It might be the first time in my life I’ve been excited for a Monday morning practice. I didn’t get to campus until nearly midnight on Sunday night after flying in from Austin, so I’m running on four hours’ sleep when we jump into the water at five AM. The cold shocks my still-half-asleep body, and I welcome it.

Nolan Hobart will be touring with Kings of Sound for the next three months. Playing on stage with my boyfriend and his best friends. Sleeping beside them on the tour bus. I haven’t been able to shake the sick feeling from Saturday night. Even after hours in bed with Jack the next morning after the guys gave us privacy, then hitting up an awesome brunch spot in Austin, I haven’t been myself.

The fact that I’m here in the pool, attacking the warm-up like it’s a race, confirms I’m really losing it. Afternoon practices are usually when we go the hardest, but I’m in the mood to drown my anxiety with physical pain. We have a stroke set, and typically I’m dragging in the back of the lane, since I’m the only breaststroker in the fastest women’s lane, and breaststroke is the slowest stroke. Today, I’m determined to stay right on Beatrice’s heels as she struggles through the laps doing butterfly, a significantly faster stroke.

“Damn girl,” Bea says when we get a short break. “You got extra energy from all that sex you had this weekend or something?”

“Something like that,” I mumble.

She laughs, shaking her head. “A weekend without a meet used to mean you showed up Monday morning hungover, now it means you’ve turned into a sex-crazed maniac.”

Shay says, “Maybe you and Daryl need to start having more sex, Bea. Kick’s practically grabbing your ankles today. Can’t have that.”

Bea tilts her head. “Shit, you’re right. Daryl was out of town this weekend. That must be why I’m dragging.”

The next set starts up, a freestyle one, and this time, I do grab Bea’s ankles and drag her back, passing her and shooting forward. Freestyle is the fastest of the four strokes but compared to other swimmers, it’s my slowest. This morning, I’m on fire.

I know it won’t last though. I can’t sustain running on shitty emotions. Eventually, I’m going to break.

It’s Saturday night and Nolan has been playing with Kings of Sound for two weeks. I could have gone to Jack’s show, it’s only three hours away, but instead I’m on campus. I’ll be meeting Jack in L.A. in two weeks, so that’s my excuse for not going. Really, I’d be there in a heartbeat to support him, since I know the change has been rough on the band. But I hope to avoid Nolan for as long as possible.

I cooked dinner for Shay, Bea, and some of the girls on the team, and everyone’s gone off to hang with boyfriends or do homework or something.

I’m staring at my closet, rubbing my fingers over the red leather pants I wore the night I met Jack. I haven’t worn them since. The idea strikes to head to the Happy Hollow, a place I haven’t been to since… well, meeting Nolan Hobart. I have no idea where this idea is coming from, this urge to be the old me again, just for a moment. Is it weird I miss her? Or do I miss the brief comfort I got from pulling a guy in, wrapping him around my finger and sending him on his way?

“Hey, can I talk to you?” Shay’s voice from my doorway startles me and I jump, hand on my chest.

“Shit, sorry, thought you already left for Jett’s place.”

“No, headed there in a minute though. I had a couple of phone calls with agents, actually.”

“Just now?”

“Yeah,” she says with a nod. “I can’t sign with anyone until I graduate but I need to be ready to make a decision so I’m sort of in the interviewing process, getting to know the agents, who they work with, their philosophies, what kind of contracts I might have a shot at.”

Of course, my sister would be on the ball about this, making sure she’s considering every option, doing her due diligence. “And you thought you would have trouble getting a sponsor. Silly girl,” I tease.

She sits on my bed. “The agents are salespeople. They tell me they can get me big contracts, but who knows? And they want to know about Jett too, our relationship. I’m thinking that being with him has a lot to do with the interest in me.”

She’s probably not wrong. Dating an Olympic track athlete, a silver medalist at that, now with his own major sponsorship deal, definitely boosts the “marketability” factor that Missy mentioned. “You’re pretty hot too, so that doesn’t hurt. Definitely has nothing to do with the fact that you’re a National champion and record holder, that you consistently race well, and that you’re the golden child in the collegiate swimming world,” I tell her, hoping she knows she’s enough to make it professionally with or without Jett Decker at her side.

