WITH THE INCEPTION OF SPRING taking root beneath the grounds that hunger for water and warmth, there’s an energy that can be felt from all around. The sun is just starting to ascend into a sky hued in pale pinks and purples. Everything is covered in dewy sweetness, and when I step out of my car, I fill my lungs with the scent of rebirth.
It’s the second week in March, marking the end of swim season. This weekend is state finals, and the bus is already in the school parking lot, waiting to take us down to Norman, which is where we will be staying for the next two days.
Even though it’s a short forty-five minute drive, we leave before seven in the morning to give us time to get settled in to the hotel and prepare for a day of qualifying heats that will start at ten thirty.
This will be the last time I swim for Edmond Ridge High, and I’m ready. Never have I been so anxious to say goodbye to this school—to this town. After this year, I’m ready for my own rebirth, to move to a place where David and I won’t have to worry about what people will say when they see us together. Even though I won’t be his student anymore, if we were to stay in Oklahoma, people would still talk. There’d be a stigma forever attached to us. But in North Carolina, where I wound up accepting UNC’s scholarship offer, no one will know that he was once my teacher.
We’ll be free.
“Morning,” David says when I hand him my bags to stow beneath the bus.
I give him a smile, a smile laced with our hidden secret everyone around us is clueless to.
When I step onto the bus, I spot Ming flagging me down toward the back.
“Cam, I saved you a seat,” she calls out in her tiny voice.
I make my way past my teammates and take the spot next to her. The second I do, I wish I hadn’t; I’m now sitting right across the aisle from Taylor.
“What’s up?” Kyle says casually from the seat in front of me, and I give him a weak, “Hey.”
Kyle and I have remained semi-friendly toward each other, despite my nonexistent friendship with Linze.
“Can you believe this is the last time we’ll swim together?” Ming says while I watch David step onto the bus and start his head count. “It’s so sad when you think about it, ya know?”
“Uh-huh,” I respond vacantly while keeping my focus fixed straight ahead.
His eyes catch mine for a split second before he takes his seat behind the driver.
“Oh my God,” she pops off excitedly, drawing my attention back to her. “I totally didn’t tell you, but I got my acceptance letter in from the University of Florida! Can you believe it? Trading in crap-ass Oklahoma for sunny Florida? I can’t wait!”
“Wow, Ming. That’s great.”
As the bus pulls away from the school and turns onto the main road, Ming goes on talking about everything Florida: the palm trees, weekend trips to the beaches, the hot guys, and everything else in between. I nod and do the occasional, “That sounds amazing,” and “You’re going to have so much fun,” but after a while, I tune her out and eavesdrop into Taylor’s conversations with a small group of girls to the side of me. I’m pretty sure she wants me to hear, considering she isn’t trying to keep her voice down. She’s going on about a party she went to last weekend that Kyle was clearly at when he starts commenting about the crazy night.
But it’s when she drops Kroy’s name that I’m all ears.
“You made out with him?” one of the girls says in what I guess is supposed to be a whisper. It’s loud enough that a few people sitting in front of us noticeably turn their heads, listening.
“Yeah, she did,” another girl says. “Right in front of everyone.”
From the corner of my eye, I see that Taylor wears a prideful slutty smile. “I kinda figured he always had a thing for me.” She catches me watching her and leans toward me. “He told me it was you who broke things off with him, so I figured you wouldn’t care.”
And it isn’t the fact that she kissed Kroy that makes me want to knock the whore right out of her, it’s that time and time again she’s gone out of her way to humiliate me, to remind me, that in her eyes, I’m scum.
“You figured right,” I tell her. “I don’t care.”
I turn and face straight ahead when Kyle looks over at me and mentions, “Kroy was completely wasted.”
“Like I said, I don’t care. If he wants to drink and keep bad company, that’s on him.”
Taylor continues to gossip to the girls about what a good kisser Kroy is and blah, blah, blah. I know her mission is to push my buttons, to get under my skin, and make me jealous. The thing is, I’m not jealous. Maybe I would be if I didn’t have David, but I do, and I love him in a way I never did with Kroy. It took David to show me that Kroy and me never really belonged together. So, Kroy can have Taylor if that’s what he wants. He can have whomever because jealousy can’t live when there are no emotions to feed it.
“She’s such a bitch,” Ming says to me from under her breath. “You should have seen the way she was flirting with Coach Andrews the other day after swim practice.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing, which made it laughable. I don’t think he even noticed, but a few of us did, and it was pathetic.”
“She’s so gross,” I murmur and then pull out my earbuds to tune out the nauseating fodder for the rest of the drive.
