Page 69 of Depths of Desire
But I didn’t make it through the night without wondering if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
NINETEEN
OLIVER
The alarm didn’t wakeme because I hadn’t slept.
I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. The digital clock cast a pale green glow across the nightstand: 5:17 a.m. Three minutes before I was supposed to get up anyway.
I rolled out of bed and stood there for a moment, bare feet on cold hardwood, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light filtering through the blinds. The apartment was too quiet. Too still. Like it was holding its breath.
I walked to the kitchen without turning on any lights.
His mug was still there.
Plain white ceramic, sitting on the counter next to the coffee maker where he’d left it three days ago. The inside was stained with the ghost of black coffee, a thin brown ring around the rim. I could still see the impression of his fingers on the handle if I looked too long.
His hoodie hung over the back of the chair by the window. Navy blue, soft cotton, with a small hole near the left shoulder seam.
I didn’t touch either of them.
I didn’t look too long.
I filled my own mug, black, no handle, regulation size, and drank the coffee standing up, staring out the window at the empty parking lot below. It was neither night nor morning. Dawn would come whether I was ready or not.
If I stop moving, I’ll drown.
I set the mug in the sink, grabbed my gear bag, and left.
The natatorium was a tomb at this hour.
No coaches. No teammates. No sound except the hum of the filtration system and the soft lap of water against the pool deck. I changed in silence, pulled on my cap and goggles, and slipped into lane four without ceremony.
The water was perfect. Seventy-eight degrees, pH balanced, chlorine sharp in my nostrils. It welcomed me like it always did, closing over my head as I pushed off the wall.
I swam like a machine.
Stroke. Breathe. Stroke. Breathe. Stroke. Turn.
No wasted motion. No broken rhythm. My body carved through the water with surgical precision, each pull calculated, each kick deliberate. I counted laps in sets of fifty, then hundreds, then lost count entirely and just kept going.
This was what I was made of. Muscle memory and lung capacity and the ability to shut out everything that wasn’t forward motion. This was who I was before him. This was how I survived.
The first swimmers arrived around seven. I heard their voices echo off the high ceiling, muffled by the water in my ears. I didn’t look up. I didn’t slow down. I kept my head down and my stroke rate steady, cutting through their conversations like they were just another current to push through.
Coach Johnson showed up at seven thirty.
“Hayworth,” he called from the deck as I hit the wall. “You been here long?”
I pulled my goggles up and blinked water from my eyes. “Not long.”
He checked his watch, then the pace clock on the wall. “You’re running a 1:48 pace. On a warm-up set.”
I didn’t say anything.
He crouched down at the edge of the pool, elbows on his knees. “That’s race pace, son. What’s got you wound so tight this early?”
“Just feeling good,” I said.
