August (12 months since meeting Jeremy)
Streaming the World Championships online becomes something of an obsession for me from the second I realize that it’s possible to do so. It’s been an escape from reality, a way to ignore the empty mailbox assigned to me down in the building lobby.
I watch the synchro teams and marvel at their skill. I cheer on Val from the solitude of my empty dorm common area—there are only a handful of students still here for the summer, and none of them are the kind to be social—and send her a text full of confetti and grinning face emojis when she finishes in fourth.
I start streaming Jeremy’s prelims and semis contests in the common room, but have to retreat to my dorm for the finals because I’m so clearly freaked out that one of the passing international students pauses to ask if I’m doing drugs. I can’t blame him for thinking that—the mirror shows a crazy-eyed dude with hair sticking up, jittery from too much junk food.
The fact that the dorm is mostly empty is probably the only reason that I don’t make a lot of people angry, because I scream my fucking head off when those final scores go up.
Unbelievable.
It’s one thing to know that your diving partner is really damned good. But it’s something else entirely to watch him standing on that podium, being called the world champion. I might not understand all of the diving ins and outs still, but I’m pretty sure that means he’s the best diver in the whole world.
His phone is off for hours after the match, but I send a flurry of messages even without getting any read receipts back. My texts are incomprehensible, all-caps rambling, but I keep picturing that shocked look on his face and want to let him know how proud I am.
I’m settling in to watch the replay of the finals again when I get a ding from my laptop and a notification pops up: Jeremy has just signed in to Skype.
I click the Video Call button and fidget impatiently while it connects. Then Jeremy’s face fills the screen, and he’s obviously tired but so freakin’ happy. He’s relaxed and his eyes are soft and he’s smiling—no, he’s beaming.
“Ohmygod, Jeremy,” I breathe.
He laughs. “I know, right? Who would have thought I had a chance?”
Okay, so I was reacting to how goddamn hot he looks on my computer screen, the corners of his eyes wrinkled from smiling and his hair a mess, but I’m not going to correct him. Not when he keeps grinning like that at me.
Am I a grown man, or a teenage girl? Right now, I’m not sure.
Jeremy is talking, clearly—thankfully—unaware of my thoughts. “I’ve been doing media for the last hour, and Andrey and Val are taking me to dinner to celebrate in a bit, but I wanted to call you. I wasn’t sure if you’d heard the news.”
“Heard?” I roll my eyes. “Jeremy, babe, I watched every second of those rounds without blinking. I think I screamed so loud when you won that dogs in the next county over could hear me.”
A faint blush stains his cheeks. I skim back over what I’ve just said and grimace. Oops.
But he doesn’t remark on the endearment, which means I’m definitely going to use it again in the future. Instead, he launches into a retelling of the last round, and how he’d absolutely rocked his last dive. I indulge him and let him ramble excitedly, because now that I know what Jeremy looks like when he’s won such a huge event, I don’t ever want to look away.
Yeah, teenage girl it is.
“. . . and then I’ll be home on— Brandon?”
I blink. “Sorry. I zoned out a bit.”
Jeremy’s smile is gone, but I’m pretty sure that frown has some fondness in it. “You watched the prelims and semis too?” he asks.
“Yep.”
He sighs. “Which means you woke up at four in the morning, which means you threw off your training schedule for the last two days. No wonder you’re not paying attention, you’re probably exhausted.”
I’m not going to tell him that I’ve been waking up early for the last week to watch the streams. “I did keep up with my training!” I’ve been working out religiously since the three of them jetted off, though that’s been largely because I was bored.
And nervous. Tomorrow is the last day of July and I haven’t gotten anything from the university saying I can stay yet. As of the first of August, I’m out on my butt.
Jeremy is smiling again, so I push that upsetting thought aside. “I’m glad you’re still practicing. And I’ll be home soon, so we can get back to synchro training. Winter Nationals are almost here.”
I groan playfully. “How can you think about December now?”
Jeremy’s expression goes serious. “That’s how this works, Brandon,” he says. “You finish one competition, and then you start planning for the next one. You work in four-year cycles, and at the end of each one is the biggest contest of them all. That’s how it goes.”
That sounds like a helluva depressing way to live. “And do you look forward to anything else? Is there anything other than the next dive?”
“I used to think there wasn’t.” Jeremy’s voice is low, and he’s watching me through the camera with an intensity that I’ve only ever seen him use when diving. “But now? I’m starting to think there’s also room for something more.”
My heartbeat picks up and my mouth is dry. I swallow and try to figure out what to say, but there’s a knock on Jeremy’s hotel door that echoes through to my room, and he grimaces. “That’ll be Val and Andrey picking me up for dinner. I should go.”
He moves to close the computer screen, but I manage to squeeze out a, “Hold on!” before he does.
Jeremy pauses.
“When you get back . . .” I have to pause to find the words. “I’ll be waiting. To congratulate you.”
The blush comes back full force. “I’m looking forward to that,” he says, and closes the laptop before I can respond.
