Page 165 of Beyond the Stroke

I hate seeing my friend in pain and more than the physical discomfort, I know first-hand that an injury brings mental and emotional stress. While the extent of his injury is unknown, not having a healthy body is demoralizing for any athlete. It fucking sucks and I wish I could tell him it’s going to be okay, but I can’t promise that.

“Hey, Charlie.”

He turns around; expression somber.

“We got you,” I tell him firmly. “No matter what.”

He nods, then I watch as Winnie leads him to the medical facility to get him checked out.

As a team, all we can do right now is finish the meet while Charlie gets evaluated.

After we fill them in, Eli and Logan emerge from the warmup pool and the three of us huddle around Coach Owens to see how he wants to handle Charlie’s withdrawal. Who he wants to put on the freestyle leg of our world record medley relay team.

“Who are you thinking? Xio?” I ask, taking in Coach’s cross-armed thinking stance.

“His split is fast, but he’s recovering from his fifty-meter win a few hours ago.”

Movement over Logan’s shoulder catches my eye.

It’s Connor.

“I can do it.” He nods at Coach.

Logan chuckles. “Yeah, right. I’m not swimming my ass off just to get a DQ because you can’t handle the exchange.”

Connor doesn’t even flinch at Logan’s insult. “I’ve been practicing takeovers.”

Realizing Connor is being serious, Logan shakes his head. “Not with any of us.”

Coach shakes his head. “You’ve got the individual medley prelims in an hour. It’s not enough time to recover.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s important. Please.”

Coach looks at me.

My instinct is to say no. To put Xio on the leg even if he fades out on the final stretch. At least I can trust the kid.

But then I remember what Summer said about giving Connor another chance. Letting his current actions speak louder than his words from the past. And, if I don’t give him a chance to prove he’s changed, then I’m not the captain I want to be.

Slowly, I nod my head. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

Coach nods in approval before walking off to make the change with the meet organizers.

“You’re kidding, right?” Logan scoffs, ignoring the fact that Connor is still standing there.

Eli claps Logan on the shoulder. “Come on, we’ve got to finish our warm up.”

Maybe I think Connor can’t do it or maybe I want him to prove me wrong. Either way, this meet, this relay, feels like a hinge. A chance to shift things back into place and start fresh.

Connor joins us in the warmup pool, but we’ve already used up most of the time we had when Charlie hurt his shoulder, so we get a few laps in, then throw on our parka jackets and move to the ready room to await our announcement.

Connor sitting next to me feels off, but I know I can’t let it affect me so I pull on my headphones, start my pre-race playlist, then close my eyes to visualize every stroke of my race.

Ten minutes later, the meet official signals for our event to line up, and one by one, the teams are announced to be escorted out to the pool deck.

In the lane next to ours the team from the Savannah Sharks stops to gawk. “Connor Fisk is on a relay team. Damn, did we just enter an alternate timeline?”

“Hey, Connor,” Dorian Wells from the Milwaukee Marlins calls. “Didn’t think you played well with others.”

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