Five Yards to Stay

1. Morning Rhythm

Morning Rhythm

“First on deck again, I see, Maren,” Coach Hensley’s voice booms behind her.

“You know it, Coach. How else am I supposed to know the lanes are tight?” She reaches down to grab the wrench and hops in the pool.

“Maren, you do know that’s my job, right?”

“Coach, you’ve known me for like ten years now. When have you ever known me to not want things to be just right?” Maren quips back. Not to mention, I need to make sure that captain spot is mine.

“Touché, kiddo, touché.” Coach Hensley turns and ducks back into his office. He’s joked about her habits for years, but he doesn’t get that she needs this moment. The moment before the rest of the world stirs. Before. Teammates. Before drills. Before demands.

Maren checks each lane line, then settles into lane three.

Lane three has always been her favorite to practice in.

In competition, they seed the two fastest times in lanes three and four, and her mom always told her to practice where she wants to be.

So, lane three is home. At her first age-group meet, she’d panicked on deck before her heat.

Too many caps, too many whistles, voices stacking until her ears rang.

Then she looked up and found her mom in the stands, three fingers lifted like a lighthouse signal.

Lane three, kiddo. Afterward, her mom laughed and said, “You like a good pattern.” Maren had pretended to roll her eyes.

Secretly, she filed it under ‘Truth.’ The water here always seems to be a touch calmer, the tiles beneath a little cleaner, as if the pool itself knows it’s her lane.

Maren ducks under the water a couple of times to get used to the temperature, reaches over, and pulls on her cap.

Grabbing her goggles, she licks the inside of them and dips them in the water, preventing them from fogging up during morning practice.

Slowly, her teammates start to show up on the deck—slow being the operative word.

No one else on the team is a morning person, and these 6 a.m. practices are the bane of their existence.

As the rest of the team trickles out of the locker room, Coach Hensley returns with his dry-erase marker and a whistle around his neck.

He gives the whistle one sharp blow, getting everyone’s attention, as he taps the board and starts writing down the morning sets.

There’s a collective sigh from the team when he writes the warm-up as an 800 freestyle.

Grumbles rise from the freshman swimmers about starting the day with a half-mile swim.

Maren takes a moment to adjust her goggles.

She rolls her shoulders once, twice. The air feels thick, her nerves buzzing, but the second her fingers slide under the surface, everything muffles; her world folds inward.

She hits her streamline and kicks the first 10 yards before breaking the surface, and her brain starts the cycle.

1,2,3, breath. 1, 2, 3, breath. As she works her way up the lane toward her turn, her body falls into the rhythm of her stroke.

With each exhale, bubbles slide past her cheeks; each inhale burns clean through her lungs.

Her brain goes quiet. Nothing else matters now; it is just her and the water.

The world exists in strokes and numbers, and the faint shimmer of light at the end of the lane.

The pool is the only place that’s ever had this effect on her.

Everywhere else, her thoughts ricochet in every direction. But the pool makes them go still.

She used to joke that the chlorine gas hovering above the water was a magic brain eraser. Now she just knows she needs her routines to give her brain some peace.

Finishing out the last twenty-five yards of her warm-up, Maren senses a commotion on deck.

The energy in the pool shifts; it feels rushed, loud, chaotic.

She can feel the change in her bones as the pitch rises around her, bouncing off the tile like static crackling against her skin.

Her chest tightens, electricity running beneath her skin before she even knows why.

She touches the wall with a stretch and stands up just as a crash echoes from above. Her eyes flick to the deck right as a paper coffee cup splatters hot liquid across the tiles, and her. Thank goodness she hadn’t pulled her goggles off yet, or it would have gone straight in her eyes.

As Maren pushes herself out of the pool, she comes eye to eye with the keeper of the coffee: Reese Callahan. Star diver. Habitually late. A hurricane in her own world.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Reese yanks the towel off her shoulder and reaches out, trying to blot Maren’s chest.

“Good morning, Reese. Didn’t expect to see you this early,” Maren blurts out, trying to keep her voice level.

“Yeah, morning practice is new for the dive team. I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually.”

