Shay sits on the locker room bench, waiting for me. She’s always ready before me after practice. I like to linger in the shower stalls, chatting it up with the girls and standing under the hot water. Shay’s in and out, efficient.

“Okay, someone already has the username Shay Spark. What should mine be?” She’s on her phone, setting up an Instagram account. It took years, but now she’s committed to becoming a pro swimmer after graduation next year, I finally managed to convince her she needs to tap into social media, build a presence.

“How about FierceShaySpark?”

She rolls her eyes. “That makes me sound full of myself.”

“I think it’s badass. You need something catchy. It’s perfect, just do it.”

She sighs and types in her phone, grumbling. “I guess if you have 70,000 followers you know what you’re talking about.”

“Eighty K as of yesterday,” I correct her. I just post random shit, enjoy showing off photos of the food I cooked, commenting on bands that I think are on to something, and sharing my taste in music with the universe. I post swimming photos too, of course, but I don’t have a real agenda. I’m not even consciously trying to build followers. Linking my posts to bands, food bloggers, swimmers, it got a momentum rolling that hasn’t stopped. Somehow, I started trending, and now I have random people contacting me, asking me to try their products, listen to their music, taste their food. I don’t know what to do with all of it, especially now they’ve started offering me money.

“This is so weird,” Shay comments, clearly overwhelmed as she scrolls through Instagram. “Whoa, Jett has more followers than you do! He told me he posts sometimes, but sheesh, I didn’t realize there’s this whole alternate universe out there.”

I follow Shay’s boyfriend, Jett Decker, too, of course. As an Olympic medalist, his account is hot, with followers in the six figures. He probably posts something once a month, and still has a huge following. He just signed a contract with Nike though, so that will change, since they require him to post on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook a certain number of times per week. I think Shay realized the importance of all of it once she was privy to Jett’s contract negotiations. It’s not just about your successes in the sport, it’s about brand and image too.

“How about I give you a little tutorial about Instagram tonight?”

“Sounds like a wild Saturday night,” Shay says, eyeing me skeptically. I’m less interested in partying, that’s for sure. I’ve been trying to focus on swimming, on really going for it as I enter my last year of competing. I’m not in the same league as Shay, a Division I National Collegiate champion. I can’t turn pro when I graduate, but I want to try, just once, to give it my all, and see what happens. It’s easier said than done. People expect me to party. I get stir crazy if I don’t get out and go a little wild once in a while. But I’m finding the rush from good live music, maybe some drinking, instead of in guys. Yeah, I still get drunk and act a little reckless, but I stopped looking for the escape from hook-ups.

It isn’t just because of that night with nameless piano guy. If that was the case, I think I might have reacted the opposite, gone around hooking up with guys like crazy to take back the control and power I lost. Because I know that’s what I got from it. I know it even more now that I don’t get it. I miss it.

No, I think something changed for me after meeting Jack Kingston. Those two nights with him, it turned my outlook on its head, and I haven’t been able to turn it back around. I haven’t dug any deeper than that, I just know that the hook-up thing, making a guy fall for me just for the fun of it, doesn’t hold the appeal it used to. Maybe I get some of that sense of empowerment I crave from the thousands of random people who follow my social media account, who seem to care what I’m up to, or at least are interested enough to look at pictures of my life. Maybe I’m finding it in swimming, now that I’m finally admitting to myself that I’m going for it, really going for it, exposing myself to the chance of failure.

“I’m trying to keep up with you, Shay. Can’t do that if I party every night,” I tell her with a little hip check to her shoulder.

“I’m proud of you, Kick. But, what about next weekend? We’re still on for StageFest, right?”

“Duh. And I said I was only trying to keep up with you, so if you’re coming, that means we both take a couple days off from the pool together, right?” I tell her with a wink. Shay only takes a couple days off from the pool three times a year: Christmas (and sometimes only one day then since it’s mid-season), right after the last championship meet of the school season and right after the last championship meet of the summer season. This early summer break will be an exception for her, but Coach Mandy actually encouraged it. The woman’s coached Olympic gold medalists, which is the only reason Shay will listen to her telling her she should take a step back this summer, let her body rejuvenate after such an epic season last year. We want our senior year at Cal U to be the best yet. Coach Mandy wants that too, and knows that means backing off this summer.

Shay and I both decided to stay on campus to train, but instead of putting in the yardage and hours in the pool, we’re working more on the finer details like starts, flip turns, and stroke technique, rather than building speed and stamina. For me, this kind of training is harder, because it takes more focus and concentration. I can’t fake my way through it. But it’s good for me, and Shay is here with me. I want to support her any way I can as she tries to make it as a pro, and being by her side is the only way I know how.

It was a fight with Shay that hit me like a wake-up call. Months ago, on the way home from winter break, we’d blown up at each other. We hadn’t fought, really fought, like that in ages. Maybe never. We said harsh words to each other, words meant to hurt. I’d told her that being her sister sucked because she set an impossible standard. She confessed she wanted to try going pro after college instead of following the finance career Mom was pushing on her, that was expected of her. Shay told me she felt the pressure to be the perfect child because I didn’t try at anything. I lashed back at that, but the thing is, there was truth there. I’d held this dual admiration and resentment of Shay for years. It was mostly admiration, but the resentment was there. But then she asked me what I would do if she quit swimming and dropped out of college. I thought about it. I still think about it. If she suddenly became the family fuck-up, all the attention, expectations, pressure, would turn to me.

I would absolutely hate that.

It made me see, that’s what Shay lives with. And even if our mom thinks I’m a loser for not doing great at school or having a plan for my future, or partying too much, these eighty thousand Instagram followers think otherwise. Those guys who wanted me, fell for me, they let me pretend I was special for a few minutes, hours, days. Whatever time I gave them before I cut them off, not wanting to give them a chance to get any deeper, change their minds about wanting me.

Now I’m realizing that, even if Shay’s words hurt me, she was right. My self-worth can’t be wrapped up in what other people think, or their standards for me. Whether it’s my parents, my sister, my closest friends, a hot hook-up, or tens of thousands of strangers, I have to be able to respect myself. And I can’t get that from half-assing it. So I’m starting with swimming. School, I’m less interested in. But swimming I can do. Plus, it’s been a way for Shay and me to apologize to each other. We don’t need to say we forgive each other for those words we exchanged, because we show it by standing by each other in the pool. I’m trying, and Shay knows it. And I’m doing it in part for myself, but also because this is her dream, and I want to be there for her as she goes for it.