April (20 months since everything changed)
Everyone should wake up on the morning of a competition with a sexy man wrapped around their body. For one thing, it makes the 6 a.m. alarm much easier to tolerate. For another, if that sexy man is Jeremy, it means getting sleepy kisses as the sky turns gray and pink outside the hotel window, and then having to hide your laughter because your boyfriend is like a baby kitten when he first wakes up.
Unfortunately for me, Jeremy catches me trying not to smile as he stumbles around the hotel room attempting to get the coffee going, and shoots me the most precious, sleep-filled glare I’ve ever seen.
I blow him a kiss. “You’re adorable.”
He growls and jabs the button for the coffee maker.
By the time we’ve downed two cups each, gotten dressed, and managed to fit in a quick make-out session against the door to the bathroom, Jeremy is in a much better mood.
I’ll admit, I was surprised when I convinced him to have sex two nights ago. And when he showed up at my door last night, wrung out and weary, he didn’t even pretend to protest when I led him to my bed, stripped off his clothes, and rubbed up against him lazily until we’d both come, sticky and sated.
This morning he seems relaxed. It’s a nice change from the depressed, moody Jeremy I’ve been seeing more and more of lately.
Breakfast—with another cup of coffee—and then a short warm-up and training session, where we go through half of our dive list. Jeremy is all grace and flowing motion today, and our practice dives go smoothly.
We got fourth in synchro in Beijing, and I know Jeremy is aiming for a podium spot here. I think we have a good chance too.
We separate to stretch and grab a midmorning snack, and by the time we meet back up an hour later to change into our Speedos and head out to the competition, I feel like we’re in pretty good shape for the dives ahead.
Except something has changed. The Jeremy that left me after practice was smiling and relaxed. The Jeremy just before competition is stiff, frowning slightly.
“Something wrong?” I whisper as we walk out to the pool. They line us up and an announcer introduces each team one by one. When he calls Reeve and Evans, we both step forward, raise our hands to the crowd, and step back.
“Nothing,” Jeremy responds shortly.
I hate that word.
We’re diving third today, so it’s straight to the stairs to line up. The first team is on the ten-meter platform waiting for their cue to begin, the second pair is on the seven-meter just below, and we wait in strained silence on the five-meter platform.
I try again. “Jeremy.”
“Leave it alone, Brandon.” His voice is low and tight, and he’s twisting his shammy between his hands like he can’t hold still.
By the time we get to the top of the platforms, I’m a bundle of tension next to him. We do our first dive, a simple forward pike, and it goes well enough. Our second is the same only backward, but I can tell as we line up on the edge of the platform that we’re out of sync.
“Ready?” Jeremy asks.
“No.”
He glances over at me, waits a second, then shakes his head. “One, two, three, go.”
It’s another okay dive. It’s routine, nothing special or flashy, which in retrospect is the only reason we don’t fuck it up completely.
Because our third dive shows us and the entire stadium that something isn’t right. We hit the water at the same time, but that’s about the only thing that goes well in the dive, and our low 6.0 and 6.5 scores reflect that.
“What’s the problem?” Andrey asks when I pause by him after the fourth round, which is more of the same.
I shrug. “I have no idea.”
The problem isn’t that either of us are diving badly. It’s that we’re diving badly together.
“Can you fix it?” Andrey asks.
I glance over at Jeremy, who is standing under the shower with his eyes closed. He wasn’t in a bad mood when we started. A bit high-strung maybe, too serious. He was more like the Jeremy that I first dived with when we started training together. But as each dive has gotten progressively worse, so too has his mood. “I don’t even know what’s broken. I wouldn’t know where to start,” I say. Diving synchro means having a connection with your partner, knowing one another. But I can’t begin to figure Jeremy out right now.
He’s slightly off, and it’s throwing me off, and tiny cracks are starting to split into bigger ones.
Our fifth dive is a little better, but I glance at the scoreboard after and see that we’re sitting near the bottom, seventh out of eight pairs. We were in the same place this time last year, and it’s painful to see it now.
