Deep End(119)

That night, my phone vibrates. Everything okay?

Pen breathes softly next to me. Yup. She’s sleeping.

LUKAS: You?

SCARLETT: Not sleeping.

LUKAS: But are you okay?

SCARLETT: Yeah.

Shadows of tree branches mottle the ceiling.

SCARLETT: Lukas?

LUKAS: Yes?

SCARLETT: Congrats on winning your last race in the US.

LUKAS: Thank you, Scarlett.





CHAPTER 62


CAMPUS IS OVERTAKEN BY ATHLETES.

For a couple of days, the diving well—my diving well—is off-limits to us locals, as divers from other DI schools familiarize themselves with it. It’s a monkey paw situation: I was so envious of the swimmers for their tapering holidays, but I find that idleness doesn’t suit me much. I still show up at Avery, for dryland and some light PT.

It’s where I learn that Lukas is back. I see him in one of the offices, talking to the athletics big shots who only show up when we win something, and my heart flutters in my throat. The happiest hummingbird to ever fly.

Later. I’ll text him later. I force myself to leave, remind myself that he’s busy, but while heading to the dining hall, I hear running steps behind me. A hand closes around my upper arm, and he’s there.

I’m bursting, with . . .

It has to be love. It’s expansive and all-consuming and full and joyous. Hungry. Thick. At once heavy and light. Everywhere and golden. It’s him and me and the myriad of little strings that tangle us together .

I grin, and my happy smile seems to disorient him. He reaches up, brushes my cheek with his thumb, says my name so low, even I can’t hear it. Then he pulls back with a slight frown.

“When did you get back?”

“This morning.” A step closer, towering over me. “We need to talk.”

I frown. “Is she okay? I thought she was with Coach Sima.”

“Who?”

“Pen.”

“This is not about Pen.” His hand is still around my arm. “It’s about you having a concussion and not telling me.”

“How do you know?”

His eyebrow lifts.

“It wasn’t a big deal. I was cleared the following day. And you were splashing around the East Coast. Winning shit. Übermensching.”

“You need to tell me these things.”

“What things?”

“Everything. You need to . . .” He inhales. Looks away, then back to me. “I want to know this stuff.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s about you.”

Another spill of heat. My stomach is made of butterflies. “I’m fine,” I reassure. Grasp his hand lightly, a silent apology, a promise that I’m safe, and he sighs deeply. Looks down at me.

“We do need to talk, Scarlett.”

We do. Still. “It’s just a bad time. She needs us more than . . .” More than what? More than I need him? More than he needs me? Is it even for me to say?

No, judging from the way his jaw shifts back and forth. He bends down to kiss me, short, hard, like he means to leave an imprint. Little does he know, it’s already there .

“As soon as this is solved,” he warns.

I take a deep breath. “As soon as this is solved, and the NCAA is over.”

The following morning, one day before the competition is due to start, Pen receives an email from Stanford’s athletic director.

The initial lab results were a false positive.



The NCAA tournament has no synchro event. “Which sucks,” Pen tells me, “since we’d just hit our stride.”

“Right?” Even though, in the privacy of my own head, I do love the idea of only competing in one event, my best, on the last day. “I’ll be there on the second day, though. For the board stuff.”

“To hold my shammy?”

“And send you rip vibes.”

Avery is pure chaos. Every time a race starts, a stadium-like ruckus rises from the competition pool. Tickets are sold out, and access to the stands is prohibited to non-holders. To support us, the men’s team resorts to watching events from the sidelines and the entrances to the lockers, clustering, making bets, producing bombastic noises whenever Stanford is adjudicated any number of points.

“It’s because they placed fourth at their championship,” Shannon informs me. She’s one of the captains of the Stanford women’s team. I get plenty of mass emails from her, but I cannot recall if we’ve ever talked before. “How they could not place first with Blomqvist on their team, I have no clue.”

“Who won?” Boy, I really should care more.

“The men’s? Cal. But our main rivals are Texas and Virginia. Can you dive better than them?”

“I hope so.”

Her not good enough scowl reminds me why we never hit it off. “It’s okay. My horse is Penelope Ross. ”

But perhaps it shouldn’t be, because Pen is not having a great championship. During the prelims for the three meter, she nearly doesn’t qualify because of a wrong twist. Later, in the final, even without failed dives, her form is . . .

“That was so good,” Rachel says after Pen’s back two-and-a-half pike that just . . . isn’t. Dives are to non-divers what wine is to me: it could come from a cube, or from the cellar of an impoverished French baron whose family fell upon hard times. I’d have no way of discerning.