February (6 months since coming to Ohio)
February is a really stupid month to have a diving competition, if you ask me. But since no one did, I’m currently wearing a Speedo in the middle of an indoor pool while sheets of snow fall outside. Even though the natatorium is heated, I shiver just picturing it.
The competition is nothing like the National Championships that Val and Jeremy competed in. It’s two schools going head-to-head, like a football game on springboards, and it’s only two rounds. Nationals had divers from schools all over the country, and was three. Andrey drove me the two hours to the competition this morning, which was held at the other school’s pool, and has been sticking to my side like he thinks I’m nervous.
I’m not nervous.
Just . . . y’know. I don’t know anyone here. Even Jeremy’s unsmiling face would be welcome right now. Instead, there’s a team of four other divers from my own college who watch me with a combination of curiosity and disdain. I recognize them, though I’ve never really talked to any of them; there’s only the one pool at the university, so although I don’t train with the school’s coaches, I do see them when our trainings overlap.
Through whatever weird magic Andrey has, I’m the last diver to go. I’ve always preferred to dive last; it means waiting longer at the start, but it also means seeing the competition from the get-go. Ten divers total, alternating between the two schools, means I have a bit of a wait in front of me.
“How mad are you going to be if I completely bomb this?”
Andrey looks over. “You won’t.”
“Okay, but what if I do?”
The first diver lines up, and does a forward two and a half somersault. I’ve been slowly picking up on the lingo that Andrey, Jeremy, and Val throw around: degrees of difficulty and formula tables, dive numbers and flight positions. The higher the DD, the more complicated the dive. You get scored out of ten, and then they multiply that against the DD to give you a score.
Andrey’s been pushing me to focus on a bunch of high two-point and low three-point dives for this competition. I’m not great yet, but they’re kind of fun to learn, and that’s the important part.
But as the divers go through the first round, I figure out why Andrey isn’t so worried. They’re all doing these low two-point dives. My first one is a 3.1, which means that even if I can’t get it perfect, I’ll still get more points.
It turns out, I don’t have a reason to be worried after all. Because what Andrey’s been teaching me for the last six months is way more complicated than what anyone here is doing. And I do really well on my last dive, which is my hardest—a two and a half somersault, one and a half twists in the tuck position—which has Andrey seriously glowing with pride. It’s enough to get me second place.
Second place. Me. Brandon Evans.
I blur a little while getting dressed and collecting my bag. Andrey gets the heat in the car going right away, which is good because I forgot to stretch out and the cold has my muscles cramping up. But I kind of don’t care, because I’m riding on a pretty sweet wave of victory.
“Well done.” Andrey’s words are low, and he’s focused on the icy road, so he doesn’t see me grin. “But, of course, this is only a college meet. You will need to work even harder if you want a victory like this at the national level.”
And the grin is gone. “Way to bring down the mood.”
Andrey laughs. “Jeremy likes to tell me that I’m brutally realistic.”
“He’s not wrong.” But a tiny voice in the back of my head is still chanting, Second place, second place, so clearly I’m not ready for a dose of realism yet. “What if I don’t care about winning at the national level, though?”
The highway has been plowed recently, so Andrey is able to glance over at me for a second before turning back to the road. “What do you care about, then?”
“Jeremy.” The word escapes before I can stop myself, and I sit up straight. “I mean—that’s not what I meant to say.”
Andrey is laughing. Like, full-on belly laugh, eyes squinting. He has to change lanes because he’s slowed down enough that the car behind him honks in annoyance.
“What I meant was, I care about proving myself to Jeremy.” My face is bright red. “He doesn’t think I can do this, and I want to show him that he’s wrong.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you mean.” Andrey’s collected himself now, but he keeps shooting me these super amused glances. “You and he are . . . not subtle.”
My jaw is probably hanging down to my chest. “Huh?”
“I have worked with many divers in my years, but never have I seen two young men try so hard to avoid looking at each other.”
At least this time I manage to cut myself off before the words escape. I look at him all the time.
“Pretty sure you’re wrong, dude.” I lean back in my seat, stretching my legs in front of me. My muscles are sore, but the heat from the car is helping me relax. “Jeremy’s not my biggest fan.”
Andrey signals to exit onto the highway that will take us home. Well, back to our own pool, and my own little studio dorm. It’s becoming a real home, though, a place that I’m comfortable in instead of a place I just live. “I have a feeling that Jeremy is more interested in your success than even he realizes.”
“Uh-huh.”
“In fact,” Andrey says, “I will bet you that he will be at the pool when we return. Pretending to work on his exercises, of course, but he will be eager to know how you did in your competition.”
It’s an easy bet, because no way Jeremy cares about my competition. I didn’t tell him about it, because I didn’t want to deal with round ten of Why Brandon Is a Failure. I didn’t tell Val, either, because I figured she’d tell Jeremy. “What do I get when I win?”
“What do you want?”
I think about it for the next mile. “Cake.”
That throws him. “Cake?”
“Yeah. For everyone. You bring cake in, and get Jeremy and Val to eat a piece each.”
Now Andrey is laughing again, because he clearly gets it. It drives me crazy how strict they both are with everything—including their nutrition plans. I mean, Jeremy won’t put cream in his coffee, although I can tell he hates it black. Val’s not a lot better, though she does indulge every so often; I know for a fact that she keeps a bar of 75% dark chocolate in her backpack for after a rough day.
Watching Jeremy eat an entire piece of cake would probably be the best thing ever. I can already picture his face . . .
