Hold My Breath

by Ginger Scott

  She can—every one, but this one.

  My head falls to the side, and his blue eyes are waiting.

  “You got this,” I mouth.

  His lip ticks up and he raises a thumb.

  “That Will Hollister?” my UCLA friend asks me.

  “That’s him,” I say, finally meeting my flirtatious friend’s eyes. He looks like every other guy here—broad chest and shoulders, arms filling his sleeves, thigh muscles about to rip through his pants. They’re bred this way, and they all come out the same, but it’s that stuff inside that separates them. Will…he has just a little bit more than they do.

  Mr. UCLA ends our conversation there, but I count the times he glances down our row to Will. I’m sure there’s a part of it that’s Will’s story—his survival is hard to believe unless you see him sitting in front of you. But there’s also an edge of fear with the way my neighbor’s leg bounces, his hands twisting in his lap. The more he looks at his competition, the more my Elvis lip twitches, until I can’t help but laugh to myself.

  Will…he has that extra something, and this guy—he’s dead in the water.

  The questions come at him like bullets, and Will handles every single one with grace. He memorializes Evan, and he speaks with reverence about his parents, recounting the first time they came to my parents’ club, the practices his dad drove he and his brother to, the way his mom would always try to make sure they both felt like winners—even if one of them lost.

  Nobody asks about me until the end, and when the question comes about our friendship, a hint of innuendo in the reporter’s tone, Will says exactly what I told him to if that question were to come up.

  “You’ll have to ask Maddy about that.”

  His response gets some teasing “oooohs” and some laughter, but after a few minutes, the reporters move on to my dad and the rest of the coaching staff. It’s clear that there’s a division there, too—some people ready to embrace Will, hoping to see him dominate in the water, others not. My father leaves no question about his loyalties, telling the room that our best shot at a medal is with Will swimming anchor, and that response makes my friend sitting next to me squirm in his seat. My instincts tell me that he’s a freestyle sprinter, too.

  For a while, I think I might skate by, but eventually the floor comes around to the Star and Tribune. My hometown papers have watched me grow up, and they’ve covered my swimming from high-school championships to US titles at Valpo. While I’m surprised to see the familiar faces here in Omaha, I’m also flattered that my story is worth it. I’m grateful for this platform, because as much as Will intends on outright winning every race he swims, leaving no question up for debate—I also see no harm in adding just a little insurance.

  The microphone squeals when I lower it, and I notice several people in the room hunch their shoulders at the sound.

  “Sorry,” I say, holding my hands out and slowly backing them away from the mic, as if I’m balancing a house of cards. I smile out to the cameras and my friend and mom, who I know are somewhere behind the lights. “That’s what you get for talking to all the boys first, though. I had to make this thing a girl’s height,” I laugh.

  A few people snicker with me.

  “Maddy, it’s John Tucker, from the Star. I covered you at nationals last year,” the first familiar face begins.

  I offer him a closed-lip smile and brace myself.

  “Nice to see you, John,” I respond.

  His questions are basic—nothing I haven’t answered in one-on-ones before. My training and preparation, what I think my chances are, how much my parents have influenced my swimming life—questions I answer by rote, the words coming out ready to print, perfect sound bites.

  His counterpart steps in with a few more questions, picking up on a few things my dad answered earlier—about the impending closure of the Shore Club, and how this week was its last hoorah. The local papers care more about this angle, so I give them the heartfelt answers they deserve—words I mean.

  “No place will ever feel the same,” I say, glancing over and catching my dad’s sad smile.

  I start to worry that I waited too long—that my opportunity was slipping by as the Tribune reporter hands away the mic—when the public’s insatiable appetite for gossip and romance comes to the rescue.

