Deep End

THE WINTER NATIONALS LAST FIVE MORE DAYS, EACH WITH highs and lows.

During the springboard final, neither Pen nor I qualify for the world championship—but neither does Carissa, who’s on track for the gold until she flunks an entry so bad, chestnut-backed chickadees in the Pacific Northwest must have felt the spray. I’ve produced way worse dives, and when it comes to enjoying someone else’s screwups, I don’t have a single toe to stand on, but just this once I allow myself some gloating room.

“We should celebrate,” I whisper at Pen during the award ceremony. Coach Sima turns back with a worried look, like maybe I forgot that not being on the podium is a bad thing, but Pen leans her forehead against my shoulder and wheezes for five minutes.

Everything okay? Lukas texts me that day.

SCARLETT: Yes. Pen’s doing much better! We’re about to start some synchro prelim.

LUKAS: And?

And?

SCARLETT: Would you like a picture of the dive sheet?

LUKAS: How are you, Scarlett?

There is no reason for this simple question to make me blush. Must be the heat of the pool. I’m no longer used to diving indoors.

SCARLETT: Fine?

LUKAS: Is that a question or an answer?

SCARLETT: Not sure.

LUKAS: Think it through, then.

The second day, I wake up to an email from my favorite German insomniac, Herr Karl-Heinz.

Scharlach,

Look at you go!

It’s an A. On my exam. “In your face!” I scream—in absolutely no one’s face. “I did it! I did it!” I text Barb a screenshot. Then Maryam. Then—why not?—Lukas, who says, Swedish better be next.

I don’t know why, but it makes me kick my feet.

On the third day, after a long, hushed conversation with her sister, Bella decides to withdraw. “My back’s just too . . .” She shakes her head.

Coach Sima sighs, patting her shoulder. “Not your fault, kid. Stop by PT, okay?”

Watching the twins leave the pool is heartbreaking. Because of Bella’s injury, and because of the wistfulness in Bree’s eyes as she looks back at us. Pen and I finish fifth on the board synchro, as good as we could have hoped considering the competition, but it’s hard to celebrate when Carissa and Natalie take the gold, which means they’ll be heading for Amsterdam.

We don’t stay for the award ceremony that follows the event, even if it’s terrible sportsmanship. Instead we head for the locker room and quickly shower. We’re out before most of the other divers arrive, and because the universe punishes athletes with the afore-mentioned sportsmanship, we cross paths with the two people we care to avoid.

“Hey, Vandy,” Carissa says. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the platform synchro finals. And”—her eyes flit to Pen—“take what I said to heart.”

“You need to stop,” I tell her, squaring my shoulders.

“Stop what?”

“Being rude to Pen.”

Her face hardens. “You know I’m doing you a favor, right?”

“Actually, you’re just harassing us.”

“Yeah?” She takes a step closer. “If this is how you thank me, I hope you get to reap the consequences of your stupidity.”

I smile sweetly. “And I hope you get explosive dysentery in the middle of a somersault dive.” I brush past her, Pen on my heels. It’s probably the most out-of-character thing I’ve ever done, said, or thought. But Pen is at my side, gripping my arm.

“That may have been the sexiest thing that ever happened to me.”

Oh? “Well, I’m no hero, but . . .” I pretend to dust myself off and she laughs.

“Even better than when she saw me and Lukas hold hands the first time. I swear, her face shattered in a million plankton-sized pieces. Clearly, you and Lukas are my knights in shining armor.” We enter the elevator, and her eyes narrow on me. “You are quite similar.”

“Me and Carissa?”

“God, no. You and Lukas.”

I laugh. “Believe me, we aren’t.”

“You are both reserved. You get intense about the people you care about. You’re single-minded, and have a solid core of strength and self-confidence. You hide your sense of humor from most people, but are hilarious. And of course you’re both into . . .”

“Kinky BDSM stuff?”

“I was going to say science-y shit. But that, too.”

