by Ginger Scott
My heart is still racing. I am terrified. If this plane falls from the sky, I’ll lose her. I won’t know. She won’t know. We will never be. That…is what terrifies me.
I let my head rest on the top of hers, and I turn slightly to kiss her through her hair. I leave my lips on her, and I let my eyes fall closed so I can breathe her in. My elixir—a potion to keep my heart calm and my head clear.
“I love you, Maddy,” I say, the words barely audible. I’m sure she didn’t hear them, but her hand squeezes mine the tiniest bit, and I pretend that she did, and that’s her way of saying it back.
This plane ride won’t be the end of me—of us. It can’t, because God wouldn’t be that cruel. I deserve this, and damned if I don’t want it all.
Chapter Sixteen
Maddy
My dad did not understand. When I told him I had to fly to Cleveland to help Will, he called me careless. I coaxed him into trusting me, promised him I’d be faster than I was when I left, making light jokes that he did not find amusing. He now expects that speed, and he is not being kind in front of others.
In front of Will.
My dad told me when I rolled in from our trip late Saturday that I better be prepared to work this morning. He didn’t call Will, but when we got to the pool, Will was already deep into his warm-up laps. He puts in the work, and he deserves a fair shot at this.
“Again,” my dad shouts, his feet straddling the training weights I anticipate he’s going to make me tread with as punishment.
He hasn’t called any of this punishment, but it’s clear that’s just what it is. If he knew the whole story—that I didn’t just run off because of some new infatuation with Will Hollister, if he knew what Will was busy doing, what kind of man Will was—he wouldn’t be barking at me now. The double-standard amuses me while I paddle back to the far wall to take my turns again—to do them faster. All my parents wanted was for me to give Will a pass and not blame him for my pain. That’s all they wanted until I started to fall for him and get too close. The fact that they can’t trust me, trust that he is still the same boy—man—that my father always admired in the pool, is beyond hypocritical.
I use my anger, pounding my hands through the water three lanes over from the man who has awoken my barely beating heart. I fly toward the wall. I twist and push, and I fly back to where I came from. I’m turning faster than I ever have, and I know it, yet all my dad can do is shout out disappointments.
“Congratulations, and the swimmer from Iowa State just broke your record,” my dad deadpans. I match his stare, but he’s unfazed and quickly turns to Will. I follow his gaze to see Will breathing hard, holding onto the wall, waiting to take his harsh criticism. “That was good Will. Keep doing that.”
My dad tosses a heavy binder on the ground a few feet away and starts walking.
“Maddy, weights.”
Not even a full sentence as he rounds the pool and heads inside. I watch through the window as he grabs a bottle of water and turns toward the stairs.
“I thought you said he was okay with you coming to Cleveland,” Will says, dipping under two sets of ropes and popping up in my lane.
“I may have overestimated on the okay part,” I say.
Will looks at me and his eyes droop with a short exhale. I don’t want to stick around for him to say he’s sorry, because I don’t want him to be sorry. I can take my dad’s grouchiness. He’s not really mad, he just doesn’t like me not being his showgirl twenty-four-seven. I get that the idea of him coaching me, of having this family swimming legacy perform well on an Olympic stage, is a big deal to him. He’s built it up, and so have I. It’s just since Will arrived, other things have started to matter, too. My heart woke up, and I’m not putting it down again.
I strap the weights on my ankles one at a time, then place the others on my wrists as Will does the same and we both tread to the center of the pool and work to hold our heads above the surface for several minutes at a time.
“Your mom okay with the fact that you missed camp? Like, for real okay?” Will grunts out his question, his arms and legs circling in the water.
“I haven’t really seen her. She’s been so busy campaigning to save the damned lakeside park,” I shrug, dipping down under water to rest my legs. I push up from the bottom and begin to work again.
“She’s a fighter,” Will says, his lips puckering into a tight smile as he stares at me.
“What’s that look for?” I ask.
His head wiggles from one side to the other.
“It’s just that I can tell where you get it from—your refusal to give up on anything you want,” he says.
“Oh yeah?” I tease, suddenly feeling like I could swim like this for hours, carry these weights for miles, and still win. Flirting with Will Hollister does things to my body.
“Oh yeah,” he grins.
I laugh at the deeper voice he puts on, but we both stop smiling at the sound of the main door shutting behind our backs.
“That’s enough,” my dad says, moving to the pool’s edge. We both swim over to him and remove the weights.
Will folds his arms on the pool deck and rests his chin on top of his hands while I grip the side and hold on below. My father kneels down and scratches above his right brow, his lips twisted in thought. When he raises his chin, his eyes settle on Will.
“I know you just got back into town, but that interview deal…it’s gotta happen this afternoon. It’s the only slot they have open before they travel to Omaha,” he says.
“Who’s it with?” Will asks, and I notice his hands ball into fists. He doesn’t want to do this.
“The network. It’ll be one of those packages they use between races, kind of with that moody documentary feel. The Cumberlands are pretty excited about it, and they’ve named you and Maddy as their team for trials.” My dad smiles when he mentions this.