  The reporter, the same one who finished with Will, stands tall, waving her hand in desperation for the microphone. I don’t recognize her, but I can tell she’s with one of the entertainment outlets—the sports reporters all have a different look about them, less…polished. She stands, brushing a wave of blonde hair over her shoulder as her eyes lower toward me and her smile creeps up. She’s probably expecting me to evade romance rumors, too—which she’ll simply turn into juicy gossip that won’t have anything to do with how we swim tomorrow. I’m about to do her one better.

  “Hi, Maddy. Sheila Vargas, Z-TV,” she says. I give her a closed-mouth smile, raising my brow, welcoming it. She looks giddy. “Will told me I should ask you about the rumors that you two seem to be forming a…special bond, so let me just put it out there—are you and Will Hollister…dating?”

  I look down to my hands, folded near the mic, and I start to tilt my head because as ready as I am, the blush still hits me hard. I wait for my cheeks to feel it, for the smile to be unstoppable, and then the wave of attention passes enough that I can talk without messing this up.

  “We train so hard, Sheila. Hours in the water, and the hours out of the water are all spent on mentally preparing yourself for something that for most of us lasts less than a minute—that might last eighteen seconds,” I say, that last part for Will and my dad. I don’t even have to look to know they’re both smiling. “When I first started competing, it was Will Hollister pushing me to be my best.”

  I glance over my shoulder to find his eyes waiting, his head tilted slightly, his uncle sitting next to him for support.

  “I love him something fierce, Sheila,” I smile, turning back to face the reporter, her eyes glowing with the gem of a story I just gave her. I hold her gaze on mine for a few seconds, and she lowers the mic, satisfied and probably already mentally putting together the six-o’clock package I just wrapped up with a bow. I’m about to sprinkle it with glitter. “We’re in this together, and if Will doesn’t swim for Team USA, neither do I.”

  I step back when I finish, my eyes glancing down at my hands as my fingers drum once on the wooden surface. I can’t avoid Will’s gaze as I walk back to the seat, but I avoid my father. I went off script for that, and neither of them are going to like it. It means Will’s just going to have to win. It just so happens, though, that I have an incredible amount of faith in him.

  Will

  I’m starting to think Maddy’s aim may have been to incite fear in my bones, to make me feel the death threat of her father at my heels in the pool. The moment she made that public comment yesterday, I felt Curtis’s eyes on me in a way I never have. He hasn’t said it, but I know the threat is real—if I fuck this up for his daughter, I can kiss my balls goodbye.

  There’s a part of me that knows Maddy wasn’t serious. If something happens, and I am on the bubble—the guy they choose, or don’t choose, for alternate—I don’t really believe that Maddy would turn her back on her dreams in protest. But then there’s that other part of me that knows that Maddy doesn’t lie—not to my face. She looked me in the eyes when she walked away from that microphone, conviction in the sway of her hips and smug confidence in her grin. She told me the rest was up to me.

  I’ll give her this, I haven’t thought about Evan, or Dylan and Tanya, until right now, and only because I can see my nephew on the screen for the camera. They’re panning to my family.

  My family. Only two of them are related to me by blood, yet they all have this piece of me.

  “You ready, son?” Curtis says, his hands fists that knead at my shoulders.

  Son.

  My head falls, my eyes look at my feet, water on the ground tracked in from the
race before me. It all comes down to this—to eighteen seconds.

  I tilt my head and look at him sideways as Curtis moves to stand next to me.

  “Explode, right?”

  He nods, reaching his fist forward to pound against mine.

  “You got this,” he says, just like his daughter. I wait with the other sprinters. I won my heat, but my time wasn’t the best. I’m in lane two. But lanes aren’t going to make the difference for me today. I could be swimming in a separate pool from everyone all together, alone…in the dark, and it wouldn’t change what I need to do to get myself to the games.

  I know I’m supposed to clear out my thoughts of anything but his words, but my head is full. It’s crowded in there—responsibilities running into memories—the past tangling with the present, guilt melting into pride, a dash of anger thrown on top for good measure. I doubt my mind will ever be quiet again, but I’ll learn to use it. I better learn fast.

