Deep End

IT’S NOT A GOOD YEAR FOR USA DIVING. Hayden Bosko, our three-meter hopeful, loses hope somewhere around her fourth dive and limps to a tired sixth place. Carissa and Natalie don’t even make it to the synchro finals. Peter Bryant forgets the concept of rip entry while in the air, and Akane, our only medal, pulls off a bronze by the skin of her teeth. And then there’s me.

BARB: Maybe you’re not on the podium, but you are officially the ninth best platform diver in the world. Isn’t that good?

It doesn’t feel good, not as half a dozen sports journalists who’d rather be on the NFL beat ask me, “What went wrong, Scarlett?”

Everything, I want to scream. Instead I clear my throat, and say, “Lots of tiny mistakes that added up.” It’s true. No earthquakes, just aftershocks. I smile and repeat what the media specialist taught us. “I’m really happy to be here.”

But I’m not. “What a waste of time,” Akane mutters back in the hotel room.

“I fucking hate it.”

“Wanna join me in my feel-like-shit ritual?”

“What’s that?”

We spend an hour watching amateur diving fails, and when Akane falls asleep, I head upstairs. Nine months ago, I wasn’t sure I’d ever dive competitively again. I have no reason to be this frustrated with myself. “Why am I so furious?” I ask the second Lukas opens the door, brushing past him.

“What happened to your back?”

“What—oh.” I guess he can see the bruises under my tank top. “Nothing. I screwed up the fulcrum, smacked during my lead-ups.”

“What the fuck, Scarlett?” He turns me around to examine the purpling edges.

“It’s fine. It was during warm-up, it’s not bad—”

“This is bad.”

“It was from the board and—” I whirl around, surprised by the worry in his eyes. “I should be happy, shouldn’t I?” My cheeks feel wet, because my fucking eyes are leaking. I wipe at them with my palms. “ ‘Just happy to be here.’ That’s supposed to be my motto.”

He crosses his arms. Gives me a long, assessing stare. “Where else are you hurt?”

“Just that and the back of my thighs, but—”

“Take off your clothes and get on the bed. Face down.”

“I don’t—”

“Scarlett.”

I obey, and squeeze my eyes shut. When he starts rubbing bruise-relief lotion into my skin, my tears overflow anyway.

“You don’t have to—I have some in my room, too.”

“But you didn’t use it. Because you felt like you didn’t deserve it.”

I turn my head. “How do you—”

“I know you, Scarlett. Come on. Breathe in, breathe out.”

It takes me a while to calm down. “I used to feel sad when I lost. I don’t understand where all this . . . this fury comes from.”

“You used to be in survival mode. You just wanted to compete again.” His hands are warm and gentle. “Now you know what you’re capable of, and you’re angry you didn’t perform accordingly. It’s a good thing—within reason.”

I bury my face into the cotton. “Why do you sound happy about it?”

“I like you like this.”

“When I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds?”

“Yup. Fighty.” He presses a kiss against my nape, lingering, rubbing his nose through the baby hair. “It’s healthy, Scarlett. Take the anger and use it as fuel.”

He’s right. He’s always right. Also, he’s medaled in all his races so far, but has to take care of me, a loser. How does he not feel impatient with me?

He told you to do it, a voice reminds me. He asked me to go to him when I’m falling apart. And he’s so good at putting me back together, patching me up like a too-worn shirt, weaving me into my original shape. Even though my rough days at the office cannot possibly be relatable to him. “Is it weird for you? When others lose?”

He laughs. “You think I never lose?”

“I know you don’t. You are forty-five gold medals in a trench coat. You got into med school. There are fancams of you on the internet.”

He snorts. “I tried training backstroke and longer butterfly distances, and never qualified for shit. I had to come to the US for college because the Karolinska Institute didn’t accept me. I tried building a neural network, and the accuracy was abysmal compared to yours. And as you know, my girlfriend of seven years broke up with me because of how not fun I am.”

