THE SUMMER HEAT FADES INTO the nip of autumn. Leaves are just starting to turn, and I’m dying on the vine with them. This town reeks of decay as the season’s shift takes effect. The fumes of leaves burning in the distance waft in the early morning air as I toss my bag into the trunk of my car.
A rippling of dank clouds cloaks the sky, and before I go, I run back inside the house to write a note to my mom. She wasn’t here when I woke, but I have a meet today and want her to at least know where I am.
It’s been nearly a month of two-a-days with Coach, though the morning swims haven’t been restricted to the two of us. He offered the extra practices to three other swimmers on the team. When I showed up and saw them, he whispered, “It’s better this way.”
It was obvious he didn’t trust himself around me and that he was also concerned about how it would look if anyone were to find out about our clandestine practices before sunrise. I would have been okay with it, except Taylor was one of the teammates that took him up on his offer. Not only does she show up every morning armed with flirtatious gestures for Coach, but also with underhanded comments meant to sabotage my confidence, which is still fragile.
My times are improving, but I’ve yet to get them back to where they should be. I know I won’t win any of my divisions today, but I have to keep pushing myself if I want to get out of this town after I graduate. I can’t depend on my mother to foot the bill for my college tuition plus room and board when she can’t even remember to pay the water bill.
After I lock up the house, I head to school where the bus is waiting to take us to Norman, which is a few towns south of Edmond. I contemplated making up some excuse that would justify me driving my own car, but we always travel to our meets as a team, even if they are close to home. My absence from the bus would’ve been noted, and it would only brighten the spotlight on me when I’m so desperate for it to dim.
For the most part, my teammates are supportive and treat me just as they did before. But there are a few girls who are catty at best, eagerly waiting for me to fail miserably. The main girl is Taylor, who happens to also swim the fifty- and hundred-yard. She’s never been as quick as me, never until now. She’ll beat me today, there’s no question about it, and I’m dreading the ego that will undoubtedly swell in her head.
I park a few spots down from where Kyle is. He has Linze in his arms and his tongue down her throat. She feels like a stranger at this point. When I didn’t show up for her birthday dinner the other week, she lost it, and we got into a fight. It didn’t matter what my reasoning was, she didn’t want to hear it. She told me I was a shitty friend, and she didn’t deserve my lack of interest in our friendship.
She’s right. She deserves a best friend who can go party without a care in the world, a best friend who involves herself in every social aspect of school, and someone free from the everyday worries that plague me.
I just wish she knew the truth without my actually having to tell her. At least then, I wouldn’t have to feel any more guilt than I already do.
Kroy appears from the left and walks over to Kyle and Linze, breaking up their little make-out session. I step out of my car, grab my bag from the trunk, and hope I can make it to the bus without being noticed.
“Cam.”
I knew it was a worthless hope.
“What are you doing here, Kroy?”
“You know I never miss your swim meets,” he says. “Linze is coming too.”
“Great,” I mumble under my breath.
“You should try talking to her. She feels hurt.”
“She called me a bitch, you know?”
“Cam.” He tugs my attention with a look of seriousness. “We’re all friends here.”
I peer over his shoulder to Linze and Kyle, and when her eyes meet mine, I divert back to Kroy. “I really don’t want to deal with this today.”
He nods, understanding the pressure I feel about the meet. He holds out his hand, saying, “Come on, let me help you with your bag.”
We walk over to the bus and stow the bag beneath with everyone else’s.
“You’re going to do great,” he tells me, and when I shrug my shoulders, he pulls me in for a hug. “I’ll see you there.”
When he heads back toward Linze, I turn to catch Coach Andrews watching me.
“You ready?”
I nod and get on the bus. It’s loud with both the girls’ and boys’ teams, and I opt to sit in the front to avoid the commotion in the back. I pop in my earbuds to drown out all the noise, but a few minutes later, solitude is snatched away when Coach sits next to me.