  I don’t hear them call us out, but I follow the guy in front of me. He’s lane three, and I can tell by the smug smile he gave me before he slipped his goggles on that he thinks that means he’s better.

  It doesn’t mean shit.

  I’ll beat him first.

  We all line up behind our blocks, and I bend down to stretch out those last few nerves. It’s the same every time—a little trick my brother taught me that I will probably do until I’m too old to dive head first into the water any more. You visualize that monkey on your back, and you swing until he can’t hold on any longer. He always falls in the water.

  I step up on my blocks, and I feel everything. I feel the air in this building—however slight it blows—against my face. I feel the grit beneath my feet, and the buzz in the air from everyone’s collective anticipation. I feel the steady rhythm of my heart, the pound gaining speed with each drum until I hear it hit the rate my arms need to move to. I breathe in long and deep—one last taste until I get to the other side, and then I let the noise in my head take over until it’s deafening and only one single thing rises to the top.

  Maddy.

  “Take your mark.”

  I recognize the words. My body obeys, and I coil into position.

  Maddy.

  The beeping sounds. My heart threatens to break rhythm. One. More. Breath.

  Maddy.

  The reaction is automatic. It’s innate. I explode, and I don’t have to look to my right to know that lane number three’s shot at making the team is over. I don’t care about him anymore. I don’t care about lane four, or five. I care about eighteen. I care about that perfect line, the way my arm comes out, goes in, digs, pulls, grabs…and does it all again. I care about left. I care about right. I care about twenty. Twenty-five.

  Boom-boom. Boom-boom.

  The sound in my ears has become thunder. My legs punish the water. Bedlam lives behind me, peace straight ahead—I cut through it like a sacred sword—sharp and precise.

  Thirty. Thirty-five.

  The explosion is behind me, and I’ve long forgotten the feel of the air. All I feel now is the smooth silk of the water as it caresses my face. I disrupt it…break it—the calm gone with my arm, the perfect line, tight across, low down, fast through—above all else, fast.

  Maddy.

  Seconds slow, yet my breath feels endless. I don’t look left. I don’t look right. I know that the storm around me is thick and furious, and every single lane is occupied with someone who feels just as worthy as I do—no doubt, more. But they’re still not going to win. They can’t have today. Today is mine, and doubters can go to fucking hell, because I’m done serving my sentence. I’m done feeling like I owe the universe. I don’t owe anyone shit.

  I swim for me and that beat that’s picking up pace. My arms follow it—chase that sound. I drive faster.

  I race…for her.

  Maddy.

  My fingertips graze the wall, collapse against the slick surface and the wave I’ve carried behind me comes crashing into the back of my head. My mouth gasps, and my lungs fill with sweet air. I know before I turn. My heart feels it before I see it.

  It doesn’t make it any less sweet.

  Eighteen.

  Epilogue

  Six months later…

  Will

  I’ve always loved coming out here before sunrise. There’s a peacefulness to the water—no ripples, no sound other than the chirping of crickets and the occasional toad. Man, nature, and the elements.

  Maddy mentioned it before bed last night, those times when we were in high school and she and I would wake up at four or five, just to get our laps in before anyone else. She never invited Evan to those swims, and I always kept them a secret.

  That—it’s just ours.

  Always will be.

  I’m not here to swim this morning, though. This just seems to be the only place I can think—where I can really find the guts to dare for impossible.

  I get to the ground, sliding my shoes off behind me and rolling up my sweatpants, testing the water with my toes first. We put a new heater in at the Shore Club last week, but I still haven’t tried it. My mind can’t make sense of the snow my eyes see on the ground around us to get myself to dive into the water.

  “Just a leg,” I whisper to myself, dropping my foot in slowly.

  The water still bites, but the heater is definitely working. I follow with my other foot, grinning over the brim of my coffee cup, like a proud father, while I wiggle my toes in the water I now own a share of along with my uncle and the Woodsens.

