Page 45 of Teach Me To Sin

“I don’t know.” Then he pulled my head into his chest and held me like we were different people in a different world, where love has enough definitions to include us.

Alek calls my name, and I realize everyone else is on the starting blocks.It’s gonna be okay, I tell myself as I scramble into position. I want this more than anyone here. I just need to remember everything Alek taught me and fly.

This time my dive is perfect, clean and fast. All the things I’ve learned click into place, and my body starts humming. I’m going to destroy my best time. Maybe Alek’s right that I can’t make first, but I’d be happy with the middle, too–like a promise that next year I’ll beat them all. Imagine Alek’s face if I came in fourth or fifth, how he’d cheer in shock and throw his arms around me, knowing he chose right.

I can’t sense the other swimmers around me as I make the last turn, but I don’t know what that means. Even though my shoulders are in agony, I’m floating above it, charged by all the energy in the room. This must be the high that pros talk about. As my ear goes in and out of the water, I catch fragments of shouting and clapping that grow louder the closer I get to the finish.

As soon as my fingers graze the wall, I throw my head out of the water and shove my goggles up so I can see. A whole section of the stands is screaming for the man in the far lane, who pumps his fist in the air with a huge grin. All the other swimmers relax against the wall, watching. The closest guy glances over his shoulder at me with a pitying smile, likelook who finally decided to show up.

I check the scoreboard, then wipe my eyes with my wet fingers and check again. I just set my best time in the 200m freestyle, a time that would have Alek and me freaking out at practice. Here, I’m not just at the bottom but a full three seconds behind second-to-last place. The mocking red digits reduce my dreams to a row of brutally honest numbers.

“Benji, come on.” When I glance up, dazed, Alek gestures to me. Everyone’s already out of the pool and headed for the locker room, leaving me alone.

“I’m sorry,” I hear myself stammering, to Alek or the officials I’m not sure. I’ve climbed out of a pool a million times before, but this time is the hardest. I slip and almost fall back in, then scramble out on my hands and knees. As soon as I get my feet under me, I turn and walk straight out the doors, across the busy lobby, and through the main entrance into the sharp noon sun. The hot asphalt hurts my bare feet and everyone’s side-eyeing me, so I limp over to a patch of grass and lean my back against the scratchy bark of an elm tree. I thought the air would be clearer out here, but I can’t catch my breath no matter how hard I concentrate.

“Benji!” Emerging from the building, Alek spots me and hurries over. “Are you okay? You did great!”

If I look at him, I’m pretty sure I’ll break down. I focus on my toes pressed against the dirty concrete and shake my head. “I didn’t.”

The sound of a second pair of shoes forces me to glance up. Colson spots us and walks over, his face neutral but his eyebrows furrowed. Wordlessly, he holds out a cold bottle of water, still dripping from whatever ice he pulled it out of. I’m so thirsty, but all I can do is stare at the droplets falling from his fingers to the ground, leaving dark spots. They have me hemmed in against the tree, and there are people everywhere, and this is torture. I can’t even ask them for a hug.

“I need to get my bag,” I mumble, trying to shove between them and make a break for the building.

Alek catches my arm, his fingers warm and always tender. “Wait, did you see your time? Yousmashedyour record!”

My fingernails dig into my palm. “Please don’t say that.”

“What do you mean?”

I wrench my arm free so roughly it pushes him back a step. My voice comes out all hoarse, and loud enough for people nearby to glance over. “My best time sucks shit. You lied. You said I was good.”

Disappointment flickers in his gorgeous eyes. They’re not a flat color close up, but a complex gradient of smoky gray, hazel, and near-black. “I should have prepped you better for what this was going to be like. You are good, but it’s going to takeyearsfor you to reach this level, let alone international competitions.”

“That’s not good enough.”

He blinks, hurt bleeding across his face. There’s no way for me to explain that I don’t mean his coaching. I just mean me. I’m getting pulled in opposite directions, and the dream I thought would hold me together turned into a string of shitty numbers on a scoreboard. The only way I can keep from getting ripped in half is to let go of something. If the choice is between hurting myself or hurting the sweetest man I’ve ever met, I sure as fuck know what my answer will be. But it’s going to be the worst day of my life.

I grab the bottle from Colson’s hand and throw it as hard as I can toward the side of the building. It slams the brick with a loud crack and goes spinning away through the air, spraying water.

“Hey,” Alek says warningly. “Take a breath.” There’s a hand on the back of my neck, but I don’t know which of them it belongs to. I hang my head, blinking hot tears out of my eyes before they can escape.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble. There are so many things I want to say, but those are the only two words I can find.

“It’s okay,” Alek offers kindly, clueless that I’m not talking about a stupid water bottle. “Just calm down.”

“I messed up.” The tears I’m trying to hide are easy to hear in my voice.

“You haven’t messed anything up. We’re going to start fresh next week and make a clear progress plan, okay?” The man breaks his biggest rule and pulls me into a tight hug right there on the sidewalk. When I’m wrapped in his body heat and his perfect smell, I feel Colson’s fingers on my bare back, rubbing soothingly up and down my spine. It’s not fair. The feelings that come rushing through me are so huge I can’t see the edges, bad and good at the same time, towering and completely unfamiliar. They’re like that picture you see at school of the iceberg that pokes fifty feet above the water and goes ten times deeper under the surface. Just the tip of the iceberg is enough to obliterate me, but what these two men have done to me goes on and on into an endless deep I can’t even start to fathom. I don’t know how I’m going to get rid of it without losing myself.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” I whimper into Alek’s neck. “I’m so sorry.”

He squeezes me, then pulls back and takes my face between his hands in a firm, coach-y kind of way. “You don’t need to be sorry for anything. Just keep doing your best.”

I shake his hands off and scrub tears out of my eyes. It’s so warm out, but I’m shivering. “I can’t. Please don’t make me.” I’m not actually talking to him, not really, but these are the only people in my life who listen to a word I say.

“That’s enough.” He says it so gently it doesn’t even sound like a reprimand. “I’m not letting you give up because you lost one race. But we’ll take it slow, and we’ll make realistic goals. Okay?”

“Uh-huh. Yeah.” I’ll say anything now to make this end faster. I don’t want to be here in the sun, with my two favorite people believing in me and telling me not to give up. I want to be alone, back in that fucking tomb of a mansion, doing what I have to do before I lose my nerve. “I get it.”

---