by Kobe Bryant
I miss you.
Don’t go.
Be with me instead.
The glass slips from my hand to shatter on the tile floor.
“Fuck.” Reaching for the broom, I drop to my knees and begin cleaning. I want to get out of here—I need to—but I don’t want Winter to come home and cut herself. I end up using a whole roll of paper towels because the glass is a bitch to pick up. Glittering shards have scattered everywhere, and as I collect them, one by one, it’s a struggle not to give in to the bloody promise of solace their sharpness offers. To drag them across my own skin.
It’s actually a solace I gave in to a few times when I was younger. That is until some shitty kid in sixth-grade PE class saw my wounds while we were changing and told the teacher what I was doing. It’s how I first got sent to therapy. A miserable experience: my mother took it upon herself to inform the therapist that my actions meant I was both emotionally needy and attention seeking because Danny and Darien had done similar things at my age.
When the kitchen is finally clean and free from temptation, I move fast, grabbing my swim stuff and leaving the house. Then I drive toward the Clayton Valley pool because it’s the only place I can picture being that’s not wholly intolerable.
When I arrive, it’s earlier than my usual time and people are still there—the remains of a dwindling late-season cookout from the looks of it. The air reeks of charcoal and meat, and a cluster of preteen kids are splashing in the pool, spraying each other with water rifles.
I scan my key and walk inside. The air’s thick with fluttering moths and velvety gloom. Dusk floats down, darkening the sky, and with my goggles in hand, I approach the kids in the pool to ask if they’ll let me use a lane. But before I can reach them, I stop, startled.
There’s a man on the pool deck. He’s sitting right in front of me on a lounge chair, mere yards away. He’s also cloaked in shadows, which is why I didn’t see him before. But he must be someone’s dad because he’s got a beer in one hand, his phone close by, but nothing about him is relaxed. I observe him for a moment: how he scans the pool, his muscles tense, alert, never once easing in vigilance.
Never once noticing me.
My heart rolls over and dies and screw asking for a lane. I pull my goggles on, toss my towel down, and with a running start, I fling my body into the air, diving, stretching for the deep end. At the last moment, right before entering the water, I tuck my head and flail my limbs out, ensuring that my whole body hits the surface with a resounding smack and splash.
37.
I loved Danny until the day I didn’t. I loved him after he gave up on helping me learn to swim. I loved him when he actively tried to stop me from pursuing the same sport that he did—using mostly shame tactics and brute intimidation. Also rules. Danny had a lot of rules. For a while there, I couldn’t speak to him if he didn’t speak first. I couldn’t eat near him. Or drink. Or play music. Or have friends over. Or even use the shared bathroom between our bedrooms without asking if he needed it before me.
Defying my brother’s rules was always a gamble. Sometimes he didn’t care and other times he’d scream. Or push me. Or worse, he’d lock himself in his room and refuse to come out, which meant getting yelled at by our mother for not being considerate of Danny’s feelings. He was sensitive, she’d tell me. I knew that.
Yeah, I did, but over time it grew harder for me to care. Plus the older I got, the more I liked pushing Danny’s buttons. I had nothing to lose and besides, I was good at it. It was the only thing I ever got credit for. If he was the hero, I was the villain, and it was a role I was born to play.
So I did.
This is also how I found my way back to swimming. First by joining the city rec league in eighth grade and later by making my high school team. I paid for everything I needed with money earned mowing lawns, walking dogs, and working on team fund-raisers. All my mother had to do was sign the waiver slips and get my medical clearance, which she did, if only in the hope that her lack of interest would demoralize me.
What she didn’t count on was my stubborn streak. My ability to play the long game so long as it meant that someday, someway, I’d prove her wrong.
38.
Jumping into the Clayton Valley pool the obnoxious way that I do, I’m able to scare off the kids with the water rifles, along with their solemn beer-drinking dad. Or maybe they were on the verge of leaving anyway—the sky’s gone dark, the bugs are out. Regardless, I do what I always do: I swim.
After a quick warm-up, I chase perfection in the form of rigorous drills meant to build my muscles, my stamina, my technique. Once I’m done with those, I cycle through the drills again and again, pushing myself not to compromise on form. Or effort. Doing everything the right way’s the only way to get better, and I’m meticulous in my focus. Then comes speed work. My main set’s grueling, a tough rotation of maximum effort and minimal recovery. It’s exhausting but I tell myself: just one more lap. And one more after that.
And after that one, too.
No matter how much I swim, it’s not enough to erase the fact that it’s still easier to drown. That I’m alone and unloved. But by the end, I’ve logged exactly 5,300 meters and when I crawl from the pool, the moon’s out and the night is silent. I wrap my towel around my waist and sit my ass on a plastic chair. Everyone from the party earlier is gone and even though this is what I wanted, my loneliness comes alive. It’s both claustrophobic and all-encompassing. It’s in the night. The pool.
My skin.
Fuck Danny, I think.
Fuck everyone who worshipped the ground he walked on.
“Your instinct wasn’t so killer, was it?” I call out.
