Deep End

IT’S AROUND THE THIRD DIVE THAT I REALIZE THAT I’M HAVING the best competition of my career—and it has surprisingly little to do with the scores.

I’m light in the air. My limbs find their path to good form. Above all, I’m able to clear my mind. I’m ten feet above the world, and no one else exists. It’s me and the water. Sam’s voice in my head reminds me: Your brain is not a muscle, but sometimes you can use it as one. Train it for competition as well as you train any other part of your body.

Pen, too, is in much better shape than yesterday, and breezes through her dives. Her first voluntary has a higher degree of difficulty than I’ve ever managed in competition, and I gasp when she performs it with minimal errors. Her second is an inward—a work of art, and it makes me so delighted, I hug her. I’m giddy about how well it’s going for us, and that’s why I don’t fully grasp the implications of it until the end of the fourth round.

I’m in first place. Pen trails after me by a couple of points.

“If either of you fucks up the last dive,” Coach Sima threatens, “I swear I’m selling you to the woodspeople.”

“No pressure, though,” Pen mutters.

“Yes, pressure. So much pressure.”

But it doesn’t frazzle us. Or at least, not me. My last dive is an inward two-and-a-half pike, the same dive that fucked up my life two years ago to this day, and it’s . . .

Good. Not perfect, but good enough. I know this the second my hands knife into the water. I know it without reading numbers. It’s a knowledge that comes from someplace inside me that didn’t exist a few months ago.

Pen’s turn is after mine, and she dives well. The cameras follow me around. Athletes rehearse their last dives, get last-minute tips from their coaches, jump in place to keep warm. I dry off my suit, put my sweats back on, and look at the list of names on the board. The competition is not over yet.

My phone pings with a text. Smile.

It’s Mei. She probably meant to send this to someone el—

MEI: Watching the live stream, and you need to SMILE.

SCARLETT: What?

MEI: You just won the NCAA.

I glance at the rankings, and she’s right.

I’m going to finish first.

I need . . . a minute.

To comprehend the enormity of it.

I slip inside, past the pack of swimmers watching the competition. Their chins are up, to the platform. They don’t pay attention to me as I make my way into the belly of Avery, a quick turn, a slumped back against the wall, eyes screwed shut till little bursts of gold appear.

I cannot wrap my head around it. The person I was two years ago. How alone I felt. Scared of being too much, of not being enough, of being imperfect. Surrounded by impossibles. And now I dove, and—

“Scarlett.”

I blink. Lukas is there, smiling at me. A real smile.

“Crying again, I see.”

I hadn’t even noticed. “I . . .”

“I know.” He comes closer, palms above both my shoulders. Kisses the tears off my cheeks. “It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I’ll put you back together.”

My fingers fist into his shirt. “It’s just . . . a lot.”

“I know.” Another kiss, gentle against my lips. “Scarlett. You’re brilliant. You’re perfect. And I—”

An outraged, teary voice swallows the rest of his words. “Are you two for real?”