Page 53 of Remember Me?

"So that's it, then?" He asks.

His coach speaks up then, "Listen Nash, I know this is disappointing news, trust me it's disappointing for us too, but at this rate, your shoulder won't heal properly or fast enough to get into any qualifying races. We have to replace you, you understand, right?” He says in a placating voice, a fucking patronizing voice.

Graham is replaceable. He is replaceable, dispensible, inessential, whatever you want to call it.

That's what he hears. His shoulder is not healing fast enough. He is not enough. He is never enough, not for swimming, not for his team, not for his mom, not for his Melody. He needs to get out here. He needs to go.

"I have to go, I'm sorry." He hears everyone calling his name, telling him to come back to talk about it. What the hell else is there to say? He can't swim anymore. He doesn’t have a team anymore. He is replaceable.

Just as he gets to the bus stop, his phone buzzes.

Marisol: Are you ok?

She always does this. Always knows when he is in distress, always reaching out when his world is about to collapse. She did it last week, too, on his way out of Melody’s house that day, that horrible fucking day. That day, Ironically, is also one of the days he replays most.

Graham: No.

He puts it simply, then powers off his phone. He doesn't want to get into it. Not now. Maybe not ever.

This whole week has been a huge disappointment, and in just about all of them, they were expected. Expected yet, he still fell victim to optimism, to hope. What a joke.

Heading straight to the gym in the Rec Center, he puts on his earbuds and loses himself in the routine. Finishing his workout with sprints on the incline treadmill. It was not the same as the hill by his house, but it got the job done.

"Thought we'd find you here.” A group of his teammates approached from the side of the treadmill.

Well, former teammates. He was no longer part of the team, no longer part of something that he had spent his entire life training for. No big deal. Fuck, he needed another round of sprints.

“There's a party, you're going. Come on." They knew he would only say no, but with the way his life was going right now, he needed to let go.

He is too obsessive, always has been. And now he needs to let it all go.Let her go.

Melody

___________________

She flew back a week after Graham did. She was just too sad and too tired of everyone asking her if she was ok. She thought being back in her apartment, in her space, would make her forget.

How can you escape a gaping hole in your chest? Every little thing would just push her back into thoughts of him, how he would look sitting on her couch, eating pizza, or how his big frame would sit precariously on her little bar stools in the kitchen.

She needs to go to him.

They need to talk it through, away from their family and friends, to see if it could actually work. Maybe they can give it a real shot.

Gathering her courage, she pulls up his text thread. Seeing that last message to open her door twists her stomach, sending a new kind of longing through her body.The nervous energy worked its way through her limbs.

Melody: Hey.

Melody: Wanna go out for coffee?

There, not too desperate.

She puts her phone down on her kitchen counter, vowing not to obsess about it.

If he wants to respond, he will.

If he wants to talk to her, he will.

The ball was in his court now.

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