November (21 months until the Olympics)
“What’s your problem, man?”
Brandon is looking down on me. How he’s found me, I have no idea. I claimed this little niche for my midmorning break ages ago, and no one has stumbled across it since then. Yet here he is, shoulder leaning on the opposite wall and staring down at me as I sit with my legs straight in front of me, back propped up in the corner.
They use this area for photographers during competitions, but it’s abandoned the rest of the time. It’s high enough up that I could see the entire floor if I poked my head up above the railing. And it’s a great hiding place normally . . . especially when I’m trying to avoid teammates who spent the morning doing cannonballs off the springboards like immature children.
Today I’m eating a granola bar and trying to finish this book that’s been giving me grief all week. It’s exhausting, but I’m only two chapters from the end. I could finish it before I have to go back down to the pool . . . if I’m not interrupted.
But his question is still hovering between us, and I have a feeling that he won’t go away until I answer it. “You’re going to have to elaborate.”
He tilts his head and glares. “With me. What’s your problem with me?”
Where do I begin? Actually, I know where: with a question I’ve been curious about since August.
“How long have you been diving?” I may have engaged in a bit of Google stalking, but there’s absolutely nothing on the guy. DiveMeets doesn’t even have a profile for him, and I only found one mention of him on the University of Texas diving page.
The question visibly throws him. “Two years,” he says. His anger vanishes as quickly as it appeared, like he can’t hold on to it when he’s distracted.
Two years. He’s better than I was after eight. Jealousy burns through me for a second, before I replace it with anger—there’s no point in being envious of his talents, but I can justify being upset that he’s wasting them.
“I’ve been diving for thirteen.” I spit the words out, emphasizing every syllable. “When I was seven, my dad signed me up at the local pool, and I’ve been working toward a single goal ever since. I’m going to the Olympics in two years. Fifteen years of my life, aimed for one moment.”
His mouth is hanging open.
Now that I’m going, it’s hard to stopper the words back up. I close the book with a solid thwap and push to my feet. We’re almost the same height, which means I can look him dead in the eye.
“Andrey retired four years ago from coaching. He took me on because he thought I had a genuine shot at winning an Olympic medal. And now he’s taken you on too, because for some un-fucking-godly reason he saw potential in you. And you’re squandering it. You’ve been handed a gift that other divers would kill for, and you aren’t even giving Andrey the respect he deserves.”
Brandon hasn’t moved an inch. He meets my gaze, eyes calm. “You’re right.”
“I—” What?
“I didn’t realize before how important this is to you, and to Val and Andrey. I dive because I enjoy it, but I’ve never thought about competing outside of the required college meets.” He shrugs, but the gesture comes off as apologetic rather than dismissive. “I’m trying harder to make Andrey proud.”
The anger in my chest is extinguished in a second. For a moment, I’m not sure what to say. The fact is, it’s true: he has been trying harder. I’ve been studying his one-on-ones with Andrey, and he’s noticeably improving. But I’ve also seen how much potential he has, and how he slacks off whenever he finds a chance. Two years of training!
In the end, I say, “That’s my problem with you.” My voice is low, but calm, and Brandon doesn’t flinch. “You could be the next Greg Louganis if you put your mind to it. You’re still treating this like it’s a game, something temporary to pass the time. You say you’re ‘trying harder,’ but you’re not trying hard enough. You could be so much better if you’d buckle down and commit.”
Now Brandon is staring at me, blue eyes heavy with an emotion I don’t dare to name. My heart pounds in my chest, and my skin feels tight. If I stand here any longer, I’m going to say or do something that I’ll regret, so I push past him, book in hand.
As I’m walking, Brandon says my name. I pause, turn halfway.
“Who’s Greg Louganis?” he asks.
“My hero.” The words slip out before I can stop them. And then I turn and leave, before I give anything else away.
Val is the one spot of sanity in my life over the next few weeks. She’s the only person who understands exactly what I’m going through, and who doesn’t get upset when I snap at her. Winter National Championships are right around the corner, and I can feel the weight of them every time I stand on the edge of the platform.
I have to be great next month. No, I have to be exceptional, because if I fail here, it could ruin everything that I have lined up for the next year and a half.
And Val is under just as much stress. We feed off each other, pushing one another even further in an unhealthy cycle of anxiety and pressure.
She finds me after morning practice one day. “Hey, let’s go.” Apparently I put off my escape for too long and now I’ve been caught. Val doesn’t snap her fingers, but I’m on my feet in an instant because there’s something in her voice that scares the shit out of me.
“Where are we going?”
