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Maybe because we spend so much time together, Lali and I are usually on the same cycle. I wish I could blame my performance on hormones, but I can’t. I’ve been spending too much time with Sebastian, and it shows. “Nope,” I say glumly. “Do you?”
“Got it last week,” Lali says. She looks across the pool, spots Sebastian, and waves. He waves back. “Sebastian’s watching,” Lali says as I get up to do my final dive. “Don’t screw up.”
I sigh, trying to focus as I climb the ladder. I stand at the ready, arms by my side, palms facing backward, when I have an unsettling but startlingly clear revelation: I don’t want to do this anymore.
I take four steps and hop, launching my body straight into the air, but instead of flying, I’m suddenly falling. For a split-second I see myself hurtling off a cliff, wondering what will happen when I hit bottom. Will I wake up, or will I be dead?
I enter the water with my knees bent, followed by an ugly splash.
I’m finished. I head to the locker room, peel off my suit, and step into the shower.
I always knew someday I’d leave diving behind. It was never going to be my future—I knew I’d never be good enough to dive on a college team. But it wasn’t just the actual sport that made it fun. It was the raucous bus trips to other schools, the ongoing backgammon games we’d play in between heats, the excitement of knowing you’re going to win and then pulling it off. There were bad days too, when I knew I was off. I’d chastise myself, vow to try harder, and move on. But today, my lousy diving feels like more than a lousy day. It feels unavoidable, like I’ve reached the limits of my abilities.
I’m done.
I get out of the shower and wrap myself in a towel. I wipe a patch of steam off the mirror and stare at my face. I don’t look any different. But I feel different.
This isn’t me. I shake out my hair and flip the ends under, wondering how I’d look with a shorter haircut. Lali just cut her hair, feathering the top and spritzing it with a can of hair spray she keeps in her locker. Lali never worried much about her hair before, and when I commented on it, she said, “We’re at the age when we need to start thinking about how we look to guys,” which I thought was probably a joke.
“What guys?” I asked, and she responded, “All guys,” and then she looked me up and down and smiled.
Was she referring to Sebastian?
If I quit swim team, I could spend more time with him.
It’s been two weeks since the skiing incident with George. For days I was petrified Sebastian’s sister, Amelia, would tell him she met me with George, but so far, Sebastian hasn’t mentioned it. Which means she either hasn’t told him, or she has, and he doesn’t care. I even tried to get to the bottom of it by asking him about his sister, but all he said was, “She’s really cool,” and “Maybe you’ll meet her someday.”
Then I tried asking him why he left prep school to come to Castlebury High. I didn’t want to believe what George told me was true—after all, why would Sebastian need to cheat when he was smart enough to take courses like calculus?—but he only laughed and said, “I needed a change.”
George, I decided, was simply jealous.
Having been granted a reprieve on the George front, I’ve been determined to be a better girlfriend to Sebastian. Unfortunately, so far it means putting aside most of my normal activities. Like swimming.
Nearly every other day, Sebastian tries to get me to ditch practice by tempting me with an alternative plan. “Let’s go to the Mystic Aquarium and look at killer whales.”
“I have swim team. And then I have to study.”
“The aquarium is very educational.”
“I don’t think looking at killer whales is going to help me get into college.”
“You’re so boring,” he’d say, in a way that made it clear if I didn’t want to hang out with him, some other girl would. “Skip practice and we’ll go see Urban Cowboy,” he said one afternoon. “We can make out in the movie theater.” I agreed to this outing. It was a miserable day and the last place I wanted to be was in a cold pool—but I felt guilty through the entire movie and Sebastian annoyed the hell out of me when he kept putting my hand inside the front of his jeans to squeeze his penis. Sebastian was a lot more advanced than I was when it came to sex—he often made casual references to various “girlfriends” he’d dated at prep school—but the girlfriends never seemed to last more than a few weeks or so.
“What happened to them?” I asked.
“They were crazy,” he said matter-of-factly, as if craziness was an inevitable by-product of dating him.
Now I jerk open my locker, pause, and wonder if I’ve been cursed with the same affliction.
My locker is empty.
I shut it and check the number. It’s my locker, all right. I open it again, thinking I’ve made a mistake, but it’s still empty. I check the lockers to the left and the right. They’re empty too. I wrap the towel around my waist and sit down on the bench. Where the hell is my stuff? And then it hits me: Donna LaDonna and the two Jens.
I’d spotted them at the beginning of the meet, sitting on the edge of a bleacher, snickering, but I didn’t think much about it. Actually, I did think something about it, but I never thought they’d go this far. Especially since Donna apparently does have a new boyfriend—the guy I saw her with outside her house. The two Jens have been busy spreading rumors about him, telling anyone who will listen that he’s an older guy who goes to Boston University but is also a famous male model who’s in an ad for Paco Rabanne. Shortly thereafter, a page ripped from a magazine, featuring a photograph of a guy holding a bottle of aftershave, appeared taped to Donna LaDonna’s locker. The image stayed put for several days, until Lali couldn’t take it anymore and scribbled a thought bubble coming out of the model’s head that read: I AM M-T AND STOOPID.
Donna probably thought I did it, and now she’s out for revenge.
Enough. I yank open the door to the pool, about to stride out, when I realize a race is in progress and Lali is swimming. I can’t stroll out in the middle of a meet wearing only a towel. I peer around the door into the bleachers. Donna LaDonna and the two Jens are gone. Sebastian is absorbed in the race, raising his fist when Lali flips her legs over her head two feet from the wall and shoots into first place. Walt is looking around as though planning his escape, while next to him, Maggie is yawning.
