Page 36 of The Last Five Yards

Instead, she opens it. The sheet loads, slow with age.

Old numbers fill the screen, dive difficulties, scores, margins, fragments of another life. The last entry is dated years ago now.

Maren’s chest tightens just a little. She scrolls to the bottom and adds a single note: Still proud of you.

Her fingers linger over the keyboard, then backspace the words until the cell is blank again.

Before she can think too hard about it, a door slams open across the pool deck. The echo bounces through the air.

Voices, Shouting, Laughter.

Then the music starts again. It’s too loud, too bright, and rolling down the deck like thunder.

Maren glances up, blinking against the sudden blur of motion. Dozens of swimmers and alumni flood through the doors, with water guns and towels flying. Led by Ava and Jules, Maren shakes her head. She should have known.

Her laptop screen catches the reflection of it, streaks of blue and white in the soft light, before she pushes the screen halfway down.

The noise swells, filling the entire pool until it is impossible to think.

Music, laughter, the slap of bare feet on the tile. Someone cranks the volume higher, and the bass rattles the bleachers.

A whistle shrieks, followed by a splash that soaks the deck right in front of Maren. Someone yells “Cannon Ball” and takes a running leap from the deck to the pool, fully clothed. The air fills with droplets and laughter, humid and bright.

Maren stands, coffee long forgotten. “Oh my god,” she says to no one.

Jules waves from across the pool, half-hidden behind a group of alumni. Her grin is feral. “Sorry, not sorry!” she yells, cupping her hands around her mouth.

Maren blinks, trying to process the chaos. Warm-ups tied around their heads like bandannas, swim caps and goggles snapped like rubber bands, someone holding a kickboard above their head like a trophy. Another senior tosses a handful of glitter confetti into the air, which immediately sticks to the damp floor.

Coach Hensley steps out of his office, taking off his whistle, and he tosses it back towards his desk. “You all lost your minds?” he shouts over the music.

The team roars back: “LAST SPLASH!!!”

He tries to look stern, but he is laughing too hard already.

Maren shakes her head, water dripping from her sleeves. “You knew about this, didn’t you?” she yells at him.

“I had a feeling,” he says, his grin giving him away. “Never trust seniors when they show up early for practice.”

Another splash hits, harder this time. She looks down just in time to see her notes on the bleacher bleeding together, ink running into thin blue threads. Her laptop sits half closed, but the puddle is inching closer.

She scoops everything higher onto the bench, half-laughing, half-exasperated. “You people are ridiculous,” she says, but her voice gets swallowed by the sound of the pool.

Then she sees her.

Reese stands at the edge of the diving well, hair pulled back, skin glowing under the sun beaming in from the windows. She’s in shorts and a faded team hoodie that looks at least two sizes too big for her. One of Maren’s old ones, from their senior year.

Their eyes meet across the deck.

For a heartbeat, everything else drops away. All the shouting, the laughter, even the thud of the music. It’s just the shimmer of light bouncing off the water between them currently.

Reese grins, slow and certain, and mouths You ready?

Maren barely has time to shake her head before Reese takes off running.

She dodges two swimmers, plants one foot on the edge, and launches herself into the pool. The splash erupts like thunder, and the entire deck screams.

Water sprays across the bleachers. Maren throws an arm over her face, laughing despite herself.