She didn’t return the smile. “You’re good,” she said instead. “Better than good.”
I waited. Praise from Coach always came with a blade hidden inside it.
“But you’re not bulletproof.”
The words weighed heavier than any compliment. I wiped water from my face, heart still hammering.
“I’m fine,” I said, because that was the answer everyone expected.
She studied me like she could see straight through the muscle and discipline and routine. “You’re older than a lot of the contenders this year. That’s not a bad thing. Experience matters. But it means recovery matters more. Focus matters more.”
“I’m focused.”
“Make sure you stay that way,” she said. “Because one race decides everything.”
That was the cruel math of it. Years of work, thousands of hours in the water—reduced to a handful of seconds. One missed wall. One sloppy breath. One guy touching before you.
One race deciding whether I was still relevant.
Whether I was still worth investing in.
Whether this thing I’d built my entire life around would keep letting me belong.
“Remember,” she continued like she hadn’t been dropping anvils on me. “You’re human. That’s not a weakness—unless you forget it.”
I nodded, even though I was annoyed at how human I’d been feeling lately.
Because this human was getting easily distracted more often than not.
Distraction didn’t always look like partying or slacking off. Sometimes it looked like hope. Likesomething bright and promising that wanted your attention at the worst possible time. Like someone who had infiltrated my life and was taking up a lot of headspace. Like curly blonde hair, deep blue eyes, kissable lips, and silky skin.
Like Roxie.
I didn’t let myself say her name during practice. I didn’t think about the way she laughed under her breath when she was nervous. I didn’t think about how we’d crossed a line we couldn’t uncross.
I told myself she was a complication.
Worse—a countdown.
Everything in my life had a clock on it right now. Trials were coming whether I was ready or not. Whether my head was clear or crowded. Whether my body held together. Whether my heart wanted things it couldn’t have.
And Roxie—she was becoming something real. I saw it in the way she moved through the apartment with purpose now, phone glued to her hand, notes scribbled everywhere. I saw it in the way her confidence sharpened instead of frayed when she talked about work.
She wasn’t drifting anymore. She was building.
And it put a crack in the careful calculations I’d been doing.
Because I was chasing something that might disappear in a blink. One bad race. One missed wall. One hundredth of a second.
She was chasing something that would still be there after the noise faded.
If I made the time and went to Worlds, there wereno guarantees waiting on the other side. No contracts neatly lined up. No promise that sponsors would still care about a guy creeping toward the wrong side of twenty-five in a sport obsessed with youth.
Swimming didn’t care how loyal you’d been.
It didn’t reward longevity.
It only asked one question:Can you still touch first?