“Thanks,” she says. “But there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Oh, yeah?” My stomach tightens because I think I know where this is going.

“The agents ask about you, too. Missy told me she even talked to you. Why didn’t you tell me, Kick?”

She sounds hurt, and she has a right to be. We used to tell each other everything. Everything important, that is. Since she met Jett, he’s her main confidant now, and I get that. We’re still close, things are good, but I never did confide in her about Nolan. “I was going to mention it, but I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about it and I still haven’t wrapped my head around it.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, curious.

“I mean, Missy mentioned the possibility of a package deal contract. With the twin factor, my brand and blog, your consistent improvement and swimming accomplishments, we’re a good team from a marketing perspective. I get that. I want you to succeed. I want to help you. I know you can do it on your own, but I love the idea of doing it together. I just…” I look up at the ceiling. “I honestly never considered swimming professionally. I don’t know if I have it in me.”

“You have the talent, Kick. No question about that. But you can’t do it for me or because having a sports contract means more security than going solo with the brand stuff. You gotta have the passion for swimming too, you know? It’s a huge part of our lives now but professionally, it will become the center of your life. I’m down with that, I want that. But I don’t have a million talents like you do. With everything else you’re passionate about, do you have enough left over for swimming?”

I can always count on Shay to summarize everything I’m feeling, the ideas and thoughts bouncing around in me, and boil them down to a single question I can understand. “I don’t know yet,” I answer honestly.

“Fair enough. Kick, I’d love to be on Team Spark with you from a professional standpoint, but you know we’re a team either way. So, think about it.”

“I don’t even really know what these contracts look like. Is anyone telling you numbers? What’s the difference for you between going in on your own or going in with me?”

Shay watches her finger as it traces the design on my bedding, and I know she doesn’t want to answer. “I’m not sure exactly, it will depend on a lot of factors. They can’t tell me anything for certain. I definitely need to get through the college season, see how it all goes, before I get more information.”

“Okay, then, just ballpark.”

Shay rattles off the numbers agents have been suggesting for contracts. If she enters a contract by herself, it will start as a very low salary, hardly enough to live on, but with bonus potential that would put her at a real solid income right out of college. That’s a huge relief. I know Shay’s been concerned she won’t make enough as a professional swimmer to support herself, that she’d need to get a job to make ends meet, and that Jett would want to help, which would be complicated.

But then she tells me what it would look like if she signed a contract including me. Three to five times the salary, less reliant on performance-based bonuses, though they would be available as well.

“You think the agents are bullshitting you? That’s crazy. That’s more than you would’ve made doing the banking jobs Mom wanted you to do. And then if you get bonuses, we’d be making like, I don’t know, maybe as much as Mom and Dad.”

“Like I said, that’s only ballpark estimates, and the agents are also really trying to sell themselves to me so are probably exaggerating. But yeah, as a package deal, we’d do well. Maybe even insanely well, though it’s hard to say for sure.”

A strange feeling takes ahold of me then, like I’m floating away from the conversation, like it’s all a dream. Getting paid real money, having a legitimate contract, to do all the things I love doing? That can’t actually be on the table. I mean, it’s not, it’s just a concept right now. I’d never imagined that posting pictures about the things I like, my opinions about shit like food and music, would help with the possibility of swimming professionally. It almost feels like cheating. I’m not good enough on my own to land a contract for swimming alone, it takes my sister and a handful of unrelated “achievements” based totally on luck for me to have this potential opportunity. Now that—that I can wrap my head around.

“I guess I’ll have to see if summer nationals was a fluke,” I say, knowing Shay understands I’m serious.

“It wasn’t a fluke,” she says, also without any humor. “You’ve got more talent than me in the pool, Kick. You keep training like you are, the results will keep coming. It’s really only about whether you want it.”

Want it? Of course I want it. No, that’s not right. Not exactly. I need to give myself permission to want it. Permission that, once again, I feel unworthy to grant myself. Somehow, it’s easier knowing that going for it will help Shay too. It allows me to grant limited permission to dream, if only for Shay’s sake. So I’ll keep going for it in the pool this season, and see what happens. But I can’t let it be my dream. I’ll do it for Shay, but not for myself.