Jeremy might not check the scoreboard as we compete, but he has to be aware of how poorly we’re doing. He stands straight and silent as we’re waiting at the bottom of the stairs before the sixth round.
Whatever is happening, Jeremy’s expression says it isn’t purposeful, like when Val threw her competition in London last year. He’s upset with the dives, with himself, and—he gives me a glare out of the corner of his eye—with me too.
“This isn’t on me,” I say as we start up to the first platform.
“What?”
The pair in front of us climb up to the next platform. “Whatever’s going on here, it’s both of us. We’re better than this, babe. We can fix this.”
He visibly jerks at the word, then climbs up the stairs without another word.
Shit, shit, shit. Maybe we can’t fix this after all.
Needless to say, our sixth dive is a mess. We hit the water at different times, and I’ll see on Andrey’s iPad later that Jeremy was a good foot closer to the platform than I was.
We finish the synchro competition in Madrid in very last place.
I take my time showering, getting dressed, and finding Andrey. Jeremy is nowhere to be found when I emerge from the locker room, and the way Andrey immediately starts walking for the exit tells me Jeremy won’t be joining us.
“You did well,” Andrey says.
I shrug. “You don’t have to try to make good out of a crap situation. We sucked today.”
“It happens. This one competition, it affects nothing. You were successful in the World Series overall, you walk away proud of what you accomplished. Next time will be better.”
I know what he’s saying is true, and I’m not upset with my own performance. I’m not even upset with Jeremy’s. Instead, I’m frustrated because this could have been avoided if I’d just known what the problem was.
We walk out into the Madrid sun together, and I adjust my backpack for the short walk back to the hotel. “What happened today?”
Andrey sighs. “Jeremy would not speak to me after.”
“Did he go on ahead of us?”
A nod.
There are two key cards in my pocket, and only one of them is mine. “All right. I’ll talk to him.”
The unspoken part here is that Jeremy’s individual contest starts the day after next, and whatever is going on needs to be resolved before then.
When we return to the hotel, I don’t bother going to my room first; I head straight for Jeremy’s, which is on the same floor as mine and several rooms down.
He doesn’t answer when I knock, so I let myself in.
“Get the fuck out,” Jeremy bites when the door opens.
He’s lying on the bed, shoes still on, staring at the ceiling. Instead of obeying, I step inside, close the door, and put my hands on my hips. “It was a bad day, but we’ll do better next time.”
Jeremy’s glare is withering when he turns it on me. “You have no fucking clue, do you?”
Woah. I’m clearly missing very large portions of the story here, because we’ve gone from sullenness and silence to rage and venom.
“No, I guess I don’t. Wanna fill me in?”
Jeremy sits up, and I notice for the first time that he’s clutching his phone in one fist. “We lost. Viciously, badly. After Isaac texted me before the competition to say that Clara was watching the live-stream online this morning after staying the night at his apartment.
Putting two and two together is easy enough. If Clara watched the event, she probably made Jeremy’s brother watch too. Which explains Jeremy’s tension going into the contest, and the way it only got worse as our performance did.
“Okay, but it’s one event. Send her the link to the World Championship dives on YouTube and it’ll be fine.”
I have no idea what I said wrong, but Jeremy’s face darkens. “There was a voice mail waiting for me when I got back to the hotel.”
“From Isaac?”
“From my dad.”
Um, what? I try to remember what I know about Jeremy’s dad, but I actually don’t know a damn thing about him, except that he apparently likes to use the same homophobic language as Jeremy’s brothers. “And?”
Jeremy doesn’t elaborate; he just tosses me the phone, and I barely catch it.
The voice mail is easy to find.
It’s not easy to listen to.
“Jeremy.” The man’s voice is rough, deep, and the opposite of kind. I can’t hear a trace of Jeremy in the words at all. “Isaac felt the need to call and tell me about your shit performance today, like I give a damn about some fag sport. Gotta say though, for all the time you put into prancing around like a fairy in panties, I figured you’d be better.”
I pull the phone away from my ear, and I can hear the tinny sound of the message going on. A glance at the screen shows that it’s almost a full minute long. Fifty-eight seconds of this. Is this what Jeremy hears every time he goes home?
