34. Chapter 33 Katrina
J une 2024
“Is it normal to feel like you’re going to throw up?”
“Absolutely,” Mia confirms, barely glancing up from her phone. “It’s also normal to throw up. There’s a lot at stake here.”
Her words offer little comfort. Instead, my stomach gives a sickening twist and I try to remember where the quickest restroom is. I don’t know if I’ll ever know how Josie and Mia managed to spend so many years in these seats, caring about people whose entire careers were about to be defined by something that’d be over in moments, if not seconds. I’ve been part of this world for six months, with Carter for three, and I’m a little relieved he’s not going to keep going after this.
If he wanted to, of course I would support him. But Josie and Mia had a point: It hurts to care.
I’m feeling helpless. Over the last few months, I’ve learned how to be emotionally supportive and there for him when a meet goes well, or horrible, but this is different. Glancing down at my phone, I make sure I haven’t missed a text I knew wouldn’t be there. He’s trying to get in the zone, focusing on the race in front of him, which means pretending nothing else exists.
Including, or maybe especially, his anxious girlfriend.
“He has a good chance,” Bryce assures me, lowering himself into his seat. I assume he’s talking to Mia or Josie, so I don’t say anything. I’m shocked when he nudges my shoulder to get my attention. When I turn to him, he gives me a reassuring smile. “He’s trained hard. His times have been solid, and his lane placement is good.”
“But none of that guarantees him a spot on the team,” I reply. “It doesn’t matter that he’s been training his ass off. Someone can still be faster than him.”
He sighs with a nod. “Yeah, that’s true, but he knows what he’s doing, and we need to trust that he can pull this off.”
I look over at Josie, who is pretending not to listen in. Bryce is the only person who can give me any sort of insight into what’s going through my boyfriend’s head right now, but he’s never been one to open up about his feelings. Especially not with me, and especially not when it could mean speaking on behalf of his best friend.
“The only thing you can do right now is be there for him,” he continues. “No matter what happens tonight or the rest of the week, what goes right or wrong, just be there for him. Even when Josie and I weren’t together, I knew she was in my corner and that meant everything to me.”
Josie reaches out to squeeze his knee, a sign of comfort which is strengthened by the way he reaches down to entangle their fingers. This is a first for him, too; the first time in years he’s in the stands instead of getting ready to step behind the blocks. His career is over, he’s moved on, but now he is supporting his best friend. I’m insanely grateful for him.
“Do you think he’s going to make the team?”
Bryce hesitates at the question, not wanting to be overly confident, but still wanting to be supportive. It’s a feeling I know well. “I think he has a much better chance than he seems to think he has.”
I frown. “So, he’s having those same conversations with you?” He nods. “Why doesn’t he just trust in his own abilities?”
“Unlike this one,” Mia joins, reaching past me to flick Bryce’s arm. Bryce winces, leaning away from her. “Carter has never been cocky.”
Bryce laughs. The sound relaxes me slightly. If we can make jokes, it’s okay to be fine. Right? “It’s not cocky if it’s true, right, babe?”
Josie grins at the heat sheets in her lap. “You’re a cocky asshole. Always have been, always will be.”
“Oh, whatever.” He rolls his eyes.
“I love when I’m right,” Mia gloats, before she pulls my attention back to her. “Carter has always been the humble one, but the talent is there, too. He’s the most consistent swimmer we ever followed. I’m confident he’ll make the team.”
“But it might not be tonight,” Josie adds, “and he doesn’t have to come in first to make the team. He just needs a ticket to Paris, the rest he can take care of when he gets there.”
Between Bryce, Josie, and Mia, my anxiety slowly begins to ease. They’re confident in his abilities, and they’ve been following this sport, and his career, for a lot longer than I have. They’re the people I should trust, and I do, but I’m still nervous as hell.
“The 400 IM is up first.” Josie motions to the heat sheet in front of her. “He has a solid chance, but there is no semifinal for this one. Whoever wins tonight will go to Paris.”
“Well, that just made things ten times more stressful.”
“Strongest leg is the freestyle,” Bryce reminds me, checking something on his phone. “He has a decent backstroke, too.”
“That just means he needs to make sure he gets some distance in the fly,” Josie continues. “He wants to make sure he doesn’t have too much ground to make up on the last leg. There are some strong swimmers in both the front and back half of this race.”
There are so many words and phrases related to the sport that I don’t understand being bounced around right now that I feel the anxiety starting to creep back up my neck. I can’t tell them they’re making me more anxious, because I know they’re just trying to help. And in their own way, they’re easing their own panic. They know what those words mean, and the comfort they offer them isn’t shared by me.
“Will the two of you shut up?” Mia cuts off their musings, allowing me to relax. “You’re going to make this poor woman have a nervous breakdown.”
Josie’s gaze snaps up to me, instantly apologetic. “Sorry.”
I don’t get the chance to assure her it’s okay because the lights dim, and an eerie hush goes over the crowd. Seconds later, loud, electric-sounding pop music starts pumping through the speakers, lights start flashing, and the crowd goes crazy. The sequence is doing its job of hyping people up, but it’s making my anxiety skyrocket. On the other side of this moment is the beginning of the last chapter—my boyfriend’s career is at the beginning of the end and, more than anything, I want this to go his way.