I shake my head. “I’m not confident at all. Up until two months ago, I could barely dive.”

“Confidence is not about being able to do shit, Vandy. Confidence is showing up, and trying, and not giving up because deep in your heart you know who you are and what you’re capable of.”

Is that right? I have no idea. I do want to be like Lukas, I tell myself later that night, in bed. Somehow, it’s a good thought to settle on. It feels less messy than wanting to be with Lukas.

The following day, during the platform synchro final, Pen screws up her takeoff and sprains her ankle.

“It’s not bad. You’ll be like new in a week or so,” the doctor tells her.

Her eyes light with hope. “Can I continue competing—”

“Today and tomorrow? Absolutely not.”

It’s disappointing, but we’re both relieved that her injury is minor.

“No podiums,” Coach Sima tells me, Bree, and Pen on the last day. I’m waiting to be introduced for the individual platform final, and they’re here to support me. “That’s not ideal, of course.” His lecturing gaze meets each of ours for a socially cruel length of time. “On the plus side, the whole team qualified for the Olympic trials. Though your three-meter dives badly need work, Vandy.”

“There isn’t enough room,” I mutter sullenly into my PB&J. “It’s my least favorite, anyway. I feel like I’m jumping off a gangplank.”

“Any more back talk?”

I lower my gaze and stay silent, but thirty minutes later and four dives into the platform finals, I’m wondering if Coach is eating his words. Because my scores are, incomprehensibly, hovering very close to the podium.

“It’s really just the four of you,” Pen whispers at me while I try to keep warm between dives. “I mean, Akane Straisman is way too far ahead and she’s going to take gold, and unless Emilee Newell’s bones turn into glow sticks, she’s gonna take silver. But bronze is either going to be you or Natalie.” Carissa’s henchman. “You two have been switching third and fourth place the whole time.”

“I don’t know what I want the most—to get a medal, or to stop Natalie from getting one.”

Pen wraps her palms around my shoulders and squeezes with all her might. “Pick one, Vandy. Because I want to buy you a bronze medal’s worth of drinks tonight.”

“What’s your last dive?” Bree asks me.

“Armstand double one and a half.”

“Oh my god!” Pen gasps. At my best, this dive is my masterpiece. Anything less than that? An utter shitshow. And there are so many places for it to crumble to dust. But this is Pen, of course. And she’s amazing. And instead of telling me what could go wrong, she hugs me. “It’s my favorite dive of yours!”

“Mine, too!” Bree bounces on her feet. “This is fucking fate!”

I keep that with me. Even after Natalie dives and I do the math on the score I need to get the bronze, even as I climb up the stairs, even when I’m drying off with my tie-dye shammy, so similar to the one I lost two years ago—the one I barely recall mentioning to Lukas.

He remembered, though.

I look at it, smile, and throw it off the tower. And when I rise into an armstand, I don’t think about what could go wrong. I don’t think about perfection. Instead, I focus on the people out there who enjoy watching me perform the dive. When I take off, when I’m in the air, when I enter the water and then exit it, I hope they’ll have a good time. And when I’m barely out of the pool and they’re already there, wrapping their arms around my drenched body . . .

“You did it! You did it, you did it, you—”

“You have ten points over Natalie!”

“It’s bronze! It’s certain bronze, ’cause there’s only Emilee left, and she’s already ahead of you! Bella’s gonna cry so hard when I—” Bree cuts off abruptly. “Oh my god,” she says, her tone chock-full of shock. She’s looking past my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She opens her mouth. When no sound comes out, she points at the scoreboard behind me.

Emilee dove. The competition is over. And . . .

“I think Emilee Newell’s bones must have turned into glow sticks,” Pen whispers. Because all of her scores are unexpectedly low—so low, she’s fallen to third place.

Which means . . .

Coach appears out of nowhere, holding out the tie-dye shammy. “Well, Vandy,” he chokes out, “I hope you have a valid passport.”

I guess I’m going to Amsterdam.