May (3 months until the Olympics)
Andrey’s disappointment in me burns like acid in my veins, and I push myself harder so he doesn’t have a reason to give me that pity-soaked sad face anymore. He’s rearranged my schedule so I no longer have synchro practice, and I only see Brandon in passing.
It doesn’t matter when I catch Brandon trying to meet my eye from across the room. It doesn’t hurt when he says my name with a shaking voice, because I don’t let it.
When I was ten, I won a fish at the school fair. It came with a tiny tank, and I did chores for one of the neighbors so I could buy it a little plastic plant and flakes of dry, stinky food. It lived for three months in my room, and when I woke up one morning to find it floating belly up, I cried and asked my dad if we could bury it.
“It’s just a fish,” he said. “Real men don’t cry, so stop being a baby.”
I flushed it down the toilet instead, and kept the plastic plant and leftover jar of fish food for another three months until I threw those away too.
Brandon isn’t a goldfish, but I learned the lesson early on not to cry when I lose something. So I pick my chin up, and I move on, because that’s what I’m supposed to do.
“You should take next week off for finals,” Andrey says during a morning practice.
I slide my eyes over to him, and then return to focusing on the weights I’m currently working with. “I’ll be fine.” Now that I have more free time in the evenings, I’m getting more studying done. I have full confidence that I’ll ace my courses this semester.
Andrey clears his throat. “You are pushing yourself too hard. You need a break.”
“I’m doing better than ever. I’m fine.”
I came first in my last World Series round in Madrid, which was all the proof I needed that I’d made the right choice by cutting out any distractions. Every practice since we’ve gotten home has been incredible. I’m focused now, and when I watch the replays of my dives on the iPad, I see exactly what I want to.
“I would like you to take a few days off.”
I set the weight down with a clang, and turn to face Andrey. He still looks disappointed, but now his face is drawn and his forehead wrinkles with worry.
“Andrey, I swear. I’m fine.”
“When was the last time you had a conversation with anyone other than me?”
I have to stop and think for a second. “Two days ago. I went to the grocery store and had to ask someone where the coconut milk was.”
“That doesn’t count.” Andrey puts his hands on his hips. “When was the last time you called Valerie?”
That’s a low blow. I glare at Andrey, and he stares back steadily. “She’s probably busy. You know, new job and all that.”
Cutting the Val-shaped hole in my life away was more difficult than putting up the walls to keep Brandon out, but just as necessary. Val’s decision to leave was unexpected, and it was painful. It made me lose my concentration. And I made a mistake putting my trust in her; forming an attachment to anyone just means I risk getting hurt. I was doing just fine before she showed up, and I’ll manage again now that she’s gone.
“Besides,” I continue, “I talk to you. I talk to my classmates and my professors.”
Andrey has never once held back when he felt the need to say something, and he clearly isn’t about to start. “You do not talk to Brandon. You do not call Valerie. You ignore the things that make you human, Jeremy, and as much as you might wish it, you cannot exist solely on diving.”
He’s wrong.
Diving is what I’ve had since I was seven years old. It’s the only thing that’s purely mine. I dive alone, and my victories are my own, as are my losses. I don’t need or want anything else.
It’s obvious Andrey wants to say more, but he just nods grimly and gestures for me to go back to my workout.
But a week later, I walk home after my last final to find Brandon sitting on the steps of my apartment building. It’s a throwback to the previous August, when I came home from the World Championship to find him in the same spot, except it’s daylight now and I can see the dark circles under his eyes. My feet scuff on the pavement, and I almost trip.
He looks smaller.
“Did you need something?” My voice is civil, flat as I somehow manage to hold back the pang of want that flares through me for a split second before I force it away.
“Yeah.” He stands up, hunching his shoulders in, and stares in the general direction of my shoes. “I miss you.”
“You saw me yesterday when you were finishing up your springboard session with Andrey.”
Brandon shakes his head slowly. “I miss talking to you. Spending time with you.”
“Maybe after the Olympics,” I say. “You can check back with me then.”
Now Brandon is staring at me. His eyes flash, and he finally seems alive, angry. It’s a good look on him, color rising in his cheeks and blue eyes wide with disbelief. “How the hell do you do it? You’re a robot! Normal people don’t just turn off their emotions when things get a little messy. You can’t file someone away in a box to come back to when it’s convenient, Jeremy.”