“How are you feeling about today?” he asks when I pull my earbuds out.
“Okay, I guess. It’s not like I have high expectations or anything. My times suck.”
The doors to the bus close, and then we’re on our way.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve been making a lot of progress.”
When I turn and look out the window, he calls me out. “What’s really bothering you?”
“I just told you.”
“There’s something more than just your times.”
Yeah. My dad isn’t here.
“Might as well get it off your chest,” he presses. “Leave it here so you don’t take it into the water with you later.”
I drop my head and then look at him. Everything we’ve been suppressing for this past month begins to crack beneath the fissures. I want to give him the cold shoulder because I’m mad at him for pushing me away. But then I get mad at myself too for being so selfish. I have no right to be angry with him when he’s the one who’s doing the right thing here.
“Talk to me.”
“I’ve never done this alone,” I finally confess.
And with everyone so wrapped up in their own conversations, he leans in slightly, saying, “It may feel like you’re alone, but I promise you, you aren’t.”
“It isn’t the same.”
“It’s never going to be. But I’m here, and you’re not alone.”
His words puncture a soft spot in my heart I’ve been trying so hard to ignore. I wish I were stronger, that my heart could sheath itself against him, and that I didn’t have to ache so much at the thought of him.
“Is there anything I can do?”
I can think of a thousand things, but they’re all forbidden—including you.
“It is what it is, right?” I say with indifference, because we’re powerless to change the past, so what’s the point in pretending we can?
Plus, I’m too busy pretending not to have any feelings for him, unlike Taylor, who lets her salacious thoughts be known to all the girls in the locker room.
I keep to myself for most of the day, which isn’t anything out of the ordinary for me. I spend my time between heats listening to my music and blocking out the other swimmers. Even with a bum shoulder, I advance through qualifying for both the fifty and the hundred with little effort.
When it’s my time to go up on the block for my last swim of the day—the fifty-yard sprint—Coach is right there behind me, clapping his hands and reminding me, “Keep those legs up, Cam. You’ve got this.”
It’s a disappointing twenty-five point two seconds until I hit the wall. Once out of the pool, he’s by my side, making sure my shoulder is fine and giving me his optimistic thoughts for my times. I hit the locker room, shower, change, and then go find Kroy in the bleachers to say a quick goodbye before getting back on the bus.
He stands and smiles, making light of my times, saying, “Well, you didn’t come in last.”
I laugh and shake my head.
“Seriously, though. You were amazing.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate you coming, even though . . .”
“Doesn’t matter,” he assures. “I’m always here for you.”
“I have to get on the bus,” I tell him, giving him a hug and thanking him again for coming out.
When I step off the bleachers, I hear Linze from behind me. “So you can’t even say hi to me?”
I turn back to see her defensive stance, which she apparently takes as my invitation to keep talking. “I mean, I’m standing right here.”
“I don’t even know how to talk to you anymore, Linz.”
“But you can talk to Kroy?” she says. “You ditched both of us, but it’s only me you’re shitty to.”
“I’m not being shitty.”
“Linze, just back off,” Kroy tells her.
“You didn’t come here for me. You only came because of your boyfriend, so what do you even want me to say?”
“I guess nothing.”
I look to Kroy, toss my hands in the air, and turn back to Linze. “What do you want from me, because I can’t seem to do anything right?”
“Just be my friend.”
“I don’t know how to do that anymore,” I snap in defeat. “I can’t just go back to how things were last year. If I could, trust me, I would, but I can’t.”
“More like you don’t want to.”
“Are you kidding me right now?”
“No, I’m not ‘kidding you’. You’ve been nothing but a total bitch to me.”
“Linze, what the fuck?”
“No, Kroy,” I say. “It’s fine. I can’t see myself wanting to be friends with someone like her anymore.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re so damn wrapped up in your superficial life that you can’t see beyond what hairstyle to choose for homecoming. I’m sorry if I can’t relate, but I’m over here dealing with real shit.”
