Page 120 of Deep End

Her eyes light with hope. “Can I continue competing—”

“Today and tomorrow? Absolutelynot.”

It’s disappointing, but we’re both relieved that her injury is minor.

“No podiums,” Coach Sima tells me, Bree, and Pen on the last day. I’m waiting to be introduced for the individual platform final, and they’re here to support me. “That’s not ideal, of course.” His lecturing gaze meets each of ours for a socially cruel length of time. “On the plus side, the whole team qualified for the Olympic trials. Though your three-meter divesbadlyneed work, Vandy.”

“There isn’t enoughroom,” I mutter sullenly into my PB&J. “It’s my least favorite, anyway. I feel like I’m jumping off a gangplank.”

“Any more back talk?”

I lower my gaze and stay silent, but thirty minutes later and four dives into the platform finals, I’m wondering if Coach is eating his words. Because my scores are, incomprehensibly, hovering very close to the podium.

“It’s really just the four of you,” Pen whispers at me while I try tokeep warm between dives. “I mean, Akane Straisman is way too far ahead and she’s going to take gold, and unless Emilee Newell’s bones turn into glow sticks, she’s gonna take silver. But bronze is either going to be you or Natalie.” Carissa’s henchman. “You two have been switching third and fourth place the whole time.”

“I don’t know what I want the most—to get a medal, or to stop Natalie from getting one.”

Pen wraps her palms around my shoulders and squeezes with all her might. “Pick one, Vandy. Because I want to buy you a bronze medal’s worth of drinks tonight.”

“What’s your last dive?” Bree asks me.

“Armstand double one and a half.”

“Oh my god!” Pen gasps. At my best, this dive is my masterpiece. Anything less than that? An utter shitshow. And there are so many places for it to crumble to dust. But this is Pen, of course. And she’s amazing. And instead of telling me what could go wrong, she hugs me. “It’s my favorite dive of yours!”

“Mine, too!” Bree bounces on her feet. “This is fuckingfate!”

I keep that with me. Even after Natalie dives and I do the math on the score I need to get the bronze, even as I climb up the stairs, even when I’m drying off with my tie-dye shammy, so similar to the one I lost two years ago—the one I barely recall mentioning to Lukas.

Heremembered, though.

I look at it, smile, and throw it off the tower. And when I rise into an armstand, I don’t think about what could go wrong. I don’t think about perfection. Instead, I focus on the people out there who enjoy watching me perform the dive. When I take off, when I’m in the air, when I enter the water and then exit it, I hope they’ll have a good time. And when I’m barely out of the pool and they’re already there, wrapping their arms around my drenched body . . .

“You did it! You did it, you did it, you—”

“You have ten points over Natalie!”

“It’s bronze! It’s certain bronze, ’cause there’s only Emilee left, and she’s already ahead of you! Bella’s gonna cry so hard when I—” Bree cuts off abruptly. “Oh my god,” she says, her tone chock-full of shock. She’s looking past my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She opens her mouth. When no sound comes out, she points at the scoreboard behind me.

Emilee dove. The competition is over. And . . .

“I think Emilee Newell’s bones must have turned into glow sticks,” Pen whispers. Because all of her scores are unexpectedly low—so low, she’s fallen to third place.

Which means . . .

Coach appears out of nowhere, holding out the tie-dye shammy. “Well, Vandy,” he chokes out, “I hope you have a valid passport.”

I guess I’m going to Amsterdam.

CHAPTER 48

IT’S A BLESSING AND CURSE,” COACH SIMA TELLS ME WHILE Iwait to be called on the podium. “It’ll be only five months before the Olympics, three months before the trials—you’re going to be exhausted, Vandy. And the coaches have not been selected, so you could end up with Mr. Resting Fish Face, that new guy at UCLA . . .”

I barely listen. He’s right, but I need fewer warnings, and more silence to process the fact that I started this season with a mental block the size of a manatee, and now . . .

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