“But I can.” I don’t raise my voice to match him, and I don’t need to; he falls silent when I speak. “Right now, I need to pay attention to my end goal. You’re messy, like you said. You get in the way. Stop by in August when I get back from Toronto, and we’ll see how things go.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
Brandon tucks his hands in his pockets. “I said no.” His eyes are fixed on a spot over my shoulder. “I won’t be here in August, because I’m flying back to Texas in two days. My scholarship is over. I’m graduating. And, like you said, I don’t take diving seriously.”
His words make me flinch, and it’s a struggle to school my face back into calm as he throws my own words from Madrid at me.
“So I’ll head to Dallas. Crash with Aaron for a bit. Get a job, maybe dive for fun on the weekends. Reconnect with friends.” He pauses, and his eyes slide over to meet mine briefly before flicking away again. “Date, eventually. Maybe someday fall in love again.”
Stay strong. Stay strong. I repeat the mantra in my head until the stinging in my eyes vanishes and I can speak without my voice wavering. “I wish you all the best.”
This time he flinches, but I don’t feel any satisfaction from the victory.
“Okay, then,” he says.
“Okay, then.”
Brandon takes a step toward me, and then another. He walks past me, so close that I can smell his cheap shampoo and the fabric softener he uses. I clench my hands into fists and hold them against my thighs so they don’t shake, and wait until his footsteps have faded before I pull my keys out and unlock my front door.
Throwing myself into my training with everything I have is supposed to help me feel better. It’s supposed to make me feel confident, and help me erase the lingering doubts and tiny fissures of hurt that cause me to wake up in the middle of the night, gasping and reaching out for someone who isn’t here.
But for some reason, it’s not working.
The natatorium is too big. Things echo more, and at the same time everything is far too quiet.
I wake up each day and cross another X on my calendar. At first, the reminder was motivating, and enough to push me out of bed and into another day.
Seventy-five days to go! I’d eat my eggs and wheat toast, sip my coffee, and plan out my day.
Seventy more days, and I’d work on tightening my pike, making sure my movements were precise.
Sixty more days, and I got a rush of nerves and adrenaline, thinking that in a month I’d be at the US Diving qualification trials, securing my spot for the Olympics only a month after that.
But somewhere around Fifty days to go, I wake up and don’t get straight out bed. Instead, I stare at the calendar for several long minutes, my eyes tracing not over the dates left to be crossed off but the ones that had already been X’ed out. I follow them back to my birthday in May, where another phone call had started my twenty-third year with the same words as always. April, and the return home from Madrid, angry and raw. March, February, January . . . and being happy.
It hits me, on that early-June morning:
I’m not happy anymore.
I push myself out of bed, eat my oatmeal and fruit, and go to training. I work out, I do cardio, and I dive on the springboard, the five-meter platform, the ten-meter.
And it doesn’t give me the same joy that it has in the past. Now, when I toss myself into the air, it doesn’t feel like flying.
It feels like falling.
“You have to fix this,” Andrey says to me.
“I don’t even know what’s broken.”
The look he gives me is laced with sadness. “You do, but you won’t admit it to yourself.”
I finally give in on an evening in mid-June, and dial a number from memory.
“It’s about time. I was waiting for you to call.”
The familiarity of Val’s voice is enough to realign everything, and I breathe in properly for the first time in months, my lungs aching as they expand and contract.
“I think I’ve fucked up.”
She snorts, and the sound loosens something inside me, one of the screws that’s been holding me together coming free. I start shaking and almost drop the phone.
“Yeah,” Val says. “It sounds like you have.”
There are a dozen ways to dissect that statement, but only one makes my heart pound. “You’ve talked to Brandon.”
Silence.
“Can you . . .” I don’t know what to say. “I need help.”
“With what?”
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? “I don’t know what to do.”
There’s another lengthy silence, but I can hear her breathing through the phone pressed against my ear, and it’s enough to keep me grounded.
“How’s your new job?”
“It’s fine. I’ve just finished my certifications, and they’ve offered me a contract to come on as a full-time physical therapist at the start of next month.” Val seems pleased, and it hits me that this is the first time she’s ever done something just for her.
“Are you going to accept?”
Val makes a low, thoughtful noise. “I haven’t decided yet,” she says. “I’m not sure I want to stay in California, so close to my parents. It’s a great company, but I have a few other possibilities on my radar.”
I desperately want to beg into the phone, Come back to Ohio. I miss you. But the selfishness I felt that night in Budapest when Val came to me in tears isn’t going to ruin my friendship with her for me again. “I’m so proud of you,” I tell her. “I hope you do whatever makes you happy.”
Her reply is low. “What are you doing to make you happy, Jeremy?”
I don’t have an answer for her.