I try to turn around, but he doesn’t let me. “I have fun with you,” I protest.

“That’s because you are a kinky little troll. Which is, incidentally, how I will re-save you in my contacts.”

I laugh. “No! I mean, yes, but also—I have fun with you even when we’re not . . .”

“Fucking?”

“Indulging in our paraphiliac inclinations. And I have fun when we’re just hanging out. Maybe it doesn’t mean much, coming from someone who according to Dixon Ioannidis from ninth grade has less personality than a sourdough starter, but I like you.” I suddenly feel warm. I’ve said too much. “And I’m sorry Pen broke up with you.”

“I am very much not, Scarlett.”

Even warmer. “And I didn’t know about the backstroke. Or the school. And your model wasn’t that bad.”

He moves down, to the backs of my thighs. “Now you’re just lying.”

“Yeah. It was a shitbowl.”

He finishes with a chuckle and goes to wash his hands. When he comes back, I’m putting on my top. “Maybe it’s for the best,” I say.

“What is?”

“The butterfly thing. That stroke feels like lots of unnecessary work.”

He pushes my hair back and picks me up. I respond instinctively, letting my legs wrap around his waist, holding tight onto his neck as he moves us to the balcony. The sun just finished setting, the air is chilly, but he wraps a blanket around me as we stare at the pretty skyline. It feels like something out of a fairy tale.

“Doesn’t butterfly make you want to just flutter kick your legs?” I ask lazily.

“It’s illegal.”

“Would they arrest you?”

“Execute me.”

“Intense.” I burrow into him. “What’s your favorite stroke?”

“Free.” On the back of his hand there are remnants of the models I’ve been drawing every morning, soft kisses and hushed trolls whispered low into my hair before we make our way to the pools. He strokes patterns on my arm, and I nuzzle my nose against his neck. “You can’t mess free up. You can get to the end of the race however you want.”

“Really? What about sculling?”

“That’s fine.”

“Windshield wiping?”

“It’ll take a while, but yeah.”

“What if I break into backstroke?”

“Fine.”

“I just wait for the currents to drag me.”

“Also fine.”

“Doggy paddle?”

“Sure.”

“Can I do it naked?”

“I’d enjoy it.”

I smile into his neck. “See? I just do.”

“What?”

“Have fun. With you.” His arms tighten around me, just a little, just a second. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Sure. You already know all of mine.”

“It’s . . . I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I’m not going to turn into a stalker or anything like that, so don’t worry.”

His laughter is quiet. “Scarlett . . . you have no idea.”

It’s encouraging. So I make myself blurt it out: “Sometimes I think that it would be nice, if you and I ended up in med school together.”

He says nothing. Just leans back to catch my eyes, and in the light that seeps through the balcony doors, he seems so . . . so intense and present and focused on what I just said, I almost want to take it back.

But I power through. “We’d make a good team. For study groups and stuff. I’m not even talking about . . .” Sex, I cannot bring myself to say.

Although . . . why not? He and I go so well together, in so many ways. Would Pen even care? She’s with Theo. Lukas likes me, maybe even as much as I like him. Yes, we agreed on just sex, but things have obviously evolved. He talked about dating. Is there any reason for us not to continue on together? The prospect of him disappearing from my life tears through me with such violence, the only person who could sew me back together is . . .

Lukas.

With whom, I fear, I might be a little bit in love.

It’s a gut-punching realization. I’m ready to panic, but Lukas stops me with a single word.

“Yeah?” His voice is hesitant, a little rough. Like my words grated against his vocal cords.

Lie, I order myself. Swallow it back. But I can’t. I don’t want to. “Yeah.”

And maybe it’s fine. Because he kisses me, something never-ending and supple and so, so sweet, it feels like being in the air. Hovering above the water. Running off a platform with the certainty that a good dive is there, ready to spring out of my muscles.

