Her brows knit together. “What?”
I huffed out a quiet breath. “Sorry. I know that came out of nowhere.”
I ran a hand over the back of my neck, eyes flicking to the spread of papers between us, the way her phone kept lighting up with reminders and follow-ups. Evidence of momentum. Of a plan.
“It’s just …” I hesitated, searching for words that didn’t sound as raw as they felt. “You’re setting something up. A future. Past all of this.” I gestured vaguely between us, to the apartment, the arrangement, the timeline neither of us ever said out loud. “Past the marriage.”
Her expression softened, but she stayed quiet, letting me talk.
“I can see to Worlds,” I admitted. “That’s it. That’s as far as my brain lets me go.” I swallowed. “Everything after that feels blank. Or dark. Like I’m standing at theedge of something, and I don’t know if there’s ground on the other side.”
And maybe, though I didn’t say it, that blank space didn’t just scare me because of swimming.
It scared me because I didn’t know if she was in it.
“This.” I gestured vaguely toward her papers, her phone. “Your business. You’re not just waiting for the next thing. You’re creating it.”
She shrugged, but I could tell the words mattered. “I’m trying.”
A sense of defeat washed over me. Because she was moving forward in a way I couldn’t control. In a way that didn’t depend on hundredths of a second.
And because part of me wanted to follow her—to imagine a life where I wasn’t constantly racing a clock I couldn’t see.
“I’m proud of you,” I said quietly, the words slipping out before I could overthink them. “You didn’t have to do this. You could’ve stayed comfortable. Let everything be handled for you.”
I hesitated, then added, more honest than I’d meant to be, “But you didn’t. You chose the harder road.”
It was my way of saying what I’d only recently started to understand. That she wasn’t the trust fund baby I’d pegged her as in the beginning. That the money didn’t define her choices. That she wasn’t waiting for someone else to build her life.
Her eyes lifted to mine, surprise flickering there before something warmer settled in.
“You’re brave,” I added. “Building something fromscratch? That takes guts. More than most people realize.”
The corners of her mouth curved, soft and genuine. “Thanks.”
We sat there like that for a moment, quiet and close, the air between us tangible with everything we weren’t saying. Her hand was still on mine on the table, the heat of her skin seeping through me. We were close enough that my instincts screamed to close the distance. Again, I felt the urge to pull her into my lap, to anchor myself in the steady rhythm of her breathing and pretend, just for a minute, that I wasn’t running out of time.
Instead, I leaned back first.
“I should stretch,” I said, already retreating. “Early practice tomorrow.”
Her hand slipped away from mine, slow enough that I felt it all the way up my arm.
“Of course,” she said.
I couldn’t tell if there was disappointment in her voice or if it was just my own disappointment echoing back at me, filling in the spaces I’d created by stepping away. Either way, the loss of her touch lingered longer than it should have, like my body hadn’t agreed with the decision my brain had made.
Later, her voice floated out through the bedroom door. Confident. Knowledgeable. Leading.
She wasn’t just planning anymore. She was executing.
By the time she hung up, I was already halfway donestretching, heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with training.
She was going somewhere—of course she was. Roxie didn’t drift. She moved with intention, with momentum, like a force you either learned to keep up with or got left behind by.
And I was still measuring my future in races I hadn’t swum yet.
That night, I lay awake staring at the ceiling, Coach’s words echoing in my head.
