Page 67 of Depths of Desire
But I didn’t.
Because if I asked, he’d have to answer. And if he answered, this perfect bubble we’d been living in, this fantasy that I mattered as much as his dreams, would finally, irreversibly pop.
And I wasn’t ready for that.
Not yet.
I turned off the TV. The room fell into darkness except for the streetlight filtering through my blinds, casting prison-bar shadows across the wall.
I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I hadn’t seen the dates. Or that Oliver’s silence was just Oliver being Oliver, thoughtful, careful, not wanting to worry me with work stuff.
But I knew better.
I’d known better the moment I’d seen him in that video, looking like he belonged in that pool more than he’d ever belonged in my arms.
I couldn’t even blame him.
This was Nationals. This was everything he’d been working toward since the disaster of last year, since the fourth-place finish that had left him hollow-eyed and unreachable for weeks. This was his shot at redemption, at proving he belonged among the best swimmers in the country.
How could I compete with that?
How could I even ask him to try?
But God, it hurt.
It hurt like a physical ache in my chest, like someone had reached inside me and squeezed until I couldn’t breathe. It hurt like realizing you’d been living in a beautiful dream and someone had just shaken you awake.
I pulled my pillow over my head and tried to muffle the sound of my own heartbeat.
Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow, I’d figure out what to do. Tomorrow, I’d decide whether to confront him or pretend I didn’t know.
Tomorrow came sooner than I wanted.
I lasted exactly fourteen hours.
Fourteen hours of carrying this weight in my chest, this knowledge that sat like broken glass in my throat every time I tried to swallow. Fourteen hours of staring at my phone, drafting texts I couldn’t send, practicing conversations I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to have.
By six in the afternoon, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I walked to his apartment in silence. I needed the time to think, to prepare, to figure out what I was going to say when I saw his face.
But when I got there, when I stood outside his door with my fist raised to knock, I realized I didn’t have a plan at all.
I only had the truth.
And maybe that would have to be enough.
I knocked instead of letting myself in.
Footsteps on the other side, light and quick. The sound of the lock turning. And then the door opened, and there was Oliver, hair still damp from practice, wearing that soft gray T-shirt I liked to steal, eyes lighting up the moment he saw me.
“Hey,” he said, that smile spreading across his face like sunrise. “I wasn’t expecting…”
The smile died. He saw my expression, and everything in his face shifted. The warmth flickered out like someone had blown out a candle.
“Lennox?” His voice was careful now. Cautious. “What’s wrong?”
I stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. The apartment felt smaller than usual, like the walls had moved closer together while I wasn’t looking. I didn’t sit down. Didn’t take off my jacket. Just stood there in his living room like a stranger.
