Page 75 of Depths of Desire
My coach caught my eye from the deck and nodded once. We’d run through the strategy a hundred times. Fast start, controlled middle, explosive finish. Save nothing for the swim back. This was my event, my distance, my redemption.
“Swimmers, take your mark.”
I crouched into position, every muscle coiled like a spring. The pool stretched before me like a judgment, like a test I’d beenpreparing for my entire life. Eight lanes, seven other swimmers who wanted this just as badly. But none of them had fallen as far as I had. None of them needed it like I did.
The silence was absolute.
The starting signal cracked like thunder.
I launched myself into the water with everything I had, years of training, of sacrifice, of choosing the pool over everything else. The dive was perfect, my streamline cutting through the water like a blade. I surfaced ahead of the field, exactly where I needed to be.
My technique was flawless, the product of ten thousand hours of repetition, of breaking myself down and building myself back up stronger. I could feel the water yielding to me, could sense the other swimmers fighting to keep pace.
Fifty meters. I was ahead by a body length.
One hundred meters. The field had closed the gap, but I was still leading. My lungs burned, but it was a familiar fire. I’d trained for this, lived for this moment when pain became transcendence.
One hundred fifty meters. This was where races were won or lost, where champions separated themselves from everyone else. I could hear the crowd now, a roar that seemed to lift me from the water. My stroke rate increased, each pull more powerful than the last.
This is who I am. This is what I was born to do.
The final fifty meters blurred past in a haze of controlled fury. Every training session, every sacrifice, every moment I’d chosen solitude over connection, it all poured into my stroke. I wasn’t swimming anymore; I was flying, transcending the limits of human endurance.
I touched the wall and immediately spun to look at the scoreboard.
1st place. Oliver Hayworth. New meet record.
The arena exploded. My coach was screaming something from the deck, his arms raised in victory. The swimmer in lane three, the defending champion, reached over to shake my hand, his face a mixture of respect and disappointment.
I won.
I actually fucking won.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. After months of doubt, of questioning whether I still had what it took, I’d just swum the race of my life. I’d beaten the best swimmers in the country, set a new record, proved that Paris wasn’t a fluke, and last year’s Nationals was just a bad day.
I was back.
The medal ceremony was a blur of the national anthem and flash photography. The gold medal was heavier than I’d expected, warm against my chest as they placed it around my neck. I stood on the highest step of the podium, arms raised in triumph, and let the cameras capture what vindication looked like.
This is it. This is what I sacrificed everything for.
The photographers shouted directions. “Look this way, Oliver!” “Give us a smile!” “How does it feel to be back on top?” I played the part perfectly, the conquering hero, the redeemed champion, the swimmer who’d clawed his way back from failure to glory.
But as the ceremony ended and the crowd began to disperse, something strange happened.
The euphoria began to fade.
Not slowly, like coming down from an adrenaline high. It vanished all at once, like someone had flipped a switch and drained all the color from the world.
I stood there with the gold medal around my neck, surrounded by reporters and photographers and officials, and felt…nothing.
Empty.
Hollow.
Like I’d just won the most important race of my life and somehow lost everything that mattered.
Is this it?
