In the beginning, I could push past it and get through my first set. I didn’t break any records, but I finished one point eight seconds before anyone else, and that was enough to have my team roaring.
But now, it’s becoming more and more impossible to resist the siren’s call of sleep. It feels like I have goddamn dumbbells for eyelids, and as each second passes, I grow weaker in the battle to keep them open.
“Dread, you good?”
The voice is familiar, but it sounds fucking light years away, barely penetrating the fog clouding my head.
“Mmm?” I mumble, turning my chin toward the sound and cracking open my eyes a millimeter. Even that takes an immense amount of effort.
“Bro, you’re up in twenty minutes.”
Someone grips my shoulder and jostles me, snapping me out of the deep void I'd unknowingly fallen into again. Again, I open my eyes, finding Rogue sitting on the bench beside me, his brow furrowed with confusion and lips downcast.
“The fuck is going on with you?”
Rogue’s on the college team with me, though he doesn’t swim for Team USA. He had no interest in going to the Olympics, mainly because he said it was too much time spent getting wet by something that wasn’t pussy, and he’d rather listen to a woman moan his name than strangers cheer it. Gold medals never meant shit to him.
Not that they ever meant much to me, either. I don’t swim for theattention or notoriety. I swim because it’s the only thing keeping me from murdering someone most days, and being chained down by a strict schedule isn’t so bad when I don’t have to sleep behind bars at night. Training for the Olympics keeps me busy.
I need to stay busy.
Except right now.
Right now, I need to fuckingsleep.
“Dread,” Rogue growls impatiently, shoving my arm again and jostling me.
I creak open my eyes. When the hell did I even close them?
Rogue’s features are blurring, and I kind of want to deck him for disturbing me. Except, the thought of even lifting my fist sounds like too much goddamn work.
“Just shleepy,” I slur, my mouth too tired to form the words properly.
The crease in his forehead deepens, concern saturating his features. It’s an irritating sight.
“Dread,” he snaps louder, jerking my shoulder with more force. I snap open my eyes again, having no recollection of even closing them.
“Yeah?”
“What the fuck did you take? You can’t swim like this, dude.”
“S’kay. I just gotta rest my eyes…” Another jerk, and I’m opening my eyes again. They’re starting to burn now. “Jush for a shecond.”
“Dude, you have three fucking news stations here watching you like a hawk, and this is literally live on ESPN. You’re going to drown on fuckinglive televisionif you swim,” he berates, his voice sounding closer to a growl.
I glance around, searching for the cameras, but Rogue positioned his large body right in front of me, cutting me off from the world and, I guess, cutting the world off from me.
“If you don’t drown, then people are going to think you’re getting into hard drugs. Shit will come crashing down on your head faster than you can open your fucking eyes right now.”
“I have to shwim,” I argue weakly.
He scoffs, his frustration as potent as the chlorine in the air. “Did you take something?Areyou on drugs?”
The accusation is enough to get my unfocused stare pinned to him for all of point-four seconds. “Fuck off, ashhole. You know I don’do that shit.”
His features twist with impatience. “Tell me what you ate and drank today.”
I shrug sloppily. “Jush my power bars and Gat’rade.”
