In Deep (24 page)

She doesn't say anything back for a long time, and then:
our drafts were due today. he's giving them back weds and then the finals are due mon.

i know,
I type, though it's the first time I've thought of that paper in days. I've barely done the reading. I don't even have an outline.

you should check your messages. he's being pretty strict it sounds like.

I groan. Of course Woodham's being strict about it.

okay thx for the heads-up
, I finish.

I wait for a while, but she doesn't say anything back.

Since everything else is pretty much shit today, I open a new tab and decide to face my in-box.

•  •  •

As soon as Mom and Louis are both home, I charge down the stairs, asking if they've checked their messages from my teachers. This is completely unfair, and I want them to see, too.

“Actually, it's pretty nice of him,” Louis says, looking down through the bottom half of his reading glasses at his screen, taking in what Woodham's said about my paper, that at this point all he can do is give me an incomplete, and then expect the draft on Friday and my final within two weeks of the end of school. Chu wrote back to Mom too, about Enviro, saying I need to make up the end of the lab that I missed today, because part of the exam comes from it. Not to mention that I still have exams next week and need to finish those stupid Spanish flash cards.

Louis and Mom are hardly sympathetic when I complain I don't have enough time for all this, even if I do go back to school tomorrow.

“Seems like you had a fair amount of time, reading this,” Louis says.

“I agree, honey,” Mom adds. “It looks like you don't have a choice. It's either finish up this semester the way your teachers suggest, or it's summer school. I can't see that there's really another way.”

Summer school. Which would mean absolutely no practice, because they make you sit there from seven a.m. to five
p.m. for a solid four weeks, plus homework. And from the looks of it, I'd have to take more than one class, which might mean two sessions. But there's still State to prepare for. I have to nail National Cut there, if any of the rest of my college plans are going to happen. It doesn't matter what else is going on. There is no other option.

“Mom, are you forgetting that State's in two weeks? And after taking this week off like Van's making me do, I absolutely cannot afford to miss another one.”

Louis looks at me, then at Mom.

I know what they're thinking.

“I'm taking this break, okay? I'll cram this week when I'm not at practice. But I'm not going to miss State. I can't. It's too big, and there's too much riding on it for me. If I can just get this one win, then next year I swear—”

But I stop. Because I hear myself. I don't even need to see Mom's face.

I collapse onto the couch, everything crashing in. “It's not like that,” I say, my voice starting to tremble. “It isn't.” But even I know better.

“I know it's not, honey,” Mom says, soothing. “Because the thing about your dad was that he didn't know when to fold.”

“So, what then?” I hit the couch in exasperation, my throat seizing up even more. “After all my hard work, it's no big deal? What am I supposed to think about that, huh, Mom? If none
of it's going to matter, what the hell have I been doing all this time?”

She looks at me, her eyes and mouth soft with sympathy. “I think your future is going to turn out just fine, Brynn, because of your hard work. But that question also sounds like a good one to ask.”

THE NEXT MORNING I STILL
wake up according to routine. I still do everything in order, still do my thing. Louis is still in the kitchen with his coffee. The only part that's different about any of it is me, and I'm not sure who that is right now.

There's no point in sitting at home for another few days, but being back at school right before the semester's over, when my whole life's been turned around, only hammers home the fact that I also have absolutely no friends. Yearbooks have apparently come out, and everyone is huddling over them in the halls or sharing phone pictures from all the extracurricular banquets that went on this weekend. Before, I wouldn't have cared, because I'd have been too focused on practice. Or Grier and I would have spent the weekend at her place, defacing everyone
in her own yearbook and cracking each other up. Now, I have none of it.

The loneliness and understanding of what I've lost almost brings me to tears again. During lunch, I dodge the hall monitor and duck into the bathroom. I splash water on my face and then stand there, back against one of the stall dividers, staring hard into the mirror. I take in my sharp jawline, my hard body, everything about me nothing but fucking hard. And still—what? Still I'm here, like a weenie, crying in the bathroom.

I growl at myself in the mirror, make a fist, and punch my rock-hard pecs as fiercely as I can.

“You see that?” I shout, my voice echoing off the walls. “You see it? You made that. You made this whole thing, all by yourself. So what are you going to do with it now, huh? You going to turn pussy? Sit here and cry? Maybe your dad was a loser. Maybe he was. But he wouldn't be proud of this, and neither are you. So what the hell're you gonna do with yourself, huh? What're you gonna do?”

It shocks me, the answer that rings in my head: that I could just focus the same kind of energy on something else.

•  •  •

I get to Enviro early so that I can go over my schedule with Chu and find out when I can do the lab. She's irritated, but she's working with me. I even negotiate an extra day to finish the exam after school, since we can't do the lab until Thursday.

While I'm at Chu's desk, Kate comes in. Her brows go up a little bit in surprise when our eyes meet, but she quickly sits down. When I'm finished with Chu, the seat behind Kate is still open. She's not looking at me, and she probably doesn't care, but I move in behind her.

There isn't time to write notes or say anything, because now that my exams really matter, I have to pay attention. There's so much I've missed by not caring, by sleeping through class—for a minute it just seems pointless. The amount of studying I'll have to do is overwhelming. But as soon as the panic starts to seize me, without thinking I suck in my breath sharp, count to ten, and let it out slow. My blood stops whirling behind my eyes. My abs stay strong and tight, and the hardness of them, the way they hold steady, calms me down, same as it always does. So maybe I really can figure out how to be disciplined about the next steps too.

I look at the back of Kate's head, bent over her notes. I remember her smiling face in all those pictures, how she's subtly changed since she started dating Connor, and how fun it's been to watch. How much I admired her wide life yesterday, and how I want to be a part of it.