Their flight lands late in the evening on the second of August. Andrey left the flight information with me in case of an emergency—like I’m anyone’s idea of a responsible emergency contact—so I know exactly when Jeremy and Val should be arriving back at the natatorium.
I could go and meet them; it’s what Jeremy’s almost certainly expecting, even though it’s almost ten o’clock at night.
Instead I perch on the steps of his apartment building and wait.
He appears at half-past ten, duffel swung over his shoulder and pulling a small suitcase behind him. His shoulders are slumped with exhaustion from having spent too many hours on a plane. But he stops dead when he spots me, and his entire body straightens, comes alive. With the dim light from the lamp outside his building, I can see his eyes brighten.
“I figured you were asleep,” he says.
I push myself off the steps and tuck my hands in the pockets of my sweats. “Nah, just didn’t want to deal with other people right now. But I can go, if you’re tired?”
Jeremy shakes his head, a quick jerk. “It’s— No, you can stay.” But he doesn’t step any closer.
“You wanna go inside? Maybe put your bags down?” I bite back a smile; Jeremy’s clutching the handle of his bag with white knuckles, and his eyes are darting from me to the apartment door, like he’s not sure he wants to get closer. I don’t see any fear in his eyes, though, just nervousness.
It takes him another second to nod and close the distance between us. I keep my hands in my pockets and step aside, giving him room to get his keys out and let us into the building, and behave the entire way up to his apartment.
The second he sets his bags down and pulls off his shoes, any semblance of good behavior vanishes and I crowd him against the wall and kiss him. I’ve wanted to touch him from the moment I saw him walking up the sidewalk—no, from the moment he ended our Skype call with blushing cheeks and a challenging tilt to his head.
Gone are the days when he hesitated and went still under my touch. Now he responds eagerly, leaning his head back and letting me kiss him, pushing his face against my hand when I thread my fingers through his hair, like he’s craving the contact.
We’re both breathing heavily when I pull back.
“Congratulations.”
He grins. “I thought you were going to congratulate me.” His eyebrow goes up playfully, and I have to pause and marvel at the change in the man before me. This Jeremy isn’t cocky or smug by any means, but he is relaxed and a bit cheeky . . . a far cry from the man I met a year ago.
But his words make me unsure; I can’t get this wrong. “I thought that’s what I was doing?”
And now he does hesitate. “I, uh—”
I take half a step back, putting just enough space between us that I can see him better. I’m crap at reading people normally; as Aaron likes to say, I tend to go on first impressions and don’t try to dig for more.
Still, right now I can read everything on Jeremy’s face plain as day. He’s biting his lip, eyes darting to me and away, and he’s pale beneath the lingering flush from our kiss.
“I told you that you never need to be scared of me.” Because that’s what this is: fear.
“I’m not.” Jeremy’s looking straight at me now, chin raised.
I wait, crossing my arms.
Jeremy exhales slowly. “I am scared, but not of you.” He takes a few deep breaths. “I’m scared of what I want.”
We’re still standing in his living room, barely inside the apartment. I tilt my head to the couch, and he nods gratefully and follows me and curls up easily on one end with his knees pulled up under his chin.
“What do you want?” I sit down at the other end. Our conversation from back in March comes to mind, echoed and reflected. This time it’s me asking the question, waiting with bated breath for Jeremy’s answer.
His eyes are dark, bottomless pools watching me from across the tiny couch. “The one thing I can’t have.” He gestures between us. “This. You.”
“Why can’t you have it?”
He’s a skeleton cracking the door open of his closet, peering out into the world and finding it vast and terrifying. I want to reach out to him, but I have a feeling that will just make it worse, will make him want to retreat once again. So I wait as patiently as I can.
Jeremy’s voice is tiny when he speaks. “Because I won’t be weak.”
“Who told you that being gay means you’re weak?” I try to keep my voice low, soothing, because anger at whoever fucked with Jeremy’s head like this isn’t going to help us right now.
He shakes his head and presses his lips together.
I don’t need him to answer though, because I already know. I remember a couple of months ago, when Valerie told me that his family was at the heart of Jeremy’s self-hatred. There’s no doubt in my mind that his family is to blame here.
I already knew that he saw being gay as something that was negative, detrimental. I want to tell him that he’s wrong—that his family, whatever they told him when he was growing up, are also wrong. But I also know that he’s not ready to talk about them; he’s barely able to admit as much as he did.
“You’re strong. Physically you’re one of the top athletes in the world. But you have so much mental fortitude too, and you have the ability to set a goal and work for it without bending or breaking. And that gold medal in your suitcase?” I lean forward on my knees, and his eyes follow the movement. “That medal means that you’re the strongest. The best. You’re the world champion, Jeremy.”
His mouth is hanging open slightly in surprise, and I want nothing more than to dive down and kiss him, to show him what strength is.
“Jeremy Reeve, you are so fucking strong, and nothing on this earth is going to change that. Not even wanting this.”