Page 71 of Depths of Desire
I nodded and signed the forms without reading them.
“Oliver,” he said. “You’re doing good.”
I wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or tell him that staying focused was the only thing keeping me from falling apart completely.
Instead, I said, “Yes, sir.”
He studied me for a moment longer, then nodded. “Go get some rest. Big week ahead.”
I left his office and walked straight to the pool.
The final week passed in a haze of chlorine and controlled breathing.
I packed my duffel with the same methodical precision I brought to everything else. Suits, goggles, spare caps. Lucky warm-up shirt. The medal from last year’s Olympics, wrapped in tissue paper at the bottom of the bag like a talisman I wasn’t sure I wanted to touch.
I stretched alone on the pool deck after practice, going through the routine I’d perfected over the years of competition.Shoulders, back, hips. Each muscle group isolated and lengthened until my body felt like a tuned instrument.
I rewatched footage of my races from the past year, studying my stroke mechanics, my start position, the way I attacked each turn. I made notes in the margins of my training log, adjustments so small they probably didn’t matter but gave me something to control.
And late at night, when the apartment was too quiet and the walls felt like they were closing in, I replayed our last conversation.
The memory didn’t hurt less with repetition. It just hurt quieter, like a bruise you learned to live with.
I closed my eyes and reminded myself why I was here. Why I’d come back to school, why I trained until my body screamed, why I’d built my entire life around fifteen seconds of perfect execution in a chlorinated rectangle.
Not for him. Not for anyone.
For this. For the chance to prove that I was more than my mistakes, more than my failures, more than the boy who came in sixth when it mattered most.
Win first. Feel later.
The alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning.
Time to go.
TWENTY
LENNOX
I arrivedat the rink two hours before anyone else.
The arena was deathly quiet, just the hum of the ice machines and the distant echo of my skates hitting the concrete. I unlaced my street shoes with mechanical precision, pulled on my gear piece by piece, shin guards, socks, pants. The familiar ritual that used to center me now felt hollow, like going through the motions of being human.
My phone buzzed against the bench. I glanced down and saw Oliver’s name in my contacts, thumb hovering over it for one stupid, desperate second. The urge to text him—miss you, sorry, please—burned in my chest like acid.
I shoved the phone into my bag and slammed the locker shut.
By the time the team filtered in, I was already on the ice, running drills alone. Easton raised an eyebrow when he saw me but didn’t say anything. Rhett shot me a look that was part concern, partwhat the hell, but kept lacing his skates. They’d learned to give me space this week. Smart guys.
Coach gathered us for his pre-game speech, something about the Arctic Titans being undefeated on the road, about their captain, Phoenix, being a skilled agitator, about playing our game and not theirs. His words bounced off me like pucksoff glass. I was already somewhere else, somewhere deeper, where the only thing that mattered was forward motion and the satisfying crack of stick against puck.
The Titans came out swinging.
Phoenix led the charge, tall, confident, with the kind of easy charisma that made everything look effortless. He controlled the puck like it was attached to his stick by invisible wire, weaving through our defense with a smirk that never quite left his face.
I matched him stride for stride.
Every steal I made was surgical. Every pass I delivered was perfect. I stripped the puck from him on the next play and sent Elio up ice for a clean scoring chance.
