with his clipboard. “Attaboy. Show ’em how it’s done.”
We enter the swim complex with “Hells Bells” roaring through the speakers—captain’s choice. I scan the stands for Iris then remember she’s grounded. I go take a seat between Ace and Sully. I need to focus on my first dive, visualize the rotations and twists.
Before I sit, I catch sight of Phil Maddox in the stands. A pit forms in my stomach as I wonder whether or not he already spoke to GP and what was said.
Ace bumps me from the right. “Where are we celebrating after?”
Before I can answer Sully leans in from the opposite side, rubbing the scar under his nose with his index finger. “I heard Les Carter is throwing a party.”
“I’m not going to that,” I say.
“Why not?” Ace chimes in. “You don’t have to like the guy to drink his booze.”
“Let’s focus on diving. Then we can worry about celebrating.”
I watch the first two divers prep their fulcrums and prepare to dive, thinking: speed it up, guys. Points off for stalling. I lean forward with my arms resting on my knees and look for Rocco on the Andover bench. He’s crouched forward in the same position, staring straight at me. The left side of his mouth curves in a grin before he bites his tongue and flips me the rock-on symbol.
I wonder if Rocco knows that hand gesture is also the sign of the devil. Exactly what he should feel like right now for giving me bogus info. I start pumping my knee up and down so fast I could churn butter. Maybe there’s still time to talk to him before he dives. I head to their bench but Coach McGee throws up a block.
“You can’t be over here right now, son.”
“I just want to wish an old teammate good luck.”
“You’ll have to wait and congratulate him after the meet.” He flips me an arrogant grin and I spy a grayish wad of chewing gum wedged between his teeth and cheek.
Apparently he missed the part where we whooped their ass in swimming.
“Hold on. You’re Theo Mackey, right?” he asks. “Rocco told me you came by looking for some information about your mom. I was set to pull her files for you over the weekend, but someone trashed the coaches’ offices last night. It’ll take weeks to straighten out the mess. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
My eyes zero in on the shark embroidered on the breast pocket of his red polo shirt. “No, sir. But I’m sorry to hear about it.”
Rocco is waving his arms, fighting for my attention in the background. He gives me a questioning look over his coach’s shoulder. All I have time to do is shake my head and mouth, “Don’t do it.”
But it’s no use.
Rocco is nodding back at me in exaggerated movements, pointing with both hands stretched all the way out. He mouths back, “Oh yeah! It’s on.”
“Son,” the Andover coach says. “It’s time to go.”
I trudge back to my team as the announcer starts reading the latest scores. Our guys are already ahead. There’s nothing left to do now but wait. When Sully’s name hits the board I know I’m almost up. Unfortunately, this is when Uncle Phil chooses to come over to the bench to talk to me. Something he’s never done before.
“Why were you talking to the Andover coach?” he asks, eyes fixed on Coach McGee.
I steal a glance at Coach McGee before I look back at Uncle Phil, straightening his collar, his knuckles scraped red-raw.
“Someone trashed the coaches’ offices last night. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
I feed him a half-lie, looking for the truth with an alarm ringing in my head. “I went to wish Rocco luck. What happened to your hand?”
“Flat tire.” He spills the excuse easily. Maybe too easily.
But I don’t have time to harp on it because I need to prep for the board. “I’m on a first-name basis with roadside assistance,” I say, feeding him an equally easy lie. “But I’m about to dive so…” I rock back on my heels.
“Yes. Right,” he says. “Break a leg.”
Wrong thing to say to a diver but I let the smell of chlorine refresh my senses on the way to the ladder. Breathing in, out, in, out. Ready or not.
The din of the crowd has an echo-like quality tonight. I give myself a minute to pull my shit together. Then it’s go time. Mom’s dive for the win.
I get good height and enter my first rotation. So far so good. But then the water turns bloodred again, right before my eyes. I shut them tight—a major diving no-no. Not because points can be deducted, but because I’m basically flying blind and a danger to myself. I go on instinct alone, coming out of the rotations to start my first twist, counting the spirals—one, two, three—and a half. I straighten out and enter the pool like an arrow, hand over hand. Boom. Water rushes past me. I nailed it.
Para mi madre.
The crowd goes nuts when I break the surface. I climb out and wait for my scores. Our school uses a three-judge panel and scores between 1–10, totaled, then multiplied by the degree of difficulty. I hold my breath until my scores illuminate the board, one at a time: 8.5, 9.0, 8.5. Not too shabby.
I’m so pumped about my scores that when Trey starts nudging me I get annoyed.
Until I see why he’s so hell-bent on elbowing me to death.
Rocco is on the three-meter facing backward.
My eyes shoot back to the scoreboard where it says Bennett 5239D.
Sully mutters, “What the fuck?”
Les stands, hands clasped on top of his head, chest visibly heaving. His panicky reaction compels me to look for Miles who’s sitting nearby biting his nails to the quick as his cousin prepares for a dive way beyond his skill set.
When the Andover coach jumps from his seat and starts berating his assistant coaches, I realize Rocco didn’t tell anyone. I doubt he even practiced. There wasn’t enough time. I don’t understand what he’s trying to prove. Coach McGee starts yelling so furiously at his assistants he chokes on his chewing gum and starts coughing. Barking like a dog. I think about hearing Belly barking at the cliff on Monarch Night, making it the last warning I need to know something is going to go wrong.
Chip comes and crouches in front of me. “Can you believe this shit?” His face is a mask of disbelief.
Yes. I totally believe it.
Rocco rises up on his toes. You don’t have to be an expert judge to see how much he’s shaking. He pushes down on the board to start his backward press, but doesn’t let the board come all the way to the top and it kills the spring. He throws his arms hard like he knows he needs the height, and takes flight, a little too close to the board for comfort. He gets in one good rotation and his head hits the board. Hard. The thunderous crack of his skull making contact is only outdone by the piercing screams from the audience.
The room whirls around me, then telescopes in and out. Everyone is rushing to the side of the pool. Everyone but me. People bump into my stupefied form to reach Rocco. Where blood, red fucking blood, is spilling into the water from Rocco’s head. His teammates dive into the pool from all sides and circle his lifeless body, like—
Sharks.
Just like I saw.
Jeezus.
What the fuck did I do?
Chip dives in, followed by Ace, and Sully, and Trey. But by the time they surface, the Andover Sharks are pulling Rocco’s lifeless body out of the water. Coach McGee starts CPR while people rush around on cell phones, calling for paramedics, sobbing. The commotion roars in my ears like a storm.
And then the strangest thing happens. The room becomes unnervingly quiet as everyone waits for help to arrive. The minutes stretching as emergency sirens whine in the distance, growing louder and closer, building into the wailing screech of banshees.
I press my palms to my temples, holding my head together as action resumes around me.
But I can’t move.
I can’t fucking move.
“This is your fault.” Miles points in my face. Two of his fingernails are chewed to bloody nubs. “I know you gave him that dive and those pills.”
I stare at him, mute. Because he’s right. This all my fault.
I lit the match on this disaster too.
“Why are you accusing him?” Chip asks. “Theo would never … He and Rocco were friends.”
Were.
“He did this,” Miles says. “And I’m gonna prove it.” Then he walks away to watch his cousin being lifted onto a stretcher and rushed from the building.