Reese rushes off toward the locker room without even picking up her cup.

Maren bends, grabs it, and tosses it toward the garbage can on deck.

She exhales through her nose, four counts in four out, the old trick her therapist taught her to use at swim camp to unspool her brain.

“Yeah,” she mutters, “maybe next time you’ll figure out being on time, too. ”

Maren glances over at the whiteboard, seeing the morning is mostly kicking and pulley drills.

She’s grateful there aren’t any sprints; after that disruption, she doesn’t think she could handle them today.

Her brain needs slow and steady repetition.

She walks to the equipment room and grabs a green kickboard and a blue pull buoy, tossing them toward lane three.

Then she rinses the spilled coffee off the deck with her water bottle before hopping back into the pool.

Maren takes a moment adjusting her cap once more before starting the next set.

It’s not as easy and calm as before, still on edge after her run-in with the diver, but her muscles soon begin to hum with the steady burn she’s missed.

The ache that quiets everything else. The sound of splashing fades until it’s just her heartbeat.

They’ve known each other since middle school, but something about Reese has always rubbed her the wrong way.

They tease that Reese will probably be late for her own funeral.

But, not to worry, she’ll make a grand entrance when she gets there.

She’s the kind of person who commands attention the moment she walks into a room.

The complete opposite of Maren, who’d rather no one notice her coming or going.

It’s not that she dislikes Reese. It’s that the girl moves through life like gravity bends to her. Maren has always been ruled by precision and predictability.

As the yards pile on, Maren finds herself slipping back into her meditative state where it’s just her and the water.

She wraps up the buoy set and trades it out for the kickboard, starting long laps up and down, working on her legs.

Her body begins to tire; it’s been a full year since she’s been back for morning practice.

Even through her excitement, she knows this will exhaust her.

Giggles and chatter pull her attention towards the diving well. This used to be her quiet time. A practice free from the dive team’s energy, but apparently, a few divers have scholarships on the brain, which means more early practices and more invasion of swimmer space.

Maren’s gaze finds Reese on deck, practicing her form.

She climbs the ladder when it is her turn to dive.

The board creaks under Reese’s weight, a low groan that echoes in Maren’s ribs.

Reese walks down the board, pausing to adjust the tension wheel with her foot.

Suddenly, she’s the most focused Maren has ever seen her.

She walks to the very edge, turns, and backs up until only her toes cling to the boards.

One. Two. Three.

She flies. The world seems to still as Reese folds midair, a perfect arc of muscle and grace, then slices into the water, with the quiet kiss. No splash. No sound.

When she surfaces, her teammates cheer, and a smile spreads across her lips. For just a moment, it almost looks like Reese is smiling directly at Maren. Heat blooms under Maren’s skin, the flush spreading even beneath the cool water. That’s… new.

Maren’s yanked back to reality by two sharp bursts of the whistle.

Squinting toward the deck to see Coach Hensley waving them in.

She kicks the last twelve and a half yards like her life depends on it, racing her teammate in the next lane to the wall.

She taps just before her friend and pumps her fist, water slick and cold against her palm.

“Maren, do I need to remind you that the only thing you need to beat in this pool is your last time?” The coach shakes his head down at her.

“No, sir. I remember.” Her breath comes ragged and deep, muscles vibrating from that final sprint. She presses her palms to the pool’s edge, water streaming down her arms. The sun is finally up. Light catches the far window, scattering gold glimmers across the lane lines, morning breaking for real.

The coach turns to address the team about that afternoon’s practice. Maren half-listens as she pulls off her cap and hauls herself out of the water. The only thought in her head now is a hot shower, and hoping she can get her hair dry before her first period.

As she starts toward the locker room, the coach calls out again.

“Clarke, Callahan! I need to see you both after this afternoon’s practice. Don’t leave without talking to me.”

Maren glances over at Reese. They both shrug.

What on earth could the coach want with them?

That’s going to be the only thought in Maren’s head for the rest of the day. Routines shattered, replaced by one question looping through her mind. Change always starts small, a single ripple before the wave.