“But when I win, I am afraid there will not be any cake.” Andrey’s words snap me out of my daydream. I turn my head to see him smirking.
Uh-oh. It’s not a look that bodes well. “What do you get if you win?”
“When I win, you will agree to something for me, no questions asked.”
“That’s pretty vague. How can I agree to those terms if I don’t even know what you’re going to ask?”
Andrey considers, that smirk still fixed on his face. “Okay, then. The next competition I sign you up for, you will agree to, no objections. You will smile, nod, and then you will work hard to train for that competition. Agreed?”
“Yeah, all right.” Obviously he’s going to put me in another meet, and doesn’t want to deal with my protests like he did last month. And now that I know what I’m up against, it’s nothing to freak out about, right?
Andrey shifts the conversation, still smiling in amusement. He talks about the competition and what I did wrong—but also what I did well, which is a nice break from hearing about how crap I am.
By the time we pull into the parking lot at the college and duck into the pool that I’ve started to think of as “mine,” I’ve almost forgotten about our little bet.
But then Jeremy walks out, wiping off his face. He’s wearing a pair of low-slung shorts and nothing else, and his entire body is wet with sweat like he’s been working out hard for a long time. Like he’s been waiting for us to get here.
“Oh, heard people talking.” He nods to Andrey, doesn’t look at me even once. “Didn’t think you’d be coming back until this evening.”
Liar, liar, liar. It’s so obvious.
I drop my bag to the floor with a thump, and finally Jeremy turns to me. I smile politely, hoping it masks what I’m really thinking. “I thought you didn’t train in the afternoons.”
His face flickers through a series of emotions too quickly for me to process, before settling into a sneer. “Gotta get extra time in where I can since I’m spending less time on my solo dives.” He crosses his arms, which hides some of his chest but emphasizes his arm muscles. “Weren’t you competing today or something?”
Andrey isn’t smirking anymore, but I can actually feel the smugness coming off of him. God damn. I paste on a cheerful smile. “Yep.”
“And?” I didn’t know that a three-letter word could be so painful, but Jeremy clearly has to force it out.
I shrug and stretch my arms up high. I probably need to go do a recovery workout, but right now it feels good to stretch my spine. The added bonus, of course, is that it’s also my favorite trick: Jeremy’s eyes dart down my body, there and gone, but I was watching for it. “It went all right.” I bend over and grab my bag, then look over at Andrey. “I’m going to grab a bite to eat, and then I’ll come back and do recovery, yeah?”
He nods. How he’s managing not to laugh at us I couldn’t tell you, but he just waves me off like nothing’s going on.
As I’m leaving, I hear Jeremy asking Andrey instead. “Did he completely flop?”
Andrey might have won the bet, but I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything at all.
I’m still riding high on my second place win when Andrey comes up to me in the last week of February. He’s holding a stack of papers . . . like, a big stack.
“I need your signature here,” he says.
He holds out a pen, and I take the papers and sign on the line that he points to. And then I pause, and actually look at what I just signed.
“This is a passport application.”
“Again, your ability to read astounds me.”
My head snaps up. “Andrey, whatever you’re planning, it’s a bad idea.”
Andrey merely shrugs and takes the papers back. “I will need to get this mailed today, and we will be requesting a special waiver. Most passports take a few months, but yours will need to be here in two weeks.”
I want to take a step back, but my legs are frozen.
“Do you remember the terms of our bet?” Andrey shuffles the papers in his hands, making a low triumphant ha! as he finds what he’s searching for. He tugs out another competition registration form.
I take it, read it. Close my eyes and lean against the wall, tilting my head until it knocks against the tile. “Okay, dude, you’ve officially gone crazy. I’m calling Martin and going back to Texas.”
“You’re going to Moscow. And then to Nanjing, and London, and Dubai. We leave on March tenth.”
My legs definitely aren’t working. “Andrey, you know this isn’t possible. I mean, even ignoring the fact that I’m not remotely good enough—and I’m not!—you know this isn’t possible. I know it’s impossible, because I listened to Jeremy rant for half an hour one day about how difficult it is to qualify for the World Series, and how he was wasting his time training with me when he needs to focus on it. This is—”
“These are the best divers in the world.” Andrey is cool as the ice outside. “And no, you are not good enough yet. You will likely not rise above the bottom tiers, and you will certainly not medal.”
Words can hurt, and Andrey’s are viciously honest.
“Then why do this to me? To us?” Because he’s entered me and Jeremy for the ten-meter synchro event.
Andrey plucks the paper out of my hand and adds it back to his stack. “You are supposed to agree to this without complaint.”
The terms of our bet seem ridiculous now. “I didn’t think you’d do this. How are you doing this? The competitors for the event were decided ages ago.”
“I will explain the how later. For now, I simply need you to agree so I can go post your passport application.”
I never should have left Texas. My heart is racing, shock and fear. It’s one thing to compete knowing you’re not really good enough. It’s another thing altogether to do so on a world stage, in front of the best divers in the whole world. But Andrey just keeps watching me, calm as anything.
“Brandon,” he says, voice serious, “trust me.”
He’s my coach, and one of the only people in this entire state who seems to care about me. As terrifying as it is, I can’t imagine Andrey would do this if he didn’t think it was worth doing. “Yeah, all right.”
He nods. Turns to start walking away, then pauses. “Oh, and I will want you there when I tell Jeremy.”
My laughter is maybe a little hysterical, and I let my legs give out, sliding my back down along the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, my head in my hands.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?