AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Victor
Alek answers my call immediately and accepts my last-minute request to race to Capri.
After the driver drops me off in front of the Regale, I think about facing Gray, trying to say goodbye to the only person besides Ethan who ever looked at me like I mattered to him. Just like everyone six years ago, he’s going to ask mewhy, in a voice that tells me exactly how bad I’ve been, how deeply I’ve fucked up. And when I sayI don’t know, he’s going to shake his head and walk away because who the fuck lets something like this happen to them?
Instead, I wander to a random park. I lie down on a bench for the long afternoon, counting the clouds, feeling their shadows cool across my face as they pass over the sun. A jet purrs thousands of feet above me and I wonder if Ethan’s on it, looking out his window.
I have a headache from the heat, sweat running from my temples into my hair. I pull my phone out of my pocket to call the whole thing off. There’s another notification from the news app.Victor Lang Sex Scandal. Maybe he’ll watch it on the flight, maybe after he lands.
I’m so goddamn tired.
Without opening the report, I get up and climb the nearest hill. After bending double to catch my breath, I climb on the top of the highest wall, holding a post for balance, and throw my phone out over the shimmering clay roofs.
Then I sit around in the shade, smoking, until the sun goes down. A cab drives me to the beach right at the heart of the Naples waterline. If it weren’t dark, I’d be able to see Capri.
The twins have managed to pull a car onto the dark sand, headlights spilling out across the scrubby grass, and they’re sitting in the back, drinking and watching Alek stretch in his wetsuit. I don’t have one with me, so I’ll borrow one of his, even though it’s too large. The drunk girls whistle as I strip down and change in the night wind with the loud surf.
It’s very lonely here, not at all like the beach I went to with Ethan, where we buried his cousin.
I should stretch too, but at this point I’m not sure I care so I just stand and watch Alek. He ignores me until he’s finished, then straightens up to study me. “You already look worn out.”
“Lucky you, maybe you have a chance.”
He shakes his head. “You can’t trash talk me looking like that.” But even so, there’s a note of doubt in his voice. That’s how good I was, back then. There was nothing I couldn’t do.
“I saw the news. Things are getting fucked up, aren’t they?” Behind his bravado, he sounds almost scared.
I remember the two of us at thirteen, fourteen, sixteen, helping each other through practice, suffering together, being happy together. He couldn’t do anything to protect me from his dad, but when we weren’t fighting like dogs he always came to check on me. He made up games to distract me, or took me swimming in this little lake by the compound, or lay on his couch next to me playing video games, anything to get me through another day. We were only rivals because of his father. When he started doping, I was the one who sat on the bathroom floor with him and told him it was going to be ok as he took his first dose and tried not to cry.
When I broke down just before the Rio Olympics and tried to expose Coach, Alek told me he would testify against his father, that he even had proof. I may never know what the proof was or who caught us, whether it was Coach protecting his career or my father hiding the fact that he put the status of a famous son over stopping the abuse, but Alek backed out and my deposition was buried.
As if to buy his silence and punish me, Coach forced me to swap my negative dope test for Alek’s positive one. When I begged Coach to change his mind, he asked me if I really wanted the whole world to know how twisted I was, the sick things I had done for him.
I never blamed Alek for letting it all happen. If he spoke up, he’d lose his career, the only thing that mattered to him. He wanted to know how it felt to be the best in the world. His dad had trained him to want that his whole life. I couldn’t expect him to throw away his future for someone else, especially when I was never brave enough to save myself.
He hops into the surf and waits for me. Rachel offers me a swig of her beer, but I shake my head. I take a minute, walking a few paces up the sand and back, testing my lung capacity, getting my limbs moving. I stop and look up at the stars.
I’m sorry.
A lot of people say they were put on earth for the person they love.
I always thought I was a mistake, because I can’t love. I was put on earth for no one.
Now I know I was put on earth to break your heart.
But I hope that’s better than never having it at all.
I told you, the water protects me. And if it asks for me back tonight, that’s how it was meant to be. You’ll be ok.
I dive into the shallows, get my hair wet, and paddle out to where Alek is waiting. It’s impossible to get my bearings in the dark beyond a general direction.
It seems like this should be an important moment, the moment where I let Ethan go, the moment where I return home to the place I was always meant to be. But it’s just cold waves, an ugly car in the sand, and Rachel bouncing up and down on the shoreline. “Ready, set, GO!”
Alek takes off, because he’s always been too hot on the start, no matter how far the race is. I start steady, try to fall into the rhythm where I don’t get tired. But within an hour I know I’m not going to make it. This is the part where it’s not too late to turn around, swim back. But I don’t know what’s back there, and I do know what’s in front of me.
Ethan
Victor still hasn’t answered my calls. For a while I wait, watching the sun go down outside the window and feeling the air become chilly. On an impulse, I go down the street to the spot where the cabs idle and ask one of them if he can call the other drivers in the area and see if they’ve driven a man my age with blond, curly hair. When one of them answersyes, it feels like that intangible, maddening fate that has been teasing at me for weeks, pulling my life apart.
