Page 39 of The Last Five Yards

Reese climbs out beside her, quiet now, leaning back on her elbows on the deck. For a long moment, neither of them speaks.

The pool is calm again, the surface smooth and shining.

“It was a good last practice,” Reese says softly.

Maren nods, watching the ripples fade. “Yeah,” she says. “It really was.”

15

Ripples

Maren sits at the desk in the coach’s office, the surface completely swallowed by the printouts she managed to save. Pages with smeared ink, wrinkled corners, a few still smelling faintly of chlorine. She is trying to place them in some sort of order, if by some grace of God her laptop survives. The screen had flickered earlier in a way that felt personal. Betrayal by technology was one thing. Betrayal by her own carelessness was another.

She glances through the narrow window toward the pool. The overhead emergency lights cast strange patterns across the water, soft lines of light drifting and breaking apart as the ceiling fans turn in slow circles. On the bleachers sits her laptop in a giant Ziploc bag filled with rice. An age group parent had heard what happened and arrived carrying a fifty-pound bag of rice like they were delivering supplies to a bunker. They poured half into the bag and nestled the laptop inside as gently as if it were a living thing. Maren was willing to try anything at this point. Miracles come in strange forms, she keeps telling herself.

Her attention drops back to the papers in her hand. She tries to sort them by meet, by event, by date, by the logic she had so carefully built into her spreadsheets. None of it feels right now. It is like trying to rebuild a house from scattered bricks while the foundation crumbles under her feet.

The silence in the pool is deafening tonight. It is not really silent. The pumps and filters are still running, steady and constant, but her brain refuses to register them. All she can hear is her own heartbeat mixing with the messy churn of her thoughts. Everything keeps circling in the same place. If she could not even protect a laptop or keep practice running efficiently or hold herself together through one chaotic morning, how is she supposed to be a head coach?

Five years after graduation, and she is exactly where she was before graduation. Same pool. Same office. Same tired notebook with the corners bent from being shoved into her bag a hundred times. The only difference is that she is on this side of the desk now. That check is in the right column. She tries to take comfort in that, tries to believe that progress can be measured in something other than yards and medals and years. But tonight, it feels small.

She stacks another pile of papers. They slide sideways, and she catches them with a frustrated sigh. Her fingers are cold and pruney from hours of damp pages and stress. She pulls her hoodie sleeves over her hands and presses her palms to her forehead.

Maybe it is not the mess that bothers her. Maybe it is what the mess represents. She has spent years holding everything together through a sheer force of will. Schedules. Practice plans. Emotions. Walls she built so she would not break again. And one chaotic morning was enough to knock her sideways.

The office feels too warm. Too tight. Too filled with noises she cannot name. Maren pushes away from the desk and steps out onto the deck. The air smells like chlorine and wet tile, familiar and sharp in a way that settles deep in her chest. She lowers herself onto the cool floor, letting the temperature bite gently at her skin. The chill shoots up her arms and through her palms, steadying her breath.

She has been grounding herself like this for years. Long before she knew what it meant. Long before she had the words for why her brain spiraled and spun out. The cool tile always gave her something real to hold onto. Something constant. Something that did not ask anything from her.

She closes her eyes and presses both hands flat against the deck. The tile is smooth and cold, and it pulls her back into her body. The space around her widens. The water laps quietly against the gutter, steady and rhythmic. For the first time all day, she finds a calmer pace.

A few feet away, the ripples on the surface catch the emergency light and scatter it into soft, moving lines. The whole building feels like it is moving with her. This is the part of the pool she trusts. The part that does not demand perfection or control. The part that always held her when her mind refused to settle.

She stays there for a long moment, letting the cold seep into her hands, letting the quiet do the work she cannot seem to do for herself. It is not enough to fix anything. It never is. But it is enough to keep her steady.

And for tonight, steadiness feels like a small kind of victory.

A blast of air hits Maren as she lies on the deck outside the office. She does not register what it means until she hears footsteps crossing the tile. She squeezes her eyes shut, silently begging the universe for it to be the janitor and not a swim parent. The last thing she wants is to be found mid-grounding moment like some sort of poolside cryptid. She is not sure how she would even begin to explain it.

“Um, I brought you some coffee,” a familiar voice says. “You know, if you are not too busy having, um, is this a midlife crisis?”

Maren’s eyes fly open.

Reese stands over her, framed by the emergency lights, long legs and damp hair making her look taller than she is. From down here, Maren could swear she had gained an inch.

Maren pushes herself into a seated position, dignity failing to keep up. “Would you believe that I lost my contact and had to look for it down here?”

Reese raises an eyebrow. “Maren Clarke, you have perfect vision. You have never needed contacts in your entire life.”

“So that’s a no,” Maren mutters.

Reese extends a cup toward her, and the sight of it hits Maren hard. It’s not just a cup. It’s the cup. A Red Cup sleeve, her name written in looping handwriting, the little heart added as thoughtlessly and consistently as ever.

A memory wrapped in cardboard and cinnamon.

Maren takes it and holds it under her nose. Coffee, vanilla, and cinnamon. Her favorite. Reese remembered.

They scoot back until they rest their shoulders against the wall, the cool tile sending a shiver up Maren’s spine. She keeps both hands wrapped around the cup.