“You just set the standard. And you’re the only one here who can live up to it.” I give her a final hard hug. “A couple more dives like that and we’ll have the gold medal. You can do this.”
There’s a fleeting shadow in her eyes, but I don’t have time to question it before she gives me a tight smile and heads off to warm herself in the designated off-camera hot tub. There is part of me that wants to call her back. To tell her that if she never dove again, I would still be the man in her life. To tell her that I’m encouraging her because a gold medal is what she wants. But if she never got a medal at all, I would still think she is the most extraordinary girl on this planet. Those sentiments will have to wait until after the competition, though.
As will my marriage proposal.
I’ll calm down once she’s wearing my ring. I won’t have to stalk my wife, will I?
Yeah right.
She won’t be walking down the goddamn street without me, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I was treading water for so long in the deep end of this obsession. Now it has sucked me down, down. Past the bottom. I’m never coming up for air.
Chapter 7
Margot
I win gold.
I can’t really believe it. All this work. Years of it. Of course I had the obligatory fantasies of Olympic glory, but so did everyone else. I didn’t think mine could be the one to come true.
Yet as I stand on the podium with the medal around my neck and a bouquet of roses cradled in my arms, the national anthem playing over the loudspeakers, there is a heavy sense of disappointment in my gut. Everett is talking to news reporters, shaking hands. Other diving coaches are coming up and congratulating him, slapping him on the back. And I haven’t seen him look this happy since I’ve known him. He’s usually very tense and reserved. Not now. His eyes have taken on a brighter tint of blue. There is a bounce in his step.
Because I won gold.
Is that all he ever wanted from me?
Did he tell me he loved me because he meant it? Or because I said it first and he didn’t want to hurt my feelings before the competition?
After the medal ceremony, he’s nowhere to be found. Just poof. Gone.
My parents wait outside the locker room while I shower and get dressed, wanting to bring me out to a special dinner in Tokyo. Everett is missing. Is he finished with me? I gave him what he wanted and now he has the prestige to coach at an even higher level? If I was more important to him than the glory, wouldn’t he be here right now, accompanying us to dinner?
I do my best to maintain my smile while eating with my parents, although there is definite awkwardness between me and my father. Not to mention, they seem more apt to accept congratulations than I am, taking credit for my training. My victory. Is that all anyone in my life has ever wanted from me?
After we finish and get back to Olympic Village, another hour passes with no sign of my coach. Tears fill my vision, a weight pressing down on the center of my chest.
He’s left me.
He got what he wanted and took off without a word.
My heart wrenches painfully as I pace my small room, looking out over the bright lights of the Olympic compound. Suddenly there is nothing I want more than my own bed. At home in Austin. I have to get out of here. All of the pressure that has been weighing down on me to perform my best was manageable as long as I had Everett. But obviously I misjudged him. Where is he now? What is he doing? I’m going to go crazy with the possibilities and I can’t stand to wonder. What if he shows up later or tomorrow and I see disinterest on his face? What if he really only took me to bed so I would dive better and no other reason? I don’t want to know.
So I’m leaving.
As fast as possible, I pack my clothes, my toiletries and medal. I leave word for my parents with one of the coordinators and zip to the airport in a cab, booking a last-minute flight on the way, desperate to escape this place and the noise and reminders that everything is about winning. I’m halfway through security when I realize I left in such a hurry that I forgot my phone. It’s still charging on the floor of my room. There’s nothing I can do about it now, though. My plane is leaving in twenty minutes.
I board with tears in my eyes, throwing myself into the seat closest to the window. And I watch the lights of Tokyo grow smaller and smaller through the double-paned glass.
When I land in Austin, I’m emotionally spent, exhausted from the surges of adrenaline during competition and the jet lag isn’t helping. I melt into the back of another cab, nearly falling asleep on the way home. And when I do walk through the front door of my family’s place and the familiarity greets me, I burst into big hiccupping sobs, clutching at my broken heart as I stumble to my bed where I fall fast asleep for several hours, vowing to shower and go buy a new phone when I wake up.
My eyes pop open in the darkness.
Or near darkness, anyway. I turn my head and glance at the clock on my wall, the ticking arms filling me in that it’s five-twenty pm. Did I get home today or has another full day passed on top of that? I have no idea. There’s no sense of time and space while I shower and dress, urgency needling me to go buy a new phone. We don’t have a landline in this house and while I might have left a message for my parents, they must be worried, wondering if I got home okay.
Is Everett worried?
Maybe he hasn’t even realized I’m gone yet. That’s more likely.
With eyes still gritty from sleep and crying, I enter our cool garage through the door in the kitchen, unlocking my Jetta and sliding into the driver’s seat. I turn on the ignition, sighing over the pleasant waft of air conditioning that bathes my bare arms and legs, fluttering the hem of my loose, indigo blue dress.
I press the button to open the garage and I’m just about to pull down the driveway and onto the street when something on the passenger seat draws my eye. It’s a book about sports psychology. Staying focused. Everett gave it to me before the Games and I never had a chance to read it. Pulse speeding up, I lift the book into my lap and flip it open to the first page, surprised to find there is an inscription in Everett’s bold, all caps handwriting.
Forget the medals. You’ve already won just by being you. -Coach
Tears blur the words in front of me, my injured heart squeezing in my chest.
Lies. He couldn’t have meant that. Or maybe he did at the time, but once he got a taste of the accolades that come with winning a gold medal, he changed.
After drying my eyes with the hem of my dress, I leave the house. But instead of driving to the phone store, as planned, I find myself idling in front of Everett’s house. It’s a small but well-tended Colonial not too far from where I live. There are several newspapers in the driveway since he hasn’t been home to receive them. The shades are pulled down tight.
I’ve never once been inside, which is odd. How many times has he been over to my house for dinner? More than I can count. I’m sure it’s meticulously organized and functional, just like the man himself.
That thought causes my throat muscles to tighten up. I miss him. The lack of him is a physical ache growing worse and worse by the second. I don’t think I’ve gone a full day without some form of contact with my coach for two full years. It feels wrong. It hurts. I want him. To hear his voice and feel him inside of me, his hand around my throat or his sweat dripping on my back. Those strained calls of my name are haunting me.