When we arrive at the hotel, David hands out the room assignments and we head our separate ways. I’m with Ming and two other girls, who thankfully aren’t snide bitches like Taylor.
“Don’t listen to her. She’s just another washed-up mean girl,” they tell me, but I’ve already sluffed it off. Heats start in a couple hours, and I’ve been working too hard to beat my own state record to let someone like Taylor ruin it. Besides, her shit-talking just gave me more fuel for my drive. Never have I wanted to beat my own times more than what I do now, just to show Taylor that she’ll never be as fast as I am.
Catty?
Yes.
But I don’t care.
We spend the next couple hours hanging out as girls do and getting ready for the meet. When it’s time to go, we head out at the same time David comes out of his room, which is down the hall. It’s awkward to pretend to be so distant with him, and I find myself fidgeting as we all share an elevator down to the lobby.
When we get back on the bus, I opt for a seat in the front and as far away from Taylor as I can get. We arrive at the University of Oklahoma’s aquatic center, and I go into competition mode. David gets the heat sheets, and I take a spot on the bleachers next to the pool deck in our team’s designated spot. I have three qualifiers today: the fifty-yard, the one hundred-yard, and the team relay. While I wait for my heats, I pull up my music on my phone and shove my earbuds in, shutting out everything around me while I wait for David to call me to the deck when it’s nearing my time to swim.
For each heat, he gives me a solid pep-talk before stepping behind me when I take my position on the block. And each time, after out-swimming the other girls in my division, he’s right there, smiling down at me the same way my dad used to do when I’d break the water’s surface.
Taylor glares at me when she pulls herself out of the water, pissed that I’m Coach’s focus for state. But I’m the one that pulls the weight of our team relay, and I’m the one that has the best chance of coming out on top with the best times.
Evening falls, and the day wraps up. When everyone votes to order in room service, we head back to the hotel. Knowing that tomorrow’s swims are the ones that count, we call it an early night to get some solid sleep.
But, sleep fails me when I can’t stop thinking about David. I hate that I’m stuck sharing a bed with Ming when I want to be sharing a bed with him. I toss and turn, dozing in and out of superficial sleep. I grow restless as I watch the minutes turn into drifting hours on the way-too-bright clock on the nightstand. I lean up and look over to the girls in the other bed, and they’re sound asleep while Ming snores lightly beside me.
I lie back down and pull out my phone from under my pillow and give another look to ensure no one is awake before texting David.
Me: I can’t sleep.
He doesn’t make me wait long before my cell vibrates with his reply.
David: Me neither. Knowing you’re a few doors down has me restless.
I smile, knowing he’s feeling what I’m feeling.
Me: I don’t have to be a few doors down. Everyone in my room is sound asleep.
David: What if one of them were to wake up? You need to stay. It’s too risky.
I know he’s right.
Me: I hate this.
David: I do too, babe. Trust me, I wish I had you in bed with me right now.
The thought of being with him excites me. It’s the alluring temptation to touch the flame when it’s within reach, just to feel his heat next to me. I sit up and look at the girls as contemplation takes over, and even though he told me no, the rush in my veins is screaming yes.
I ease myself out of bed, slip on my flip-flops, and grab my phone and key card before padding out of the room, careful not to make a sound. Stepping out into the hall, I hold the latch of the door as I gently close it and then slowly retract the handle back.
My pulse races as I look to my left and right before rushing on my tiptoes down to David’s room. With a few soft knocks, he’s quick to open his door and pull me inside.
“What the fuck are you doing? Are you crazy?” he scolds in an audible hush.
But I ignore him, reaching my arms around his neck and kissing him. And no more words are spoken, because it’s in the moment our bodies touch that we fall victim to one another.
He presses his hands into the small of my back as we stumble across the room to the bed. Lying down, he pushes off me and stands at the foot of the bed. I watch him as he stares down at me, the moon casting him in silver. With his shirt already off, he lowers his shorts. I lift my hips and pull down my pants as he stands bold and naked in front of me. I then shift to my knees and remove my top. Exposed and entirely bare, we hold still, only inches apart, as our eyes fixate on each other.
He takes a slow step closer and reaches his hand to my face. I crane my head back and look up into all I will ever want, knowing this is my future—this—right here in front of me.
I lie back, and he crawls over me, our hands tracing over each other—touching, caressing, claiming the other as our own.
My heart beats into his palm as his lips spill over my breasts, and when he finds his home inside my body, I cling, arms and legs, to him, my plea for him to cover me wholly.
