It was like her words slapped me in the face. “What?”
“Maybe we dove too fast into this.”
“Into what?”
“This,” she said and gestured between us. “Us. I think going from zero to one hundred and living together was too much.” She looked up, crying freely. It hurt me even more to see her feeling the same pain as me. “I can’t sit around and watch you do this to yourself anymore and drag me into the middle of it when I didn’t do anything wrong. This has been going on for five months, and you keep refusing to get help to change it.”
She swept past me into the entryway and snatched her keys off the rack.
“Please, Kennedy, don’t leave.” I cried as I followed her to the front door. My throat was already raw. “Please, don’t leave. I’m sorry.”
“I’m staying with Jacob,” she said and wiped her eyes before exhaling, as if she needed that for encouragement. “We need space to calm down.”
“What? For how long?”
She looked skyward as her eyes watered. “I don’t know. Think about things. Until you can admit that you need help. I need to go—”
“But, Ken—”
Once she closed the door, I toppled to the floor, curled up in a ball, and cried.
In the empty and silent condo with the home-cooked meal still scenting the kitchen.
Chapter Fourteen
I went from my girlfriend shooting daggers at me and leaving me alone with the weight of guilt in our condo, to a bunch of kids from thirteen to seventeen eyeing me with a starstruck sparkle in their eyes.
David’s camp went from Friday afternoon to Monday morning, and kids from as close as San Francisco and as far as the East Coast flew into Berkeley for it. He had it once a year, usually in a different California city. All these kids were on the elite level, destined to crush high school and state records—if they hadn’t already—and could easily qualify for the Olympic trials, and they wanted to gain knowledge and experience from someone who had coached thirteen Olympians throughout his career.
I didn’t join the camp until Friday evening, four days after Kennedy left. I sent her one text the morning after our fight, begging her to come back, and she said she still needed space. I was thankful for this camp now. It would give me a much-needed distraction from my lonely condo and empty bed. A king-size bed was far too big for one.
Now I walked down the steps to where David stood in the lecture hall at Berkeley, waiting for the campers to take their seats; the chatter hushed, and one hundred pairs of eyes widened and studied me. This rush of embarrassment washed through me. I wasn’t used to being gawked at, and I felt all sorts of insecure. Did I have toilet paper on my shoe? A stain on my shirt? Was my tag showing? No, these kids were gaping because they were completely enamored, and after feeling lonely and ignored by the love of my life, it was a nice juxtaposition.
When David started his forty-five-minute pep talk, he introduced me, I waved, and they gave me ecstatic waves back. I didn’t talk much, just said the occasional sentence or two, backing up his points about hard work, failure, and learning from failure. I didn’t want to give too much away because I was going to tell them my own story on Sunday night. After the talk, a bunch of kids ran up to me and asked if they could take a picture with me. The chaperones said they would have plenty of time for pictures later, and they all needed to head back to the hotel for lights out.
But I liked rebelling because it was fun.
“We can squeeze in a few more,” I told those waiting for their turn, giving them a wink before the selfie.
Their eyes lit up at my rebellion.
The next morning, when I walked down the pool deck in my suit, cap, and goggles, the same reaction from the night before happened. Instead of putting on their caps or jumping into the pool like they were supposed to, they stopped, pointed at me, and chattered with wide smiles.
“Are you going to be swimming with us, Ms. Hughes?” one of the girls asked with infatuated eyes.
That pulled a smile from me because not only was I Ms. Hughes to someone, but I made them excited for jumping in a freezing pool at eight in the morning during spring break. I think the only way I’d be excited to jump into a cold pool this early would be if I was swimming with Michael Phelps or a really hot girl like Olivia Wilde.
“Is that okay?” I asked.
Her eyes grew as she nodded joyfully.
“You guys better get in soon,” I said. “This guy likes to turn on the hose and spray you with freezing cold water if you take too long.”
I hooked a thumb at David, and their enamored eyes became terrified.
“Go! Go! Go!” I said, clapping, and they all jumped in the water.
David put me in charge of watching over the three thirteen to fourteen age group lanes. My job was to coach them through the sets and correct anything they could improve on. Mostly, I told them to close their fingers during freestyle to have a better grip on the water or not to take a breath after they did their flip turn because it made the turns faster.
For the last forty-five minutes, I hopped into the fastest lane and led them in swimming the main sets.
“Go easy on us,” said the original leader of lane one, a boy who had to have been eighteen.
“It would be my honor to get lapped by Quinn Hughes,” one of the girls said, and the lane rewarded her with laughs.
I didn’t go easy. Their parents spent all the money for them to attend this camp, so I was going to make sure they got their money’s worth.
These kids were so fast, they weren’t too far behind. Actually, they were giving me a pretty good workout.
During lunch, I grabbed my tray and sat with the other coaches. As I scooped a spoonful of cherry Greek yogurt into my mouth, I checked to see if I had any messages from Kennedy. It was killing me that our last text was Tuesday afternoon, and it was now Saturday. Every silent day, I worried more if this would be the end of us, that she would spend the rest of her internship with Jacob before moving back to New York. I had no idea if I needed to give her more space or if I was supposed to fight. But since she didn’t see me as a fighter anymore, I thought I would power through and send her a text.
I really miss you, Ken.
I slipped the phone back in my pocket and finished lunch with my heart pounding like a weight in my chest.
The afternoon was dedicated to dryland. Since it was a gorgeous day, we met outside on a soccer field littered with medicine balls. After two laps around the field for a warm-up, David had us doing multiple sets of push-ups, planks, sit-ups, lunges, and burpees. I was sweating with the campers while the coaches put us through quite a workout.
“Do burpees ever get any easier?” a high school girl asked as we took a water break.
“Not in the slightest,” I said and squirted water in my mouth.
“So this means I should quit now?” she said with a teasing grin.
I patted her shoulder. “They’re not meant to be easy, so that won’t change, but your tolerance will.”
“Good to know. Thanks, coach.”
Then we were on to the medicine balls. David instructed everyone to partner up. I spotted a girl in the thirteen-fourteen group looking over both shoulders. All the couples grabbed medicine balls as she hung her head and kicked the grass. I’d always hated partnering up, especially in camps like this where I didn’t know anyone. Since I never went with a friend, I was always by myself, and anytime I was told to find a partner, anxiety snaked my stomach and chest. My heart broke for her as she kicked the grass shamefully as if mad at herself.