“How much did they give you?” I ask, knowing the real reason he’s smiling. He doesn’t care that Will is getting attention. He told me himself that Will won’t see the water after Omaha.
My dad shrugs his shoulders around his neck, his head wavering from side to side.
“They donated a decent package to the program. It’ll go a long way in covering the next camp,” he says.
“Next camp,” I repeat. My dad meets my eyes and his closed-mouth smile grows fast as his eyes light up.
“Wow,” I say, knowing without asking what all of this means. My dad’s made the staff for the Olympics. “Distance? Sprints?”
His mouth grows tighter, but the smirk is still there.
“Head?” My eyes widen.
My dad chuckles, then rubs his hand along his chin.
“If we do well at trials, it’s looking pretty good,” he says.
“Wow,” I say again, turning to look at the smooth, still water next to me. I also understand without asking what the we part means. It’s me. If I do well, my dad pretty much gets the gig.
“Congrats, Coach,” Will says, holding his weight on one arm and reaching to grip my father’s hand. There’s a pause before my dad reciprocates, and my stomach twists. I know what that’s for, too. Will—he’s not part of the deal.
I push back from the wall a little, laying back to float in the water, letting water spill over my cap and ears, drowning out some of the noise. I can’t cut off the sound in my own head, though. When Will lifts himself from the pool, I let my feet fall and right myself to listen.
“I should probably shower and squeeze in a nap if we’re really doing this,” Will says. His jaw is working, but he looks at my father with nothing but calmness behind his eyes. He’s doing this to help my dad—as a favor because he let him miss out on a few practices—because he invited him here in the first place. I can feel my brow pinching, the wrinkle forming just above the bridge of my nose because none of this is fair. If my dad only knew why Will was missing, exactly the lengths he’s gone to for everyone other than himself. I have to get Will to tell him.
> “We’ll set up out here. They want to have the pool in the background, sort of put you in the element I guess,” my dad says. “Be here around three, okay son?”
Son. The inside of my mouth becomes sour hearing him say that because I know he doesn’t mean it. He’s using Will, and I’m heartbroken for two reasons—because Will is going to get hurt, and because my dad is doing something I never thought he would.
Will nods and pulls the end of his towel over his shoulder, rubbing it in his hair, his cap held in his other hand. His gaze lingers on me for a second, and his lip ticks up on the left just a hint, his eyes lowering as he turns and heads inside. I feel warm and adored from just a simple glance.
It only takes my dad six seconds to ruin it.
“You cannot get mixed up with him, Maddy,” he says.
My head tilts to the side, and I swim close to the wall again, gripping the sides while my eyes narrow on my father.
“I’m not getting mixed up with anything, dad,” I say, and he cuts me off before I finish, saying “good.”
My eyebrows pull in tight, and my chest burns angry.
“No, not good,” I huff, lifting myself from the pool. I step close to him, taking the towel from his hands and wrapping it around my arms while my eyes bore into him. “I’m not getting mixed up because it’s Will, Dad—Will. The same guy you and Mom both told me to give a break to, the guy who you used to always throw in to swim anchor—no matter what the stroke. Will was always your man, and Dad…he has…”
I look down and bring my thumb and forefinger to the bridge of my nose. I’m in such a weird paradox, and I have no idea how I got here. I breathe out a laugh and shake my head.
“Will has brought me back from the dead, Dad,” I say, glancing up to meet his scowl. His mouth is pulled tight and his forehead is wrinkled—he’s looking at me like I’m crazy.
“You weren’t dead, Maddy. You’re being dramatic, but what exactly are you and Will?”
I swallow hard and close my eyes.
“I was not living, Dad. Evan died, and I made this impulsive decision to just put it in a box and never love anyone again,” I say. “I go to school. I live with Holly, and I hope like hell she never meets anyone for real so I don’t have to live alone. I’m thinking about continuing on to get my practitioner license, because school is something I have figured out, and when you’re in school, you have this sort of built-in excuse for being alone. I can lie to myself and say that’s why I don’t date. I can lie to people who try to fix me up.”
I breathe in deep, flapping my arms against my side with a heavy exhale. “I don’t date, Dad. I haven’t since Evan died. I haven’t done more than flirt with cute doctors, then run away when they actually looked interested. I’m a goddamned mess, or at least I was...until Will found that girl I used to be.”
“Maddy, you’re just infatuated with this memory; it’s nostalgia, and it’s normal. Will is a good friend—hell, I love that boy…”
“He’s more than a friend, Dad. He’s that and so much more to me you have no idea. There are things…” I stop and take a sharp breath. I can’t share pieces of Will that aren’t mine to share. That’s for him to do, but my dad just needs to understand how special Will is. “The man Will has become would astound you, Dad. And if you really loved him, like a son, you would dig a little deeper to find out exactly what all of those things are. And you’d let him compete on fair ground, with you behind him—with you really pushing him. I see you hold back. You let him slide today. You know he’s capable of more, but you don’t want him to succeed. If Will wins, he’s in. That’s…”
I stumble back a step and watch my father’s shoulders sink.
“If he wins, you have no choice,” I say, my eyes slowly sweeping up from the ground between us, my mouth open—stunned.
