Deep End

I WISH I COULD SAY I’M DOING MY HOMEWORK, OR EVEN squinting at my puzzling app. The pathetic truth is that when Maryam’s voice reaches into my room, I’m lying face down on my bed, slowly breathing into the damp cotton of my duvet.

“A male underwear model is here to see you,” she yells.

I make the managerial decision to ignore her.

A minute later, my door opens. “Dude. Do I need to uncork your earwax?”

I lift my head. “What do you want?”

“There’s a guy here to see you.”

I blink at her. “Who?”

“Tall. Wearing Stanford Athletics gear. Looks like he’d be a good source of protein.”

Another blink.

“Shall I tell the gentleman you are at home for him?” she adds with a tetchy, butchered Jane Austen accent. I nod, confused. A little later, Lukas closes the door of my room and leans against it.

I pull up to my knees and sit on my heels, self-conscious about my wild hair, cotton underwear, plaid baby tee, like I’m a parody of some mid-2000s Victoria’s Secret sex kitten ad. His attention is on my face, though.

He’s barefoot, even though state-of-the-art microbial analysis would reveal that our floors are a biohazard worthy of Godzilla’s atomic breath. He crosses his arms, pins me with his eyes, and asks, “What happened?” in that blunt, northern European way I can’t put up with right now.

Should he not be tailgating? There’s no way the party is over. The alumni are probably sobbing in the punch. “Is this going to be a thing?” I ask flatly. “Where you offer to pity fuck me after every competition I don’t win?”

“Sure. I’m selfless like that. Right now, though, I’m more interested in figuring you out.”

I scowl. “I’m not a five-year budgeting plan.”

“What happened, Scarlett?” His eyes are laser focused. “You disappeared.”

“I’m fine. Just wasn’t feeling well. Not sure why it’s a big deal.”

“Because you came to Avery, started warming up, and then left. A suspiciously drastic turn for your health to take.”

“How do you even know that I was at Avery? Did you GPS me, or something?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” My belly swoops at the endearment. His tone lives somewhere between sympathy and amusement. “If you don’t think that I’m very aware of your presence, always, you have no idea what’s going on.”

A rush of blood hits my cheeks, and I—can’t. “Listen, Lukas, thank you very much for the . . . welfare check, but I’m not doing great, and I’m not sure I’m in the mood for being manhandled, so—”

“That’s not why I’m here, and you know it.” He reads through my bullshit so well, he’s not even offended. “I want to talk. You can tell me to leave, and I’ll leave—”

“Leave,” I blurt out.

His nod is unhesitant. He pushes away from the door, crosses my small room in one and a half steps, and bends down to murmur against my temple, “If you need anything, anything at all, you have my number. Use it.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. Then his back fills the doorway, and I—

“Don’t,” I say. Why am I being like this, to him? He’s done nothing but—god, he’s done nothing but care. “You don’t have to leave. I’m sorry, I’m taking it out on you because . . .” My laughter is a little phlegmy. Love that. “Because I hate myself, I guess?”

He turns around, surprised by none of this. Like I’m predictable. Or, at least, predicted by this man who shouldn’t know the first thing about me.

I don’t know what to say. So I ask, “Do you want to have sex?”

His smile is quiet. “With you. Yes. But that’s my default setting, so don’t read too much into it.”

I lower my chin. “Maybe we should. It might take my mind off things.”

“Yeah, it would. I’d make sure of it. The thing is, I’m not convinced that your mind shouldn’t be on things.”

“So I should just be this way? Beached in my own failures?”

His head tilts. “What constitutes failure for you, Scarlett?”

“I don’t know, Lukas.” I press my lips together. “You’re sounding more like my therapist, and less like a fun guy who threatens me with ball gags when I’m mouthy.”

“We’ve established that neither of us is into those, and that I have better uses for your mouth.”

I flush. Glance away.

“What happened today?”