And he does.
Wrapping me in his broad arms, our bodies move in a fog of passion. He releases a heady moan that mingles with my faint ones when we begin to lose ourselves to each other.
In no hurry for this to end any time soon, we force ourselves to slow time and time again, edging on the brink of ecstasy as we tangle the sheets beneath us.
We’re a union of secrets and flaws, but nothing is truer than this right here. Our two bodies, mended as one, covered in a sheen of sweat as they beg to be split open for the mere chance to be even closer than what they already are. I’d crawl beneath his ribs if I could. Press my lips into the tissue of his heart. Swim in the marrow of his bones. I’d give him the very same if he asked for it. I’d cleave myself open for him, force him to take all of me, because that’s all I crave—to be his—only his, because in my soul, he’s mine.
When muscles tremble in a surge of electricity, his mouth covers mine as we give into our need for release, swallowing each other’s gasps of pleasure as we kiss.
Never have I felt so safe and so loved as I do is this moment, lying in David’s arms with him still inside me. I’m overwhelmed with vulnerability as I allow myself to feel everything my heart’s telling me to, and instead of David trying to rush me to get back to my room, he holds me tightly as silent tears spill straight from my heart and onto his chest.
His hands lift my head, and I see his emotions reflecting mine in his eyes.
“I love you, David.”
He presses his lips to mine. “I love you too,” he says before lowering my head back down to his chest. “God, I love you so much.”
I wake with a start and freak when I see the room flooded in morning light.
“Oh my God.”
“Fuck,” David says in the same wave of panic.
I jump out of bed and run around the room, collecting my clothes piece by piece and shrugging them back on.
“What if they’re awake?” I fret while he’s pulling his shorts up.
“Tell them you woke up early and went for a walk to clear your head.”
“In flip-flops and no bra?” I exclaim.
“Shit, I don’t know. I can’t believe we passed out like that.”
I run into the bathroom and rake my fingers through my hair before dragging them beneath my eyes, doing my best to calm down and think of an excuse as to why I’m not in the room, while also praying that they are still asleep. I look at the clock on the counter to see it’s only seven, so there is still a good chance they aren’t awake yet.
“Are you okay?” he asks when I come out of the bathroom.
“What am I going to say?”
With his hands running down the length of my arms, he says, “You could probably say anything without them coming to the conclusion that you were with me all night. I mean, think about it.”
And he’s right. The idea, as real as it may be, would be so far-fetched in their minds.
“Tell them you went to the vending machines, tell them you went for a walk, tell them you went down to the lobby to drink a cup of coffee,” he rambles off.
“I don’t even drink coffee.”
He gives a weak smile before kissing me. “You had trouble sleeping, so you went down to the lobby to read because you didn’t want to wake them,” he says as he hands me my phone. “I see you reading on this thing all the time.”
With one last kiss, I grab the key card and peek out into the hall to make sure no one is walking around. When I see I’m in the clear, I run down to my room. As I swipe the card and push the door open, I hear another one closing. My heart freezes, and I dart my eyes down the hall in both directions, but don’t see anyone.
“There you are,” Ming says.
I step inside with butterflies hacking me up from the inside.
“Where did you go?” she asks, and since she is still in bed and the other two girls seem to be just waking up, I grab on to the first lie David gave me that surfaces through my panic.
“Oh, I . . . I went to the vending machines.” And when she looks at my empty hands, I quickly add, “Damn thing ate my money.”
“I hate when that happens,” she says with ease, and I breathe a sigh of relief when she changes the subject and starts talking about today’s meet.
A strain of nervousness sticks with me for most of the morning as we get ready to head down to the bus, but when I realize that I’m worrying over something they are apparently completely oblivious to, I will myself to relax.
Sitting on the bus, listening to one of my playlists, I lean my head against the window and drift my eyes over to David before closing them. Visions of him from last night play behind my lids: the way his chest flexed as he moved above me, the way he guided my hips in his hands when I was on top of him, the way his body felt inside mine. I smile before I know I’m smiling. Covering my mouth with my hand, I continue to replay the night until the bus comes to a stop when we arrive.
Keeping my earbuds in, I file off the bus with everyone else and back inside the aquatic center. With my music and thoughts, it’s easy for me to relax and not focus on the other swimmers. Hanging out on the bleachers, I scan the rows of spectators on the opposite side of the pool, spotting Linze tucked against the back wall. She’s focused on Kyle and doesn’t see me, but I notice, for the first time this year, Kroy isn’t with her. He’s come to every single swim meet of mine since freshman year, and when I continue to search the bleachers for him, it’s apparent that he’s a no-show.