“Except.” He pulls back, more composed. “You’re a junior. In this scenario, I’m ahead and you’re shamelessly using me for tutoring.”

I press a kiss against the corner of his mouth. “Firstly, I do not need the tutoring of someone whose neural network has chance-level accuracy.”

“Savage.” His smile swells under my lips.

“And, Pen told me you’re going to defer your acceptance, which means that . . .”

I stop. Lukas is shaking his head. “I’m not.”

“You’re . . . not?”

He folds a lock of hair behind my ear. “I’m starting med school this fall.”

“Oh. Maybe I misunderstood.”

“I’m sure that’s what she told you. But I have no intention of postponing.”

I nod. “Well, you have great time-management skills. M1 workload is tough, and you’ll have little time for caribou watching and other famed Swedish pastimes, but if anyone can keep up with a training program while learning how to dissect cadavers—”

“I won’t.”

“Lukas.” I cup his cheek, not wanting to break his heart. “Corpse stuff is mandatory in US med schools.”

He laughs. “I’ll be fine with corpse stuff. It’s the swimming that I’ll avoid.”

My hand drops in his lap. “What?”

“These Olympics are my last.”

“You’re joking, right?” But he’s not. It’s in his eyes, the confident air of someone who has made peace with his choices. “You’re one of the best swimmers of the century. Everyone agrees.”

“Eh, century just started.”

“You hold several current records.” He shrugs. The movement vibrates in my bones and tendons. “You probably have a decade ahead of you.”

“A decade of what?”

“Of . . . becoming faster. Winning.”

“And then? Three, five, ten years from now, there’ll be better tech suits, better nutrition, better and smarter training. A bunch of talented kids will show up and wipe the ground with us and . . .” He shakes his head. Not bitter, just accepting. “I can’t find it in me to give a fuck, Scarlett. The idea of being faster than them doesn’t motivate me to swim repeat one hundreds, or to endlessly debate one up versus two downs. There’s no endgame.”

“But . . . what about the glory?”

“What about it?”

“I don’t know. You have fans. People love you. The king loves you!”

“The king’s elderly and has no idea who I am, thank fuck. And this shit, it’s not the kind of love I’m interested in, Scarlett.” He says it so pointedly, into my eyes, it could almost be a jab, but . . . not quite. “Being respected as a swimmer is great. But I don’t want to make that my identity any longer than I already have. I’ve been telling this to Pen for years. She just thinks I’ll miss the attention and pull a Tom Brady.”

I’m not so sure. Lukas is single-minded, yes, but I can see him apply that drive to many other parts of his life. “You won’t,” I say.

“What?”

“Change your mind.”

“I don’t think so, either. Wanting a gold medal, a record, it’s a great dream. But it’s not mine anymore.”

I tilt my head. “What’s yours, then?”

His smile is crooked. “For a while, I thought I needed to have some over-the-top goal, something comparable to the Olympics, but . . .” He stops. Runs his thumb over my lower lip. “I want to spend four years in med school, fully knowing that it’ll be hell. Do a fellowship and a residency. Corpse stuff, sure. I want to travel to places that don’t have a fucking pool. See my family more than once a year. Sleep in. Go on hiking trips. Stay home for long weekends and have morally bankrupt amounts of sex with someone I’m in love with. Kinky, vanilla, I want it all. I want to adopt rescue animals with her. I want to take care of her, and watch her be cold in Sweden, and marvel every day at how much smarter than me she is, and . . . Scarlett.” His thumb swipes under my eye. “Why are you crying?”

It’s a lie. I want to deny it. But my cheeks are blotchy and hot. There’s a terrible, scalding thing inside me that threatens to explode all the way out, and all I can do is hide my face into his throat. “I don’t know.”

His hand is heavy on the back of my head. “Are you sure?”

I’m not. But I nod, and even though his sigh tells me that he sees through my half-truths, he still hugs me like he’ll never let me go.