What he means is, even if he did want a relationship, he’d have no time for it. Next week is conferences, two weeks later is regionals, and two weeks after that is the high school state championship. Then, if we qualify—which I will totally die if we don’t qualify—we have Junior Nationals in Huntsville with our club team, New Wave. Then there are two important long-course meets, leading all the way up to the Olympic trials in June. I eat, sleep, and breathe the trials. It’s on my mind every waking minute, and I haven’t even qualified for them yet.
We. Are. Busy.
Friday nights are literally our only downtime because we don’t swim doubles or lift weights on Fridays. This is why we don’t have time for serious dating: every other day of the week, we’d be asleep by now after a hard workout.
Speaking of which, I’m exhausted, and my muscles are tight. I stretch my arms above my head.
“Your shoulder still bothering you?” he asks. I nod, and he motions for me to flip onto my stomach so he can work on this knot from Hades that won’t go away.
His strong hands massage my shoulder until the dog jumps on the bed to interrupt my bliss. Pepper presses her paws on my back and barks.
“Pepper! That’s my job,” Levi says, motioning for her to get off the bed. He turns to me. “So. You excited for tomorrow?”
I hesitate. Based on my swimming record, Cal offered me a scholarship last year. I can’t wait to kick some ass swimming in college, but I dread the idea of moving away from my friends. Especially Levi. We’ve never been apart for more than a week.
“I’m sort of excited…? I don’t know.”
Levi nudges me. “You’ll have fun this weekend. I had a great time visiting Texas. Some guys from the team took me out to dinner and then we went to a party. Do you think you’ll do something like that?”
“I’m not sure… I wish we were going to the same college. I don’t want to leave you.”
I look back over my shoulder at him, and he gives me a supportive but sad smile.
My friend doesn’t want to leave me either.
Rival
I feel like I suddenly disappeared from America and turned up in Italy.
That is my first impression of Cal-Berkeley. The white clock tower looks like something you’d see in Florence. I wouldn’t be surprised to come across a naked David statue. Though the campus could be covered in naked statues, and I wouldn’t care, because it’s the best swimming school in the country. I’ve worked my ass off to be here and now that I am? I’m bouncing on my toes with excitement.
My flight took off at the crack of dawn. Even though I’m used to waking up early for practice, I feel a little off. I’ve traveled without my parents before but never this far and not without Coach Josh. It would have been nice if Mom and Dad could have come with me, but as event planners, Saturdays and Sundays are their busiest days of the week. The trip so far has gone fine; I made it to California in one piece and took a cab from the airport. The biggest problem I’ve encountered is sitting in coach on the plane. Having such long legs is great for swimming, but not for traveling.
Using the campus map on my phone, I navigate to a boardroom in Haas Pavilion. This is where I’ll be meeting up with other new student athletes for a tour, and later on I’ll spend the night with a student host in her dorm.
I walk into the boardroom and gasp when I see the black hair with purple and pink streaks, and the diamond nose stud.
Roxy is here.
Shit.
She looks over at me, her mouth falling open a little, but she shuts it quickly and resumes her conversation with a man wearing a yellow Cal polo, pretending as if she doesn’t know me. She knows exactly who I am.
I’m her former best friend.
I met Roxy six years ago when we were eleven. After doing our laps at the Sportsplex, Levi and I would spend our summer days at Normandy Lake behind his house. We loved playing cards on the beach and doing tricks off the diving board attached to the floating wooden barge. That’s where I first saw Roxy, swimming along the rope line separating the shallow water from the deep. Her swift, graceful movements reminded me of a dolphin.
Later I cornered her by the snack stand over on the public beach. “Who do you swim for?”
“Huh?”
“Are you on a team? Tullahoma, maybe?”
She shook her head, unwrapping her ice cream sandwich. “I asked my parents a few years ago, but they said no. It’s too expensive, and they don’t want to get up early to drive me to practices.”
“You should be swimming. You’re great.”
I told Coach Josh about her, and as soon as he saw her raw talent, he worked with New Wave to get her a club team scholarship. Even then he could tell she’d be unstoppable.
Since her parents were wedded to sleeping in, my mom and Levi’s agreed to let her carpool with us, and for two years, the three of us were inseparable. I loved Levi, of course, but it was nice having a girl around. Especially when I got my period and had to figure out how to use tampons so I would never miss a practice. We even shared tips on how best to shave our legs.
But then the tension started. When I’d get faster in the pool, she’d work hard to beat me, and then I’d work harder to beat her. It started pissing us both off, but I figured friendship came before winning. She didn’t feel the same. She’s too competitive. Roxy resented that even though she had natural talent, I was faster in the pool. But it wasn’t like I winged it. I had to work hard.
Then one day Coach Josh took me aside to say the Memphis Marines club swim team had recruited Roxy away from us. Her family, who by then understood Roxy was going places, agreed to move three hours away to Memphis. I cried when she left.
At first we kept in touch, texting every day, but the special treatment from the Marines made her snobby. My texts went unanswered. When I saw her at meets, she either laughed at my team or ignored me.
Every time she’d beat one of my times, she’d brag about it online. Once, after I lost a race to her, she took a picture of me with a horrible look on my face and posted it with the caption: Second Place.
When I bowed out of the Speedo Grand Classic because I’d strained a hamstring, Roxy posted on Twitter: “Maggie King knew she wouldn’t be able to win. That’s why she pulled out. She’s scared!”
The next time I lost to her, she posted yet another unattractive picture with the tag: Runner Up.
Those pictures and their captions are on the Internet forever. She deleted them from her accounts so it doesn’t look like she started them, but they’re still out there. When I win races, I celebrate with my friends and hang my medals in my bedroom. I would never gloat.
Roxy’s betrayal made me rage, and that’s when Levi took my phone and unfriended and blocked her so I wouldn’t see that crap anymore.
She did a number on me. I didn’t have many friends because of my practice schedule, and after that I was pretty wary of new people, especially other girls in my swim club.