I pick back up as the message is winding down. “—not even a real sport, and you still can’t manage to be strong enough to compete in it. Tell Isaac to stop bothering me with this crap. I’ll care when you do something important with your life.”
The message ends with an anticlimactic click.
Holy shit. It’s not pure hate being spewed, like I got with my own parents, who were blatantly homophobic. This is . . . It’s just degrading. It’s a father who doesn’t see diving as a sport, who doesn’t see his son as a real man, and who simply doesn’t care.
“Jeremy.” I want to cry.
“He’s right.”
“He is not.” It’s tempting to fling the phone against the wall and shatter it into a million pieces, as though it will erase the awful words that have poisoned Jeremy.
Jeremy stands up from the bed finally, and his shoulders are straight, arms hanging at his side. He looks calm and collected, but I can see that every muscle is wound tight, and he’s barely holding it together.
“He’s right,” Jeremy repeats. “I’m weak. I let myself lose focus, and I got weak. If I do better, he’ll care.”
Oh god, Jeremy, oh god.
This isn’t something I can defeat with a kiss and a blowjob, like whatever was bothering him two nights ago. This is a lifetime of Jeremy being told that he is weak simply because of who he is, what he likes, and who he likes. It’s . . . it’s a boy who doesn’t fit into his father’s definition of being a man, and who wants more than anything to make his family proud.
“You’re not weak,” I tell him, begging him to hear the truth in those words.
Jeremy shakes his head. “Today I showed that I am. I lost focus, and I lost the competition.”
“First of all, that was a we. Synchronized diving means we’re a team. We had a bad day, that’s all.” Jeremy doesn’t react. His face is so still that it might as well be carved from stone. “And look at yourself, Jeremy: national champion, world champion—you’re one of the best in the entire world.” I’m rushing the words, throwing them across the room in a desperate attempt to break through that frightening blankness staring back at me. “You’re an amazing teammate, a great friend. You work hard; you sacrifice so much. Whatever your family says, they have no idea how strong you are.”
Finally I get a reaction, but it’s not the one I would have hoped for. Jeremy’s eyes tell me that he’s made a decision before he says, “This is over.”
“What is?”
“This.” A flick of his hand, gesturing to the space between us. “Us.”
“I . . . I don’t understand, Jer.” But I do.
Jeremy takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, but his hands are shaking like he’s hanging on by a thread. “I’ve been spending too much time on things that don’t matter. Synchro has helped me improve as an individual, but now it’s only hurting me. I spend too many hours a week focusing on it.” His next words are brittle. “I spend too much time focusing on you.”
My back hits the wall hard, my backpack a barrier keeping me from whacking my head. I didn’t even realize I was backing away. “Jeremy.” The word is a plea.
But Jeremy knows where my weak spots are. He knows how to turn his words into weapons. “I got weak because I was training with you, and you don’t take diving seriously. You’d rather have fun and play games than pay attention to what really matters. And I can’t have that in my life anymore, not if I’m going to the Olympics. Not if I’m going to win.”
There is nothing I can say here. Jeremy isn’t emotional and speaking from the heart; he’s coldly calculating, every sentence a knife aimed at cutting the ties between us.
“Okay.” My voice doesn’t waver. “If that’s what you want, then I wish you all the best.”
I set the phone and Jeremy’s key card on the table, then turn for the door before the rush of tears can give me away. My hand pauses on the door handle, a tiny strand of hope clinging, but Jeremy doesn’t say anything else, and I step into the hall, my eyes burning as the door closes behind me.
Fuck. The obvious thing to do would be to go back to my room, but the thought of being alone right now, with the bed where Jeremy and I slept together last night, makes me sick to my stomach.
I head for the roof of the hotel instead, where a tiny pool is located. It’s chilly as the sun is going down, and no one is around. My backpack hits the tile with a dull thump, and I sit down beside it on a lounge chair, my hands dangling between my knees as I stare out at the pool and the city skyline.
“Goddamn it, Jeremy.”
Now, with no one around to see them, the tears can fall.
Aaron told me that it was a mistake to fall in love with a skeleton. He was right.