“I’ll talk to him before that. He won’t, Maddy,” my father says, his eyes flashing just as mine do at his words. He didn’t mean to let all of that come out.
“You can’t take that from him!” I shout.
“We’re in the hole—” My father fires that response, and I scrunch my face in confusion. I wait while he walks around the pool to the opposite end, bending down and picking up the binder he dropped several minutes ago. He flips it open as he walks back to me, holding it flat in both palms. I look from his eyes down to a delinquent bill clipped into the rings, pressing my finger on the paper and sliding it to the other side to see the next bill underneath. Statement after statement—mortgages, second mortgages, threats to cut power, liens, bankruptcy papers.
My bottom lip falls open, and I gasp as my eyes flit to my father’s. His cheeks hang low, dragging his mouth with them, and the sadness in his eyes is the most honest look I think I’ve ever gotten from him.
“I need to coach this team, Maddy. I need to be successful, and I need to bring big sponsors to the table. I do this, our business will rebound just because of the fame. Without it?” He pauses, flipping the book closed in his hand, the pages snapping shut. “This club is closed by winter.”
“How did this happen?” My mind is spinning with everything—with Will, with my parents’ debt, and the idea that a place I identify as home could be ripped away from us.
“Time, less kids swimming,” he shrugs. “It’s always been hard, and I think you know that.”
I nod because yes, I do.
“It just got harder, and then…” My father stretches out his hands, his financial burden held in one and the other empty.
“Daddy, I’m so sorry,” I say. “Has Mom tried anything? Maybe something public, with the city? Like a takeover, partnership…whatever…”
“Why do you think she ran in the first place?” My father’s mouth quirks up on one side and his chin lowers to his chest as he pulls the binder in close.
It’s quiet between us for several seconds while my mind works to process what’s happening. I spin it a dozen ways in my mind, and there isn’t a single way that everyone wins. I keep coming back to Will, though, and how many times he has put everyone else first. The funny thing is, I bet if my father asked him to step away, he would. But Will has sacrificed enough.
“You have to let him compete,” I say, my eyes snapping to his.
His head shakes, but I fight on.
“You have to, Dad. Will deserves this,” I say, breathing out a desperate grunt through my nose.
“His DUI, Maddy…the recreational drug use, and the drinking. He’s like one of those rock stars or child actors that your mom tells me about when she flips through tabloids in the grocery line, and sponsors don’t want to jump on board with big risks,” my dad argues. “I need to bring in the money. The greatest coaching in the world is meaningless compared to dollar signs. Will is a risk I can’t afford—at least not past the trials. His story buys him a shot, but one race…that’s all the risk people are going to want to take.”
“But that’s not Will’s whole story,” I defend.
His mouth closes tight, and he breathes in through his nose, his chest lifting slowly, like he’s building a shield against any argument I can throw his way.
“He’s doing this goddamn interview for you, Dad!” I finally let that out, because my father has to see—he must know this is the last thing Will wants to do. “He’s going to walk through the most horrific moments of his life on camera, because you asked him to, Dad. That…that has to count for something!”
“That makes the Cumberlands happy,” my dad shrugs. His face is growing pale, and I think it’s from shame.
My mouth curves in disgust.
“They want his story on primetime, because the world loves gossip,” I shake my head, walking away from my father.
“Maddy, I love that boy like a son,” he says to my back, a last-ditch effort to cover up his own desperation and greed.
I pause with my hand on the handle for the door, and I speak my words, unable to turn and look at him. For the first time in my entire life, I can’t look at the man I’ve idolized. I
’m ashamed of him.
“No you don’t. But I love him, and maybe that will be enough to change your mind,” I say.
I step inside and shut the door behind me, then fight my instinct to rush up the stairs and take Will by the hand and beg him to just run away. We could run away from it all, and our lives would be amazing. But there would always be unfinished business. I’m supposed to win. He’s supposed to race for real.
I just need to find a way to make that happen so it doesn’t ruin life for everyone else.
Chapter Seventeen
Will
The lights are always hot.
That’s the one thing I remember from those interviews after the crash. I remember that, and I recall how fast the questions came. I was the human form of a speed bag, the reporters pummeling just fast enough that I had time to catch my breath and say words at their next intrusive question.
“How are you coping?”
Words, words, words.
“Are you in any pain? Will you ever swim again?”
Words, words, words.
“You must feel a tremendous amount of guilt. It’s natural; can you share a little about that?”
Words, motherfucking words!
I know why Curtis is pushing for this interview—I bring buzz, and that gets airtime, which equals revenue. As painful as the interview is, I feel like I owe him for this shot, and if it can help secure him as head coach—a coach, at the very least—then one afternoon of misery on my part isn’t so unbearable, especially when I look at it in context with the big picture of four years of grief.
I have one nice suit, and I’ve worn it once already since I’ve been back in Knox. Either my muscles have doubled in size from a few weeks of workouts, or that panic I thought was reserved for airplane rides is starting to bleed into other areas of my life. Either way, this collar is fucking tight. I slip behind the counter at the club’s small snack bar and tug my tie loose, fumbling because, well…fucking panic, when I feel her cool hands glide over mine and take over. I let them.