Page 205 of Whistle

My stats were impressive, my reputation with Westbrook and Elite respectable even back then. So when I graduated, they offered me the assistant position to train and learn under the former Elite coach. Just two years later, I took over the job and had been here since.

So yeah, that wall was filled with accomplishments and honors, basically a map of my entire career. I didn’t really look at it much, too busy to dwell on what I’d done when I had more to do.

But seeing him standing there in front of it now, hands clasped behind his back like he was at a museum, a lump formed in my throat. Maybe I should have appreciated it all more. Given myself more credit for everything I’d done.

But I supposed it felt different now that it was ending.

“Elite swam well yesterday,” Dean Cardinal said, not turning to look at me.

I set my clipboard and stopwatch on my desk and leaned my hip against the edge. “They ranked number one.”

“Even with your new swimmer’s flub.”

“I would hardly call a sprained muscle and severe leg cramps a flub.”

He turned then, reaching up to smooth his tie. “I told you if he didn’t swim, he was off the team.”

“Pretty sure he was in the water,” I inferred.

A beat of silence hung between us.

“Are you sleeping with him, Emmett?”

I didn’t miss a beat before I answered, “Yes.”

He sucked in a breath and rocked back on his heels as though he were shocked I’d answered directly. “So you admit it.”

“I’d also make it clear that I’m not just sleeping with him. We are involved in a relationship.”

His lips dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Need I remind you of Westbrook’s consensual relationship policy? Relationships of any kind between students and faculty are expressly forbidden.”

“I’m well aware of the policy,” I said, going around my desk to open the top drawer and withdraw a single sheet of paper. “Which is why I’ve taken the liberty of putting my resignation in writing.”

Dean Cardinal’s shoulders sagged. “You can’t be serious, Emmett.”

“Serious as a heart attack,” I said, walking across the room to extend the document.

He looked at it as if it were a basket of venomous snakes. “I came in here to remove him from the team, not call for your dismissal.”

“You can’t cut him from Elite,” I intoned, the edge of the paper crinkling in my grip.

“I told you what would happen if?—”

“If he didn’t swim. Which he did. He pushed himself when he wasn’t ready—a fact I made you well aware of, yet you insisted he swim. So he did. Even after he nearly died from falling off that god-forsaken bridge!”

“What was he even doing on that bridge, Emmett?”

“Coach Resch,” I growled.

“You’d really toss aside twenty years of friendship for a kid with a criminal record and shitty time?”

Bristling, I slammed the paper into his chest so hard that he stumbled back. “Seems to me I’m only your friend when I’m toeing the line and making Westbrook look impeccable. Something I’ve done for half my goddamn life.”

He blanched. “Em—” The withering look I shot him made him stumble. “Coach Resch, you know as well as everyone else that we have a set of policies in place.”

---