“Just . . .” I rub the heel of my palm against my eye. “My brain won’t do that stupid dive. And the MCAT email—I can’t open it. And my . . . my high school coach, his wife is an alumna, and of course this is the year she decides to show up. And I miss my stupid dog.” I’m being barely coherent. Lukas, however, nods like I’m painting a full, polychrome picture for him.

And asks: “Do you have a mental block?”

I hate that word. I hate how accurate and solid and massive it sounds. “It’s not like it’s news.”

“You never told me.”

“Should I have disclosed it on the list? An asterisk between the titty fucking and the STI part of the form? Why would you need to know, anyway? Do you make a point of not associating with athletes who aren’t in the ninety-ninth percentile for their discipline?” I wince, rubbing a hand down my face. “I’m sorry, Lukas. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. Actually . . .” I look up with a sad smile. “Maybe I’m just a total bitch?”

“Is it all dives? Or just the one you mentioned—inward?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Too bad, because I want to know.”

I swallow a groan. “Maybe you could ask Pen? She’ll explain.”

“Why would I want to find out what’s in your head from Pen?” He’s baffled, and I have no answer for him. “Has it been since your injury?”

I nod.

“The dive you were doing when you got injured, was it . . . ?”

I nod.

“No inward since then?”

I shake my head, and he must be satisfied with the information he gathered, because he exhales sharply and sinks further into the door, as if suddenly burdened with a heavy weight. His head tips back, eyes toward the ceiling, and stays like that for a long while before his gaze settles back on me.

I wait for him to tell me what I’ve heard a million times already. It’ll get better. It’s not your fault. There are things you can do to fix it. Don’t give up. I knew someone who knew someone whose block just poof, disappeared. At least you are physically healthy. There, there.

He doesn’t, though. What Lukas fucking Blomqvist says to me, damn him to hell, is: “I’m sorry, Scarlett.”

It’s unprecedented. Destabilizing.

In the past year of self-loathing, training, practicing, trying, failing, trying again, visualizing, exercising, catastrophizing, not catastrophizing, resenting, fearing, pretending, demanding . . . In the past year, being sorry is simply not something that I ever allowed myself.

It just never occurred to me.

But now that the prospect of some simple, uncomplicated sorrow is here, glowing in my palm, I cannot deny it to myself any longer.

And that’s how it happens: My face crumpling into something ugly and blotchy and wet before I can hide it into my own hands. The foul, guttural wail that tears out of my throat. I need—I need Lukas to leave right now, before witnessing the unattractive, flawed mess that I am. And I don’t know how I find myself across his warm lap, the crown of my head lodged under his chin, one of his palms cupping my thigh while the other wipes back and forth over the elastic of my underwear.

A silent: I’m sorry, Scarlett.

I’m not tearing up. I’m not weeping softly. These are sobs. Bawling. Hitched, shivering breaths. My fingers fist in his shirt, cling to it like it’s a religious doctrine. I’m hiccuping, crying my stupid heart out, loud and sloppy, and there’s snot involved. But Lukas doesn’t let go, not even when his phone buzzes several times, not even when my eyes run dry.

“Scarlett.” His voice is a deep hum under the side of my body, full of things that make my heart ache.

This may be the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me—and I’ve been publicly flunking dives for the past year. “I never cry,” I say, sniffling, in lieu of an apology.

“Liar.” He presses a kiss against my temple. “I’ve made you cry plenty of times.”

“It’s different—”

“Is it?”

“—and you just have a dacryphilia kink.”

I feel his smile against my cheek. The bristle of his stubble scrapes my skin. “The fact that you know that word is proof of how well matched we are.”

I let out a watery snort. Sure, we’re both degenerates. But he’s an Olympic multi-medalist, and I can’t jump in a pool without having kittens. “You won’t believe this, but I used to actually be a good diver.” I wasn’t always at my worst, Lukas. A few years ago, I was someone worth knowing.

“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

I shrug in his arms. His grip tightens, like he’s no more ready to let go than I am. “Sometimes, I feel like my life is split in two. There was the first part, where I was in control, and was able to make myself do what needed to be done, and then . . . now.”