My grades aren't the only thing I could fix, if I worked at it.

So when class is over and Kate doesn't exactly wait for me to leave, but doesn't streak ahead of me either, I fall in step beside her.

“I thought you'd still be out” is the first thing she says.

“Yeah, well. Doesn't seem like I can afford to miss anything.”

She slants her eyes at me. “What did Woodham say?”

“That I can have an extension. Take an incomplete. I still have to finish the paper, but he could've given me an F.”

She makes a noncommittal noise.

“I deserve an F, I guess. I haven't really done the work.”

There's another noise from her that I can't exactly translate, but it probably comes close to “I know.” Initially it pisses me off, but it's true.

“Listen.” I stop her in the hall, taking in a breath. “It doesn't fix anything, and I understand if you still hate me, but I do feel bad about what I did. It was selfish. I was treating you like—” In my head, I see it, how it was all just another competition for me to win. “Well, not like a friend. And I just want you to know that that's what I'd rather be.”

She starts walking again, but she scoops her hand in the air for me to follow.

“We're going to be late,” she mutters.

I keep quiet, focusing on keeping up with her sped-up walk. I think she won't say anything else before we get to Woodham's, and that that's the end of that, but then I hear her mutter, “Apologies don't—”

I grab on to it. “Apologies don't what?”

She sighs. We're at Woodham's door. Probably with only thirty seconds before the late bell rings.

“Apologies aren't necessarily supposed to fix things, is what I mean.” She huffs up her bangs with a frustrated breath. “You can't make something you broke not broken just by apologizing.”

She's glaring at me. I know I deserve it.

“But that isn't the point,” she goes on, angry face shifting to something more thoughtful. “The point of an apology is to acknowledge that something happened. To recognize the harm done, so that maybe it's possible to, you know, put things back together and recover.”

I think about Mom and all her
sorry
s. Realizing yesterday that I can never get Charlie back. How I owe Grier an apology too—Grier whom I suddenly miss in a way I didn't expect.

“Yeah,” I say back to Kate. “But you break someone's plate or vase or whatever, even if you manage to glue it back, the cracks still show. And usually there's a chip or two you can never find. The original plate's still busted. It's pointless. You might as well just walk away, get a whole new plate.”

“I don't know about pointless,” she says, opening the door as the late bell rings, “but I do know—thanks in part to you, you big jerk—that the only thing you know if you don't try something, is that then absolutely nothing has the chance to improve.”

•  •  •

So after class, after I talk to Woodham and tell him I appreciate and accept his offer, I apologize again to Kate, this time for real.

“Well, it was a pretty dickhead move,” she says, moving us down the hall. “I might still be mad at you for a while.”

“I know. Apparently, I don't know how not to be a dick.” I say it funny, but it doesn't feel all the way like a joke.

“It's because you're an only kid.” She nods seriously. “None of you know how to share. At this camp I go to, the whole first week, all the spoiled only kids are the ones with the most problems. It's why I'm glad I have a brother. Well, at least some of the time I'm glad. Siblings can suck sometimes, but they're also pretty useful.”

We're almost to the pickup loop where Louis is waiting, but I don't want to stop talking.

“I saw that camp on your profile. What's the deal?”

She shrugs, a little embarrassed. “It's this three-week thing. I've been going since I was in sixth grade. It's really fun. And you learn a lot about yourself.”

I nod, thinking. Three weeks is a long time. A long time to see what it's like having more in my life than the pool.

“I've already registered for first session,” she goes on, watching my face carefully. “It fills up quick. But . . . there might be some openings later in the summer. My mom's on the advisory board, and I could probably make you a recommendation, if you were seriously interested. There's even a
swimming concentration. The coaches are really good.”

It doesn't matter to me if the coaches are any good. If I'm really not swimming with Van this summer—which feels insane, though maybe it's true—then, like Gavin, I'm not sure I want to be in the club at all. Maybe I'd take a pause, then rejoin the school team. Maybe it would help me and Charlie, maybe even Nora and Maria, go back to being friends.

“I have to think about it,” I tell her, since we both have to head out. “But it sounds kind of cool.”

INSTEAD OF GOING STRAIGHT HOME
, I convince Louis to take me by the pool. After talking to Kate and Gavin, now I need to talk to Van.

It's weird walking out there still in my school clothes instead of my suit and my cap. Weird watching everyone prep themselves for practice when I'm not joining in. Shyrah and several others look up and smile, glad to see I'm okay, but I don't stop to chat. I head straight past them all and knock on Van's office door.

For a second I think he's not in there—that maybe he really is on probation or fired or whatever Gavin and Louis have hinted at—but then the door opens, and he's there, clearly surprised.

“Didn't expect to see you. Come on in.”

He clears off the chair next to his desk, which is covered in training manuals and a bunch of printed-out logic puzzles.

“I won't stay long.” I remain standing. “I know practice is about to start. I'm glad you're here running it, at least. Louis told me about the Hawkinses.”

“Well, it's not anything that's up for discussion if you understand, but we're working something out.”

That he won't say so means it's bad, but if he isn't gone already, maybe it will end up okay. I want to say I'm sorry, but even after Kate's little speech, I know in this case it really won't help. The problem isn't that the pictures got posted—well, maybe a little it is. And that part is my fault. But I'm also sure that most of what Grier's parents are mad about is thinking their little princess would do anything so lewd in the first place. Not because of what it would mean about her, but what it would mean about them. So of course they would want to take it out on Van.

That she might get away with it makes my spine heat up, my joints tighten. I wish I could do something to make Grier lose out.

But as I let out my breath, I know that's all I've
been
doing. And now look.

“I just came by because I wanted to see what you'd say if I can't practice next week. If I have to miss State.”