Page 6 of Deep End

“Call me for what?” Victoria appears—aviator sunglasses, inside. Purple smoothie. That dark, curly mullet that should be an aberration,spectacularon her. “I told you, I won’t be complicit in the assassination of any more spiders—what the . . . ?”

It all happens sofast. Pen’s tears bursting free. Victoria’s scandalized gasp. The voices of the water polo team, filling the hallway. Before I can excuse myself from whatever the hell is going on, the three of us are barreling into an equipment room.

The door firmly shuts under Victoria’s back. “What the hell happened?”

She alternates staring at Pen (with worry) and me (with . . . murder?), and I feel a sudden spark of compassion for Lukas. Maybe peopleshouldn’tgo about indiscriminately glaring at others, after all.

“I was having a fight with Luk.” Pen wipes her cheek with the back of her hand.

“Aww, babe. About what?”

“I’ll give you guys some privacy,” I murmur, reaching for the doorknob.

Pen’s fingers close around my hand. “No, stay. I don’t want you to think that Luk could ever . . .” She takes a deep breath. I shift on my feet and think longingly of the locker room, the Epsom salt tub, a creepy porcelain doll factory—anywherebut the here and now. “He could never be violent, or mean. He’s the best person I’ve ever . . . We’ve just been in the process of—”

“Oh, god. Is this about the whole breakup thing?” Victoria asks. Significantlylessgently.

Not my business. Not my business. Intensely not my business.

But Pen nods tearily.

“Listen.” Victoria sighs, like they’ve been over this. “Babe. Honey. I get it, you and Lukas have been together since you were, like, twelve—”

“Fifteen.”

“—and popped each other’s cherries and now you’re wondering, what would an uncircumcised dick be like?”

A sniffle. “Actually, in Sweden most people don’t—”

“TMI. The point is—what the fuck are you doing?”

I’ve always found Victoria’s bluntness delicious, but this seems a bit harsh. And Pen might agree, because the weeping fades into a scowl. “You’re supposed to be onmyside.”

“I am. As someone who’s on your sideandhas been on the dating scene for the last two years, I’m telling you, you do not want to lose that man. There are lots of assholes out there, and Lukas is asmart, decent, hot guy who puts the toilet seat down and has yet to contract the French disease. That’s much rarer than you think.”

“But I’m not happy. And he’s not getting what he wants from this relationship, either.”

“Pen. Come on. If he told you he’s okay with not doing that stuff—”

“He’s settling. Just like I’m settling. If we stay together, we’ll get married, have a house in the suburbs and two point five bilingual kids I cannot understand, and will always wonder what we missed out on. I won’t know what being young and free feels like, and he’ll be bitter because he had to give up all that kinky shit, like spanking people and tying them up and ordering them what to do.”

I freeze. I should really not be here, but I can’t leave, because my feet weigh a million pounds, and every drop of blood in my body is flowing up to hang out on my cheeks.

“I get it.” Victoria is exasperated. “But you need to decide—”

A hard pounding at the door. We all jolt. “Hey? Is anyone in there?”

Victoria shouts, “Yeah, just a sec!”

“I left my gear bag in there, so if you guys could move your orgy to the showers . . .”

Victoria rolls her eyes but opens the door. We march past Gear Girl—Victoria, with a defiant expression; Pen, wiping residual tears; me, stubbornly refusing to make eye contact. The conversation may have resumed, but the twins are coming our way. “Where were you guys?” Bella asks. I panic, but Victoria makes up something about a missing shammy on the fly, because for her lying doesn’t require two to three business days of careful preparation, and we all go warm up, like a big happy family.

I’m still flushed. Aware of my pulse. Cogs turn in my skull. All I can think of is: Pen has always beensolovely to me.

After my third surgery, when Barb couldn’t take more than aweek off without collapsing the field of medicine, Pen popped by to check on me every day.To make sure your evil roommate isn’t making belts out of your skin, she’d say with a wink, but she’s just a naturally caring person. And there was the time she sat down with me after my first dual meet, to remind me that a few splashy entries didn’t make me a bad diver, that sometimes we’re just too much in our heads, that she’d been there, too—that chaotic, overthinking feeling that makes the platform feel like a tightrope and turns your body into an unreliable narrator. That moment when your focus dissolves into panic, and the dive is irreparably fucked before it even begins.

It had meant so much to me, back in the fall of freshman year. Everything was new and raw and too big, but Penelope Ross, world and Pan Am medalist, NCAA champion, held my hand and told me that she felt like I did.

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