Deep End(70)

I remember her mentioning that. “Oh, well. ”

“I’ll go with you.”

I blink at the offer. At his clear blue eyes. At his unsmiling face. “Don’t you have to . . . win medals, or something?”

“Don’t you?”

I groan. “Do you really have the time?”

“I make the time to do stuff outside of swimming and school, or I’m going to get burned out. Maybe you should, too.”

“I have hobbies,” I counter weakly. Sometimes, when I’m done with homework at a decent hour, I read Mafia erotica until I fall asleep. Eat crackers in bed. Consider calling 911, just to talk to someone.

Okay, I need pastimes that can be brought up in polite company. “Let’s do it,” I say impulsively. “Let’s go hiking.”

“Now?” He sounds skeptical.

“Unless you . . .” Maybe he wasn’t serious, and I’m putting him on the spot. “If you’ve changed your mind—”

“Scarlett, you can barely stand. I was on you hard last night.”

I am, impossibly, blushing. And he’s not wrong, I’m not in peak physical shape, but what’s the alternative? Go home and wallow in the emotional turmoil that comes with the prospect of spending the upcoming season producing a series of malignantly ugly dives? “I feel better, actually.”

“You sure?”

I nod, a spark lighting in my stomach.

“Okay.” He seems . . . not excited—he’s Lukas Blomqvist—but pleased.

“I’ll need to get changed before.” And shower, I don’t add, but he must read between the lines.

“I’ll help you clean up.” His gaze is intense for a moment. Then he palms his keys. “Your place okay?”

“Yes.” With some luck, Maryam won’t be home. And if she is . . . who cares? It’s not like I don’t put up with the mooing videos she watches to relax .

He jumps off the hood, and then lifts me off it even though I could easily do it on my own. I’m in the passenger seat, waiting for Lukas to start the car, contemplating the possibility of a nice day, not spent collapsing under the pressure I put on myself, when his phone rings.

I find it odd, because it hasn’t made a peep for the past twelve hours. Emergency bypass, I suspect. More so when he picks up and asks, “Everything okay?”

On the other side is Pen, but I cannot make out her words. She’s doing most of the talking. Lukas’s questions are short and to the point.

“Where? Are you alone? Is there anyone else who could . . . ? Okay. I’ll be right there.”

He hangs up after a minute. When he turns to me, his jaw is tense. “Pen needs a ride,” he says tersely. No longer sounding pleased. “Her car broke down in Menlo Park.”

My stomach sinks. Twice.

Initially, with disappointment.

Then, harder, when I realize that disappointment was my instinctive reaction to a friend calling and asking for help—a supportive, generous friend, who always makes sure I don’t have globs of sunscreen on my back, who grabs me protein bars from the snack shed before they run out, who held my hand after I fucked up my first meet of the season and said nothing, just like I needed her to.

It shames me. So much so, I can’t look Lukas in the eye.

“Of course,” I say, glancing out of the window.

“Scarlett—”

“It’s totally okay.” I turn back to him with a forced smile. “We can hike whenever.” Or never. That would probably be for the best, actually. What the fuck am I even doing, organizing cutesy excursions with Lukas Blomqvist? “Just drop me off around campus, since it’s on the way. I can make my way home.” I try to sound absolving, but he doesn’t return my smile. “Hey, can I tell you about the progress I’ve made for Dr. Smith’s model? It’s exciting stuff.”

It takes him a while to nod, and he says next to nothing until we pull into the parking lot of my apartment building.





CHAPTER 38


THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY SAM IS OUT SICK—HEART-swooping relief and unspeakable tragedy.

Inevitably, no Sam equals no progress. Then again, the discipline of psychology may have done all it could for me, and it’s hard not to see therapy as the squillionth thing I’m failing, especially after the mutterings I overhear through Coach Sima’s ajar door.

I’m stopping by his office to let him know that I’ll be late for afternoon practice, when something in his tone halts my knuckles just inches from knocking.

“. . . a waste,” he’s saying. “But it’s out of her control.”

“For real.” It’s Coach Urso. “It sounds like her shape is otherwise pretty good? There might still be some hope for higher levels of competition, since only five groups of dives are required.”

“She ain’t qualifying for nationals, though,” an assistant says.

A few more mumbles I cannot make out. Then: “. . . that she’ll just grow out of it?” It’s Bradley. The conditioning director.

“Well,” Coach Sima says, “mental blocks are common, but this long-lasting . . .” More unintelligible words, and I should leave. It’s not good that I’m here. “. . . great talent that’s just . . . I feel for her . . . bad injury, but physically she’s fully recovered. There are no excuses. ”