Everything leading up to the start of the actual final session passes in a blur—the calm before the storm, Bryce calls it. Then the music picks up and they’re announcing the finalists for the men’s 400 IM.
When they call Carter’s name, our friends let out loud cheers, but I find I can’t. The lump in my throat is so large, I can’t speak around it. My heart has sunk so far into my stomach, I can’t tell if I want to pass out or be sick. My eyes never leave him. Not as he changes, stripping down to the Jammers he’s swimming in. Not as he shakes his muscles out, getting in another stretch before he gets on the block. Not as he steps up onto the block, the crowd instantly dying down.
“Take your mark.”
Every swimmer moves in a fluid motion, taking their places on the block. There is a brief pause, a slight buzzer or whistle, and they’re off.
My eyes follow every precise stroke as he pulls himself through the water at a steady pace. Beside me, Bryce yells out instructions I can barely understand and know Carter can’t hear, but I get why he does it. Why he feels like he’s doing something helpful. Mia and Josie are cheering him on, but my eyes just stay locked on him.
This is what people mean when they say everything fades away. Right now, the other swimmers don’t exist, the crowd surrounding me blurs, and my only focus is on Carter and how insanely proud of him I am. No matter what happens tonight or this week, I’m so proud of him.
During the first 100 meters, Carter manages to get into a solid third place position. As they move into backstroke, he starts to pull ahead. His lead is narrow, but obvious, and I’d feel better about it if we didn’t still have half the race in front of him. In the last forty or so meters of the breaststroke leg, everything starts to fall apart.
“Shit.” Bryce’s voice is tight, like he’s finally feeling the anxiety I’ve been feeling this whole time. In the pool, they move into the last hundred meters, freestyle. “C’mon, Abrams!”
He’s in fifth place as they move into the freestyle, and my heart is plummeting. Which is fine, really. What do I need a heart for right now?
I don’t know enough to understand what’s going wrong; all I know is Carter went from first place to fifth in a hundred or so meters. And now he’s barely holding that position.
He pushes off the wall in fourth place, heading home, and I feel like it’s over. I don’t care how good of a freestyler he is; there’s no way he can make up the ground he’s lost.
But then, as he surfaces, it’s like a switch is flipped as he pushes through the last fifty meters. Everyone around me is going crazy, and I find myself screaming along this time as he pushes into third place. I watch as he battles against the young swimmer from California as my boyfriend proves me wrong. No, he’s not going to get first, but there’s still a chance he can get second.
Carter and the kid touch the wall at what looks to be the exact same time. A lull goes over the crowd, and I can hear the blood pumping in my ears as my gaze snaps up to the screen hanging above the pool.
By one one-hundredth of a second, Carter came in third, failing to make the team in an event he felt confident in. Beside me, I see Bryce deflate. Tears sting the corner of my eyes. Down in the pool, Carter has torn his cap and goggles off, taking fast, shallow breaths. The look on his face is blank, but he offers a small smile to the kid who came in second. He laughs and says something to him, constantly being the good sport he is.
When the kid turns away, though, Carter’s features crumble, and my heart crumbles with him.
“O kay, talk to me,” I tell Josie as she takes her seat beside me. “What are his chances looking like tonight?”
Despite not really knowing what to expect, I’m hopeful we’ll walk out of the Riverview Convention Center with Carter on his way to Paris tonight. I’m not sure I can take another night like the first one. Listening to him go over all the ways he could have swum the race differently and the ways it could’ve happened is heartbreaking. Logically, I know it’s part of being the girlfriend of a professional athlete. There’s going to be bad races and meets, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I don’t like listening to him beat himself up over something like this.
I knew he’d be hard on himself, everyone warned me, but I wasn’t prepared for how much he’d blame himself. Or how crushed he’d look. The weight of the world is on his shoulders, and I don’t know what I can do to lessen the load.
She gives me a sympathetic smile. “This is his last chance to make the team.”
I appreciate her being honest with me, but it’s not what I want to hear right now. It’s something I already know, but I’m choosing to focus on the unknown of it all.
“You saw him in Nashville,” Mia adds, leaning across her friend to talk to me better. “That time was within the top times of the year in the country. He has a great shot at this.”
“And his lane placement is good.”
I glare at Bryce. “That’s what you said the other night.”
He’s looking at me over the top of Josie’s head. “You know I can’t predict what’s going to happen, but I have a good feeling about this, Kat. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
This really is Carter’s last chance to make the team, and Bryce is just as anxious about this as I am. Maybe more so. Obviously, I trust him, but what good does trust do in this situation? We all believe in Carter and trust his talent is good enough to pull him through, but what if someone else is quicker? Sure, up to six qualifiers can go to the Olympics in this event, but the field is out of eight. Of those six, only the top two will get spots in the actual event in Paris.
He doesn’t have to come in first tonight , I remind myself. He just needs to get a ticket to Paris.
I’m gripping Josie and Mia’s hands in mine as they announce the raise. I don’t break my gaze from his as he steps up to the blocks, ready for this last chance.
Take your mark . . .