Followed by: “I’m better than you. I’m going to prove that someday, I swear to God. No matter who tries to stop me.”
More words pile up in my throat. A thickening traffic jam of anger and anguish and burning resentment. But before I can say more, my phone chirps from somewhere deep inside my swim bag. I bend down and go digging for it. Who could be texting me at ten o’clock on a Friday night? Danny’s thing at the club is long over, so there’s no point in yelling at me for not going. But when I find the phone, I’m stunned—it’s Coach Marks.
His message reads: Hey. You around?
I type back: What’s up?
He replies: Think you’ll be ready to swim for me next weekend?
Part
Two
39.
I’m more than ready.
On the following Friday, we fly from Oakland to San Diego. There are six of us total—including Coach M—traveling to the upcoming meet taking place on the UC San Diego campus. Fitz and Vince act like they’re bored because they’ve done this before, but for me and the other two new guys on the developmental roster, Caleb and Raheem, there’s a palpable sense of anticipation. We know Coach M doesn’t let anyone swim for the hell of it. He does it because he knows we can win.
Everyone responds to pressure in their own way. Caleb gets up to piss every five minutes, which means I have to get up, too, seeing as I’m in the aisle seat and he refuses to give up the window. In the center, between us, Raheem has serious diarrhea of the mouth; he won’t stop talking—and not about swimming. He’s been telling us about his girlfriend, Fiona, who he met online and as far as I can tell, has not met in person and may not even exist.
“But you’ve called her?” Caleb asks for the millionth time. He’s got the same catfish suspicions as I do. “Like, you’ve heard her real voice?”
“Yeah,” Raheem says. “I’ve heard her voice.”
“And you’ve seen her?”
“Not in the flesh. But pictures, sure. Tons of them. All the time.”
“What about FaceTime?”
“Her phone doesn’t FaceTime.”
“Snapchat?”
“Her mom won’t let her.”
“Fuck, d
ude.” Caleb shakes his head sadly. “Do you even hear yourself?”
“You’re just jealous.”
“You’re desperate.”
They go back and forth like this, until I finally slide my earbuds in and turn my music up. Stress, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Like right now, I feel good, excited, but even that kind of energy has to be handled in a way most beneficial to my endgame. At the moment, my body needs rest. So I’m not talking, not moving, not investing in the world around me. Case in point: I can still hear Caleb and Raheem bickering about fake girlfriends and who’s gotten the closest to getting laid, but when Caleb taps me on the shoulder, laughing, to ask my opinion about something, I wave him off. And when he does it again, I get up and ask Fitz if he’ll switch seats with me so that I can sit next to Coach Marks and not these idiots who’re acting like we’re on a booze cruise to Cabo.
“Seriously?” Fitz says, but finally acquiesces, which is the problem with trying to be a leader or role model. It puts you in the position of having to do the right thing.
“What’s up?” Coach Marks asks when I’m settled.
“Tell me about the race,” I say.
“Right now?”
“Why not?”
“There’ll be time later. We have a team meeting at six tonight.”
“But we have a whole plane ride now,” I say.
It’s kind of hard to argue with this fact, and he gives in, pulling his tray down and getting out his notebook to show me exactly what I’ll be up against in the water. And who. Honestly, it doesn’t sound like a lot of competition, other than Fitz and a guy from Santa Barbara who’s been winning everything in the western states. His times don’t intimidate me, though, so I don’t get what the big deal is. Anyone can win a lot if they don’t swim against high-quality swimmers. It doesn’t make them special.
After explaining all that, Coach Marks launches into what he wants to see from me. It feels as if he’s giving instructions to the jockey he’s chosen to put on his best horse. Like he believes it’ll be his brain controlling my body in the water and it’s up to him to communicate his game plan to my brain in the most effective manner. I might as well have my earbuds in again for this part of the lecture. He’s got the process all wrong, the way most coaches do. Us swimmers, we’re more horse than jockey, so you can tell us whatever the hell you want but it won’t matter. Come race day, everything that happens in the pool is up to us and only us.
One hundred percent.
40.
At the hotel I end up rooming with Fitz. That’s fine with me—if I have to room with someone, it might as well be the guy who’s done this before and won. At the least I won’t be subjected to Raheem’s late-night sexting with his imaginary girlfriend. Or Caleb’s bladder issues and Vince’s ego.
Fitz lets me choose the bed I want—the one by the window, naturally—and the first thing he does is take a shower. Airplanes are filthy, he tells me, and I’m sure he’s right, but I don’t know what a shower’s going to be able to do about it this late in the game.
When he comes out, I’m in bed. Under the covers even.
“What the hell is this?” he barks.
“I’m sleeping.”
“You’re definitely not sleeping. Your eyes are open.”
“That’s because you’re talking to me.”
“It’s not even six o’clock. And we’ve got a meeting in ten minutes.”
“Fuck that.”
“What?”
“I don’t need to go to any meeting. Coach M went over everything on the plane.”
Fitz glares. “You know, there are things we do for the greater good. It’s called being part of a team.”
“But we’re not a team. Not in the water.”