Val doesn’t answer. Still, I figure it out pretty quickly when she leads me back out to the pool and starts climbing the stairs to the top platform.
We’re both fully dressed, and the arena is just the wrong side of hot, but neither of us complain as we get to the top of the ten-meter platform and lie down on the rough surface, shoulder to shoulder.
“It’s been a long time since we did this.”
She hums in agreement.
Up on the ten-meter, we’re invisible to the rest of the world. I’ve spent hours lying flat on my back here at various pools, napping or thinking or trying to find my focus, but most of the time Val’s beside me. Before competitions we would come in early and just listen to the sounds of the arena waking up. After a win or a particularly vicious loss, we’d silently find our way to the top of the tower to hash out what went wrong.
It’s our therapy zone.
If I turn my head a little to the left, I can see Val. Her eyes are closed, dark lashes against darker smudges under her eyes, and it looks like she’s sleeping, chest rising and falling in rhythm. “You doing all right?”
“No.”
She doesn’t elaborate, so I wait patiently.
“My mother’s coming over Thanksgiving to evaluate my readiness for Nationals.”
Never have I been so happy that my family doesn’t give a damn about my diving.
“Didn’t she put you with Andrey because she knew he’s the best?”
“Yep. She practically bullied him into taking me on, when she found out he was taking on a second student.”
I guess Andrey didn’t have an excuse to avoid taking on more students, once he agreed to train Brandon. “But she still has to stick her nose into it and fly out to Ohio to check up on you.”
“Yep.” She pops the p.
Thanksgiving isn’t going to be easy for me, either. “My dad invited me home that week, or I’d be here with you.”
She makes a sound of disgust in her throat. I’m not sure if it’s for my inability to back her up against her mom, the mention of my family, or because her mother is a psycho controlling harpy.
I sigh, because I know what she wants: an out. “Wanna come back to Chicago with me for Thanksgiving so you have a reason not to spend the holiday with your mom?”
Val rolls onto her side, propping her head in one hand. “She’ll just come the week after and make all of us miserable.” But it sounds like a token protest.
“At least then you’ll have me and Andrey there to back you up.”
“And Brandon.”
“Hm?” I glance over at her.
Val smirks. “And Brandon will be here too. Remember, the tattooed hottie that you exert far too much energy ignoring?”
We’re thirty-three feet off the ground, and there aren’t any other divers practicing right now, so I know logically that no one can hear us. But I still sit up, hushing her. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh?” She sits up as well, folding her legs easily in front of her. “So you don’t have an ulterior motive in introducing me to your dad and brothers?” She leans forward. “You don’t plan to let them think we’re dating?”
I swallow hard. “Nope.”
“Liar.” She smirks. “But it’s fine. My mom will grumble, but if I tell her I’m going to meet your family for Thanksgiving, she’ll probably be a lot happier. I mean, after I win a gold medal, I’m pretty sure she expects me to marry a fellow diver and carry on the tradition.”
Ugh. I grimace.
The smile fades from Val’s lips. “Jeremy, you know—”
But I do know, and that’s the problem. “So are you going to come or not?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” She’s frowning, eyebrows drawn together, but she just crosses her arms and settles back down.
My heart is still racing as I lie back and stare up at the ceiling. There are certain words that we don’t say aloud between us. Truths that we don’t give voice to.
Val never talks about how she’d rather use her degree instead of competing.
And I don’t talk about the way my stomach clenches when I think about Brandon’s blue eyes.
The first time I came home with a juniors medal, I was elated. It was only a bronze, but even standing on the bottom of that podium made me feel on top of the world. A teammate’s mom dropped me off after the competition, and I rushed in the door with my backpack, waving the medal over my head.
Isaac looked interested for a few minutes, though he rolled his eyes and said, “It’s only third place,” after I started getting on his nerves.
My dad was sitting on the couch with a beer, and he only grunted and nodded at me when I held it up in front of him. When I was older, I realized that he was just happy to have one less kid in the house for a few hours a day, but as a kid I soaked up any sign of his approval.
But Nick glared over at me. The football game was on, and I was talking over the commentator, which was the ultimate taboo in our house.
“No one gives a damn about your gay little swimming medal.” His voice was like venom, and he would have flung his empty pop can at me if he knew Dad wouldn’t have yelled at him.
I remember gripping the medal so tightly in my hand that my knuckles turned white. Then I left the room before I started crying, because the only thing that could make the evening worse was to cry in front of them.
Back then, I didn’t know what gay meant. But I knew it wasn’t good. And I knew that I never wanted Nick or anyone else to make me cry ever again.