His hand tilts my chin up to force our eyes to meet. “What’s day zero? When you got injured?”

I nod. “There’s no reason for me to be so hung up on it. I had surgery, and . . . I was so lucky. But instead of taking advantage, I can’t even . . .” I free myself and hide my tear-smeared face in his throat. His palm lifts to cup the back of my head.

“What would you do, in the past?”

“Hmm?” He smells comforting and familiar, sandalwood and Lukas and safe.

“When you’d fail a dive, what would you do?”

“I didn’t. I never used to fail dives. I used to be good.”

He sits on this piece of information for a minute. “What about blocks?”

“What about them?”

“Is this your first?”

I nod. Leave it to me to start with a bang.

“They’re not uncommon among divers, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pen has had several since I met her—not as long-lasting as yours, but my guess is, they’re pretty widespread. What about injuries? Did you have any before college?”

“No.”

“So . . .” He brushes a lock of hair behind my ear, pulling my head back to look at me again. “To recap, on the day of your first NCAA final, you failed your first dive, and had your first significant injury.”

“God, it was such a horrible . . .” I straighten in his lap, wiping my cheeks with the backs of my hands, feeling the same spurt of frustration I always experience. “It was everything, all at once. The night before my father contacted me to tell me he’d been following the NCAA competition online and was proud of me and—he’s not allowed to do that, by court order. I tried to call Barb to figure out what to do, but she had patient emergencies, and I couldn’t sleep and was so anxious—and then that morning, Josh, I mean . . . I’m glad he didn’t just decide to cheat on me, but couldn’t he have waited twelve hours to tell me that he’d met someone else—”

“Hang on,” Lukas interrupts. His eyes are narrow slits, his tone low, a little dangerous. I realize that I’ve been rambling.

“Sorry, you don’t have to listen to—”

“Did you just tell me that your boyfriend of . . . how long were you two together?”

“Three years?”

“Your boyfriend of three years broke up with you out of the blue, right before the NCAA finals?”

I swallow. Lukas seems angry, and I—I know, instinctively, he’s not mad at me, but his displeasure is nonetheless unsettling. “He . . . I think things with this new girl he’d met had been heating up, and . . .”

“Right,” he says. His tone is so deceptively mild, I shiver. “What I’m hearing is that you had a near-perfect history when it came to diving. Within twenty-four hours you got dumped by your boyfriend and contacted by your abusive father. When the final of the most important competition of your college career came around, despite your state of mind, you went ahead and tried to focus. Under those conditions you failed a dive for the first time in your career, and that’s when you became a failure?”

He says the last word like—like it’s all in my head. Like I’ve been misusing it. Like I don’t know what it means. So I retreat into myself, trying to poke holes in Lukas’s story, in his retelling of the worst day of my life that surely cannot be an accurate summary of what happened.

Can it?

“Why are you so reluctant to talk about that day?” he asks.

“I’m not.”

“And yet I had to pry the story out of you. We’ve discussed your injury, your relationship, your father. But you never told me, ‘My pieces of shit of a boyfriend and father and their piece of shit timing upset me so much, I severely injured myself to the point that I could barely move for weeks,’ and—did he visit you?”

“My father?”

“Josh. Did you see him after your injury?”

“We haven’t really talked since the breakup. He’s in Missouri, and—”

“Scarlett.”

I give up and admit, “No, he didn’t,” even though the tears once again streaking down my face would have been answer enough for Lukas—who cradles both my cheeks and presses the top of his forehead against mine.

“Scarlett,” he says again, his voice completely different—kind and caring and full of all the things, all the redos, all the truths I know he’d give me if only it were in his power. “I’m going to tell you something, okay? Something I don’t talk about. And after I do . . . we don’t have to bring this up ever again. But I need you to understand. Okay?”

I nod. My head rubs against his, bone under skin under skin under bone. His freckles blur together, pretty on the bridge of his nose.