I guess I don’t blame him, but there’s still something deep down inside me that wishes he were here. It’s a pang within, knowing he’s giving up on me.
I shake my head, trying to flush all those thoughts away. I can’t have any of that distracting me right now.
I’m deep into my playlist before it’s time for me to swim the relay. We place first, and Taylor gloats in our shared victory, but I desecrate her in the one hundred-yard free later in the day.
Those weren’t my focus today though.
No, all my energy is being put into the fifty-yard free.
I currently hold the state record at twenty-three point two one, and as soon as I took it, I wanted to break it again. But then my dad died, along with all my goals. And then there was David, and somehow he sparked life back into me. He took me from a broken girl with a skull fracture and an AC separation to her shoulder, and helped me rehab. He committed himself to the pool with me, and slowly, my times started to improve. My only wish is that my dad could be here.
I turn to see David through misty eyes when his hand cups my shoulder.
“You okay?” he questions when I pull out my earbuds. “Come here.”
I slip off my team jacket and grab my swim cap before following behind the high-rise bleachers.
“What’s going on?”
“My mind drifted for a moment,” I tell him. “I’m fine.”
“I want you focused, you hear? You’re up in five heats.”
I nod and start warming up as he goes back out to the pool deck where Kyle is readying to swim the fifty-yard for his division. I turn my back to the pool and shake out my arms and legs. I cycle through a few warm ups but can’t seem to clear my head. He’s too powerful of a force to shut out, and I panic when my chest grows heavy. Pacing back and forth, he talks to me as if he were still alive. As if he were here with me.
“Cam, what are you doing?”
With my hand over my heaving chest, David grabs my shoulders.
Pinching my eyes shut, I drop my head and hop up and down a few times to loosen up my legs, but David doesn’t relent when he pushes, “You need to tell me what has you on the verge of tears right now.”
I take in a few deep breaths as his eyes press into mine, and when his grip on my shoulders tighten, I admit, “I can’t stop thinking about my dad.”
His face pains, and I know he’s fighting against the urge to hold me, but he can’t. Because we can’t be us when we’re not hidden away like some dirty secret.
“I’ll be fine,” I try to assure.
“Use him then,” he tells me. “You’re only going to stress yourself out otherwise. So, if he’s in your head, use him. Whatever he used to tell you before you jumped off that block, that’s what you need to listen to, okay?”
I nod.
“You got this. I know you do.”
With him at my side, we head over to the block. Taylor takes her place to the lane left of me. I turn my back to her, and close my eyes as I wait for the call to take our marks. And when they do, I step onto the platform. I not only hear the words of my dad but also those of David behind me.
When I hit the water, it only takes twenty-three point one nine seconds for me to see David’s beaming smile as he claps his hands.
I turn to the ticker board to see I beat my previous record and that I just took state. With everything I had to overcome from my injuries, I was able to pull off this last victory for my father.
With as elated as I should be, I can’t find it in myself. So, I sit alone on the bus ride home with a crippled heart, wishing for my dad. I had once wished for a hundred wishes when I was a little kid, but I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m well aware that life isn’t that granting. That no matter how many wishes I hold in my pocket, none of them will ever come true.
If he were here, I’d be sitting next to him on this bus, listening to him tell me how proud he is of me. And then I look to David, and I wonder if we would have fallen in love if my dad were still alive. How would this year have played out with my father as my coach and David as the assistant coach? And how would I choose if I were to be forced to pick one life path or the other?
The sun has set when I step off the bus. I watch as everyone grabs their bags and gets into their cars, leaving me standing and looking across the nearly empty lot at David. He smiles at me, and I thank God I will never have to make such a choice.
I start my car, and as the last of my teammates drive away, I do as well. But it isn’t left I turn, it’s right. It’s to the place that the garage door opener in my console belongs. Because it’s when I walk into his house and straight into his arms that I know I’ve found my true home.
“I am so fucking proud of you, baby.”
I close my eyes and smile at the fact that we are one step closer to being free. Two more months is all that stands in our way. Swim season is officially over. I’ve got my acceptance to UNC with my dormitory placement to come, and David has started looking at teaching jobs and places for him to live.
But then he says something. Something I’ve never asked him to say, but something I thought I had been foolishly wishing for.
“I know today was hard on you. And I know how much you’ve lost this year, but I promise you, I will never abandon you.”
His lips press down onto my head, a tear drops from my chin, and I toss ninety-nine wishes away, because I don’t need them when he just gave me everything in that single one.