Page 65 of Depths of Desire
June. The second week.
I had told him I’d be there, that we’d go. That he mattered more than pressure or legacy or finishing what I’d started.
I meant it.
But now…
Could I miss Nationals? After last year? After the wreckage of that performance, after the hole it carved in my confidence, my career, my soul?
Could I afford to miss the one chance I had to fix it?
But if I went…
If I left him behind…
Would that crack something between us I couldn’t fix?
Would I be choosing myself over him, and if I did, could I really expect him to wait?
My fingers twitched in the space between us. I wanted to reach out. To wake him. To confess it all and let him help me shoulder it.
But I didn’t.
Because that wasn’t fair either.
This wasn’t his decision. It was mine.
My nightmare hadn’t been about drowning in a pool. Not really.
It was about drowning in the choice.
And for now, all I could do was lie there, heart aching, lungs tight, future blurred, and watch the boy I couldn’t bear to lose sleep like I hadn’t already shattered something just by hesitating.
EIGHTEEN
LENNOX
The episode was playing,but I wasn’t really watching it.
Jim was mid-prank, Dwight was shouting something about protocol, and I was curled up in my bed, thumb mindlessly scrolling Instagram. The glow of my phone screen painted my comforter in shades of blue and white. Rhett was out. The room was quiet. Just me, the hum of the fan, and the low murmur of sitcom voices looping through plotlines I already knew by heart.
I wasn’t really thinking, either.
I was just waiting.
Waiting for the next message from Oliver. Not that he was late. Not that we had a plan. But we usually said good night, even if it was just a sleepy emoji or a voice note of one of us yawning. Dumb, sweet things. Private things. The things I never knew I needed until he started sending them.
My phone buzzed in my hand. A reel auto-played, all splash and motion and high-energy synths. Swim footage, sprinter clips, underwater shots, edited in quick, flashy bursts. The caption read:
Ready for history?
#Nationals2025 #DenverAquatics #WhoWillTakeGold
I let it play.I even smiled a little when I saw Oliver’s name flash across the bottom of the screen, Oliver Hayworth, Westmont U, 200m Freestyle. The camera caught him mid-stroke, sleek and powerful, water breaking like glass off his arms. He looked focused. Unstoppable.
God, he was beautiful.
Even through the grainy video, even reduced to a few seconds of footage, he took my breath away. The way he moved through the water like he belonged there. Like it was home.