  The Shore Club couldn’t close. More than just what this place means to me, to Maddy and her family, to Evan’s story—the good parts—this place still has a lot of work to do. I have work to do here.

  My future became incredibly clear on that Olympic podium, a silver medal around my neck, the weight of the world somehow lifted from my shoulders. I have so much to give this swimming world, and I’m just getting started.

  I approached my uncle with the idea first, knowing that my savings wouldn’t be enough. I was prepared to have to convince him, or to have to find alternative investors, but I think maybe the idea of family has grown to mean something more to him, too. He and my aunt never had children, and she died young. Tragedy brought me close to him again, but that special bond that only comes from blood found its familiar place and imprinted itself on both of us. He was just looking for a way not to go back to Michigan.

  Tanya died two months ago. People say that death is easier when you have time to prepare for it, but I think those people are full of shit. It felt just like I knew it would—like the devil had his way with my heart and then shoved it back in my chest, and I was expected to find a way to continue to live—to breathe and go on every day with the things on my plate now.

  A year ago, I might have given up.

  I might have driven my car off the edge of the world.

  I didn’t have Maddy then.

  I sip the steaming coffee before setting it next to me, leaning back on my palms, my feet circling in the water and my eyes watching the sky move from a deep royal-blue to violet. Morning—and the colors that go with it—makes me think of her.

  Before Tanya’s passing, we worked out the paperwork to make sure I would become Dylan’s legal guardian. Maddy finished school, but instead of taking the job at the hospital, she applied to a special program at State to work with kids like Dylan. I saw something happen to her the first time she met him and he held her hand. My nephew has so many things to overcome, but love isn’t one of them. Love just pours from him, without words, and with limited gestures. It’s in his essence, and it makes me believe in things that I’ve damned and doubted since the day I lost my brother and parents.

  It took some work to fix the Clubhouse, but using the lobby space along with the upstairs, we were able to make it livable for Dylan, me, and Duncan. I think my uncle often fancied the office space, with the “just-right light,” so it was just a matter of blowing out a few walls to make the studio apartment’s bathroom
shared.

  We added a wall downstairs, and though it’s tight, we have enough room for the three of us, more often four when Maddy stays the night, to gather for dinner at a table, and for Dylan to be able to easily maneuver his electric chair from his new bedroom to the kitchen and bathroom.

  I’ve found the routine of things, and I’ve found comfort in it. But I still wait for the hour when I get to see her face—every day. Sometimes, it’s midnight after a long day studying, or putting in hours with the hospital’s special therapy programs. Other times it’s morning’s like this, when she puts on her suit and we make silly bets neither of us mind losing, and we race for nobody but ourselves.

  She is my joy.

  She always has been.

  “Either the heater’s working, or you’re tricking me—seeing if I’ll dive in and catch a cold.” Her voice soothes my soul, a song starting behind me, then wrapping around me completely. I keep my eyes on the sky—her favorite color coming next—and I point up.

  “Oh, you know how I love the orange,” she says, kicking her shoes off, rolling up her jeans and sitting down next to me.

  She shivers a little when her feet plunk in, and she wraps her arm through mine, laying her head on my shoulder to look up at the sky with me.

  “Coffee?” I ask, holding my cup out for her to take.

  “Mmmmm, yes please,” she purrs.

  I watch her sip, her eyes blinking to stay open from the fog of the drink, to stay on the quickly disappearing stars above.

  “Thank you,” she says, smiling as the cup’s edge leaves her lips.

  I take it from her and set it back down next to me, and I lean back a little more on my left palm, careful not to disturb the place she’s cradled on my right arm.

  Maddy won two golds at the Olympics, but my story was the one on the front page. Sports can be sexist like that. The press also never seems to get tired of exploiting my story. I don’t know how many times people can read about the boy who survived, only to come in second, but I guess at least one more time.