“Oh my God! Are you serious? People die every day. I’m sorry it happened, but seriously?”
Irritation snaps inside me, and I tense my body to keep myself from losing my cool.
“Cam!” Coach calls from the other side of the pool.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Kroy lashes at Linze.
“How can you defend her after she’s treated you like shit and dumped you?”
“Bus is leaving,” Coach hollers.
“I can’t believe you,” I seethe through boiling anger. “He was my dad.”
“Cam, wait,” Kroy says when I turn my back and start walking to Coach Andrews.
“Leave me alone.”
I walk past Coach, gritting my teeth while trying to tame in the fury that’s on the brink of eruption.
“You okay?”
I don’t speak as I stalk in heavy strides to the bus that takes too long to deliver me back to my car. With my head pressed against the window, I watch as dark storm clouds roll in. Coach asks me a few more times about what happened, and when I refuse to confide in him, he encourages me to text him if I need to.
But I won’t, because when I finally get home, I find everything I need to calm myself in my dad’s leather case.
My stomach is marred. Every scar marks a tally of devastation I wasn’t strong enough to deal with on my own. I cut, and for a moment, I feel strong and untouchable, but when the high wanes, I’m left feeling weaker than before. It’s a vicious cycle that somehow I’ve become addicted to.
I hear a commotion from downstairs and close the razor, tucking it back in the case and stashing them both under my vanity. Then, I wipe away the blood with a handful of toilet paper, jump to my feet, and flush the reddened wad before rushing to the top of the stairs.
I look down to see my mother lying at the feet of some man.
“What the hell is going on?”
“She’s wasted,” the stranger says as I run down to her.
“Who’re you?”
“William. I’m a friend of your mother’s.” It’s all he offers before reaching down to pick her back up. “Which room is hers?”
Words fail me, and when I point up the stairs to her bedroom door, sense kicks in, biting its fangs into my flesh deeper than what I ever could have expected.
Blood pulses heavily through my veins as I watch him carrying her with her arms draped around his neck. I’m frozen in shock of the truth as to what she’s been doing when she goes out.
When William reappears after putting her in bed, I question, “Are you two dating?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it dating.”
His cocky smirk tells me all I need to know, and a wave of nausea strangles me.
“Here are her car keys,” he adds, reaching into his pocket.
I hold my hand out, and when he drops them into my palm, I feel like vomiting.
He leaves, taking all the respect I ever had for that woman with him.
How could she?
Stomping up the stairs, I stand in the doorway and look at the monstrosity who’s black-out drunk. I fist the keys, willing them to break my flesh before I send them flying toward her limp body. And finally, the eruption spews its flames and throws me over the edge.
I ball my fists and scream, calling her a slut, calling her a whore. Half of me wishes alcohol poisoning on her, but then the other half prays she doesn’t die and leave me.
I hate her so much.
I hate everything she’s doing to the remnants of us.
My heart pounds erratically against my chest, so hard I can feel the vibrations, so hard I can feel it in my throat, so hard I just might choke on it.
I run to my room, slam the door behind me, and fall face first onto my bed. Burying my head in a pillow, I wail. My voice rips through scalding tears for my dad to come save me, but it isn’t enough. I have to get out of here, so I grab my keys and escape this purgatory disguised as my home.
Rain falls hard against the windshield as I drive. Everything blurs in streaks of liquid light, and I make it to just outside the entrance of the neighborhood before I’m forced to pull over. Throwing the car in park, I listen to the wipers as they whip back and forth while I try to catch my breath.
I can’t do this on my own any longer.
In dire need of comfort, I pick up my phone and call the only person I know that can make me feel safe.
“Is everything okay?”
“No,” I choke out, trying to hide the harrowing urgency in my voice, but it bleeds through anyway.
“What happened?”
“Please,” I beg, frantically trembling. “Can you come pick me up?” Because I’m heartbroken and afraid and there’s no way I can drive right now.
“I’m on my way.”