“My mom died when I was fourteen. We all knew it was coming, but we thought we had more time. The doctor said . . . What matters is, it happened while I was gone. When the phone call came, I was in Denmark, not close enough to make it home in time. It was devastating for all the reasons you can imagine, but it also messed up my relationship with swimming. By that point I was good enough that the Olympics seemed like a guarantee, but after my mom died . . . I didn’t want to win, I had to. It went from dream to necessity. Because if I’d done something as egregious as being absent on my mom’s last day, for something as trivial as a swimming competition, then swimming had to be the most important thing in my life, right? It was the only way I could make it make sense. The only way I could forgive myself.”

He holds my face and my eyes, and the way he says this, it’s so . . . so Lukas—at once earnest and measured, sad but patient, head and heart. Unfazed, Pen had called him, but the truth is altogether different: Lukas works hard to hide what’s underneath the surface, and not acknowledging his efforts seems like a terrible disservice.

“I had to win, and suddenly, I couldn’t. In the span of a few weeks, I gained seconds on every single race. There was no physical reason for me to be so slow. I told myself that I just needed to get through the first few practices, the first few meets. But it never got better. I messed up the Olympic trials. And everyone in my family—they meant well, but their advice was ‘Don’t give up.’ ‘Stick to your routine.’ ‘Fake it till you make it.’ Even my dad, even Jan . . . they were kind and patient, but I needed to take a step back and they didn’t get it.

“The only person who truly understood was an American girl I’d met at a competition a few months earlier. We’d kissed once, stayed in touch. She wanted to be my girlfriend, and I liked her, but I didn’t get the point of a long-distance relationship, especially at our age. But there I was, needing to take a step back from the pool, and the only person validating that was Pen. She’d call me and text me and was so easy to talk to, before I knew it she was giving me the tools to communicate to my trainer and my family that I needed to stop swimming for a while. That I might never go back. I didn’t have the words, but she helped me find them.

“And I did step back. The Olympics happened, and I didn’t watch them. I traveled. Spent time with friends. Visited Pen and decided that after what she’d done for me, I never wanted to not have her as my girlfriend. Above all, I let myself mourn my mom, and acknowledged how fucked up it was that for some twist of fate I hadn’t been able to say goodbye. And when I felt ready, I went back to the pool. But only after I’d proven to myself that I didn’t need to swim to be whole.” His thumbs wipe my cheeks, once again drenched in tears. “I didn’t go back because it was expected, or because I wanted to make someone proud. I did it because I didn’t have to win anymore. I wanted to.”

“So, you’re saying—” A shameful, mortifying hiccup. “That I won’t be able to do inward dives again until I—” Another. “Dive only for myself?”

His muttered “Fuck, no” has me laughing through my sobs. “I’m not a psychologist. I have no idea how to fix a block. You divers do things I can barely fathom, and what works for one athlete is trash for another. But.” He kisses a hot tear from my cheek. “I think letting yourself be sad would be a great start.”

“But I—”

“You don’t have to be angry at your ex or at your father. I’m angry enough for you. But you need to acknowledge that what happened to you last year was terrible, that it gave you pain, and that you deserve time to heal in more ways than just the physical.”

“But what if I never . . . What if I don’t . . .” I sniff, unable to put thoughts into words. “What would I even be, without diving?”

A hushed, barely audible Swedish word, exhaled into my hair. Lukas pulls me deeper in his lap, and my skin sticks against his. “It’ll be okay, baby. No matter what happens, you will still be you. No matter what happens, you will be okay.”

“But what do I do in the meantime?”

“In the meantime . . . just cry it out.” He sighs deeply, and the swell of his chest, the gravel of his voice, his hands stroking my hair, are as comforting as any perfectly executed dive. “I’m here, okay?”

I hope he’s right. Because I don’t know how much longer I cry on his shoulder—but I do know that once I cannot bear it anymore, I fall asleep in his arms.