“What about the relay?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re swimming in one.”
I groan. “Look, I’ll do my part. I promise. Just leave me alone.”
He pauses. “You serious?”
“Very.”
“So you’re just going to stay here and jack off and screw the rest of us?”
“Guess so,” I say, although what I really plan on doing is resting. Sleep has been elusive lately, but tonight I’ll need all I can get. However I can get it.
“Christ,” Fitz mutters.
But he leaves.
41.
Once he’s gone, I crash hard. Travel exhausts me in a way physical exertion never has, and the sleep I fall into is too deep for dreams but too good to last. I wake up gasping near midnight and in a panic. Everything’s black. My pulse is racing, my ears are ringing, and for an instant I don’t know where I am. Or why.
Then it comes to me.
You’re in the Hyatt in San Diego.
Your first real meet is tomorrow.
Fitz snores like a monster from across the room. I get up to turn on the fan as a means to drown him out. Then I try earplugs but it’s hopeless. I can’t sleep. My body’s twitchy. Unsettled. And for good reason: the process of preparing for a race doesn’t just involve getting a lot of sleep the night before. There’s also a reduction in training load in the week leading up to a meet. It’s called tapering and the agitation it causes has its own name:
Taper madness.
I’m madder than most, I guess, because I need to get out of here. I need to do something. Swinging my legs to the floor, I fumble in the dark for clothing, then abandon the room with nothing but my phone and key. A strange migratory urge has taken over and I cruise the hotel corridors, fingers skimming along glossed wallpaper, down stair railings, and more.
In the lobby, I discover that not much is happening. A clerk dozes at the front desk and the hotel bar is in the process of shutting down. There’s a pool on the property somewhere. I know this. But it’s no doubt long closed, and hopping the fence to dive in probably wouldn’t turn out too well for me. My urge takes me elsewhere; I find an exit and leave.
Outside, beneath the whisper of the moon, the sidewalk has its way with me. I follow it out of the development, away from the row of sleeping hotels, sleeping restaurants, and the occasional gas station. My breath, my actions, feel reckless. This is who I am.
This is what I do.
The sidewalk grows cracked, weary, but it doesn’t stop and neither do I. It leads me doggedly through intersection after intersection, and where it goes, I follow, follow, follow, until finally, at last, I can smell the ocean, feel its salt-sting burn, and I’ve made it. I start to run as my ears fill with the roar of the waves, the crash of the surf.
When I reach the beach, I kick off my shoes and grind my heels in the sand to let the earthiness take hold. Then I walk to the water’s edge. It’s agony, not being able to swim. Not being able to dive deep beneath the waves to soothe my rattled mind. But I’m here, I tell myself. I’m alive. I don’t need to offer myself up to the ocean in an act of sacrifice or suffering.
It’s enough to know I can.
42.
Fitz is awake when I return to the room at daybreak with salt in my hair, salt on my skin. He doesn’t ask where I’ve been, and I don’t offer. Instead I head for the shower. For more solitude.
“We’re meeting for breakfast in thirty minutes,” he says.
“Okay.”
“You coming?”
Stepping out of the bathroom while the water heats, I reach for my gear bag and pull it open to double, triple check that I’ve got everything I need. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”
* * *
Fitz doesn’t wait for me and I head down for breakfast on my own. I take the elevator this time and find that the lobby’s been transformed. No longer desolate, the place is packed with scores of swimmers, all bunched together by team, by age.
It’s a lot to take in.
I find Coach Marks and the other guys waiting outsi
de the dining room. I’m not late or anything, so I don’t bother apologizing, even though I’m the last one to show up. The bleary expressions on Raheem’s and Caleb’s faces hint that their nights were as restless as my own. Vince, however, appears unfazed and Fitz is screwing around on his phone. Before we go in to eat, Coach M asks if we can talk.
“Sure,” I say. “What’s up?”
“What happened to you last night?”
“When?”
“When you missed our meeting.”
“I was sleeping.”
“Before dinner?”
“I was beat.”
“What’d you do when you woke up?” he asks.
“How do you know I woke up?”
“You look like shit.”
“I took a walk,” I say.
“At night?”
“Yeah.”
“By yourself?”
“That’s right.”
His brow wrinkles and I get the feeling he wants to ask more about what I was doing. But what he says is, “You miss another meeting, you don’t swim for me. Got it?”
I nod but say nothing because it’s not really a question. Luck’s with me, though, and Coach Marks seems satisfied and we move on to the breakfast portion of the morning. Stepping into the hotel buffet is a surreal experience. This isn’t like the high school meets I’ve been to. For those we always stayed in crappy motels—four to a room—and ate Pop-Tarts and hard-boiled eggs that we’d stored overnight in the mini fridges. In contrast, this place has white tablecloths and hot food, and the ratio of swimmers to coaches is a lot smaller than I’m used to. High school meets are loud, raucous, and buzzing with frat-house hormones. You always get the feeling the coaches are on the verge of losing control and that half the kids are just going through the motions so they can try to get laid in the hot tub later.