Page 25 of Deep End

As usual, Pen manages to be the first to get ready, help everyone else with their full-coverage foundation,andherd us to the media team on time. I stand between the green screen and the baking-hot studio lights, palms clammy, doing as the photographer instructs.Smile, show your biceps, spread your arms, kick your legs back, jump. It’ll give the underpaid social media managers something to work with if I ever win a competition—unlikely, considering that the inward dive I attempted this morning morphed into a cannonball in midair. Under Coach’s displeased scowl.

Maybe they’ll write a human-interest piece about the bucket of slop that is my athletic career. My photo will end up in one of theglossy magazines they send to all Stanford alumni to promote school spirit and solicit donations.Meet the girl who has been diagnosed with dumpster fire brain by a team of board-certified neurologists. And give us money.

Even after I step out of the strobes, I still feel uncomfortably vulnerable. Most of my awake time is spent in wedgie-prone swimsuits, and self-consciousness has little space in aquatic sports, where athletes constantly pad across the deck in the bright, unforgiving sunlight, every imperfection up for inspection. But in the pool, my body is a machine—all that matters is what it can accomplish. Here, I feel almost obscenely exposed. Something that could be sectioned and poked and stripped for parts.

Not to mention that of late, my body has accomplished very little. Being a good athlete, a good student, reaching for perfect—those were the building blocks ofme. Now that I’m struggling with almost everything, do I still have a fully fleshed identity? Or am I just an assembly of meat pieces, to be sold separately on clearance?

“Vandy?” Pen’s hand slides into mine, cardinal-red nail polish dark against my skin. She tugs me back in front of the green screen and hands everyone on the team heart-shaped sunglasses. My pair, she slips right onto my nose. “Team pics!”

The photographer clears his throat. “We already—”

“But notfunones.”

He scratches his neck. “I don’t think props were approved . . .” Pen, though, is an avalanche of charm—hard to resist, harder to say no to. The sunglasses pics are followed by sequined hats, Charlie’s Angels poses, “Another one like we’re a nineties boy band, please,” and by the end we’re all laughing, photographer included, and I feel more at ease.

If you spent more time with your friends, Barb’s gentle voice echoes in my ears,you’d be less in your head about stuff.

Okay. Sure. Fine.

“Vandy, wanna get dinner with me after?” Pen asks. “They’re filming captain interviews, but it’ll be fifteen minutes, tops.”

“Did something happen?”

“Why?” She smiles, kindly amused. “Because I want to hang out?”

“No, just . . .” I guess that gave away the status of my social life. “I have a meeting, and . . .” I check my phone. Time flies when you’re re-creating theAbbey Roadpic. “I’m already late, actually.” I’m genuinely disappointed to decline, but Pen’s smile doesn’t waver.

“What about tomorrow, after practice?”

It’s probably a tad pitiful, how the simplest overture warms my heart. “I’d love to.”

On the other side of the room, the men’s swimming team is going through its own media ordeal. When I pass them on my way out: There’s an animated scuffle going on, laughter, “You go on the right” and “We got him, we got him.” Lukas is in the thick of it, with three other swimmers trying to restrain him while a fourth holds the US flag behind him. The Swedish one, bright yellow and baby blue, is on the floor.

The camera clicks, and a USA chant erupts. Everyone laughs, Lukas included. A sophomore—Colby?—teams up with Kyle to wrap the flag around Lukas’s shoulders. More laughter, more scuffle. Rough play and loud voices can be a trigger for me, so I take a step back. A deep breath.

“How much to make that disappear?” Lukas asks the photographer’s assistant, freeing himself.

“How much would one gold Olympic medal get me if I were to melt it?”

“I don’t know, man, but it’s yours.”

“Deal.”

Lukas shakes his head. In the movement, the blue of his eyes catches mine.

Time slows.

Curious, patient, it stops.

My breath lodges somewhere in my trachea.

It should be me.

I force a brief smile and turn around to run across campus, heart pounding from more than effort. I make it to my meeting with two minutes to spare, but when I peek inside the office door, the conversation is already animated.

Dr. Smith—Olive, as I’ll never call her despite her repeated invitations—looksnot much older than me, butsoundslike the repository of hundreds of years of knowledge on the biology of pancreatic cancer cells. Her office is a mix of gentle chaos and early fall scents, the same Post-its I spied on Dr. Carlsen’s desk stuck on most surfaces, scribbled with barely sensical handwriting.Lancet review. Upload 405 assign. Anh baby shower. Insurance paperwork. Vet appt. SBD abstract. Call program officer. What if cobwebs???

They must be the official stationery of the Biology Department.

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