15. The Ripple Effect
T he Phillips house comes into view almost an hour earlier than usual, and even that feels too late. Morning appointments were a blur—done well, but without pause, working through lunch in anticipation of meeting Kevin at three.
Bag in hand, I let myself in through the side gate.
The latch sticks, as always. The backyard is quiet, the same polished postcard it always is—perfect hedges, a blue pool like a mirror, and the breeze barely nudging the trees around the yard’s edges.
There’s no sign of Patrick, which is a good thing today.
I hustle around the perimeter, checking the pump first, then the skimmer.
Everything looks fine. I start the filter and brush the shallow end, working fast but precisely.
I’ve done this a hundred times, maybe more.
Today, it’s just another appointment, not with my favorite client or in my favorite pool on my route.
Today, I need to get somewhere else—where I want to be—the Aquatic Center of Emory’s campus at three o’clock to meet Kevin.
No time to overthink what it means or might be. It’s just a swim, I tell myself. Two guys who used to know each other. Old friends. Nothing more.
But that’s a lie. I shaved this morning and brought my good polo to change into. I keep checking my watch as if three o’clock would arrive sooner if I kept looking at it .
The sun is brutal, heat curling off the stone deck.
Sweat’s already sliding down my spine. The shirt comes off, and I toss it onto the chair under the umbrella.
The breeze finds my skin, cooling it under the sweat.
I keep brushing—long, slow strokes—a repetition that calms your body when your head is elsewhere.
The pool water shimmers with every pass, scattering light across the plaster walls beneath the surface like I paint the bottom with ripples.
A pause, just long enough to watch it dance.
Something about it slows me down. I lean in—the smell of the breeze blowing against the surface, the sound of water against the tile, the hypnotic repetition of the brush along the bottom.
And then I’m somewhere else.
~
(Four Years Earlier)
Running into Kevin that night at the convenience store is a fluke—him getting gas and me killing time.
He calls my name, and I momentarily freeze.
Still, I recognize the voice, his name tumbling out of my mouth to greet him like muscle memory.
We exchange pleasantries and chat briefly.
He invites me over. And just like that, we’re friends again, like no time has passed, yet the echo of everything we never said lingers between us.
His aunt Alice is snoring loudly, curled up on the couch with the TV flickering in front of her and some knitted blanket tucked around her feet.
Kevin whispers, and I follow him, laughing because I don’t know what else to do with myself.
The second Kevin mentions the pool, I’m halfway through the door.
The Florida night air is thick and warm, and I throw my sandals off to dip my toes into the water.
It’s like bathwater, like summer. “Hell yeah,” I say.
“Let’s get smashed and see who can do the best jack-knife. ”
Kevin gives me that crooked smile. “I’ll pass on getting smashed,” he says. “And we both know who’d win, Mr. Swim Team.”
“Old man,” I mutter under my breath. Being on the Swim and Dive team is what I miss most about high school. It’s the only thing I miss, and I welcome the chance to get into the water.
“Room’s through the kitchen on the right. Swim trunks are on the closet shelf. Grab a pair while I get some towels.”
I grab one off the shelf, and my hand hesitates just a second before I strip down and pull the black Speedo up my legs. When I return to the patio, Kevin’s already in the water.
“Watch your head,” he calls out.
I don’t slow down. I sprint toward the edge and leap over Kevin’s head, slicing into the water in a smooth, horizontal dive, like I’m still seventeen and none of this matters. I resurface with a shake of my hair that sends streams of water flying toward him.
“Wow, that feels fantastic!”
“Didn’t your mom warn you about diving into the shallow end?” Kevin asks.
“She warned me about lots of things,” I shoot back. “Didn’t listen to any of ‘em.”
He tosses me a beer, and I float on my back, balancing the bottle on my stomach like a lazy otter with a shell. It rocks gently with the movement of the water, and I realize how easy it is to be here, right now, in the night air, with him.
We float and talk, but not about anything important.
Kevin teases me about Stacy, and I joke about what a bitch she is, how stupid I was to get married so young, and how little time it took to become so miserable.
Underneath the sarcasm, however, there’s an ache.
I don’t know why I’m saying any of it. Maybe I want him to ask the real questions. Perhaps I want him to see through me.
I pull the classic submarine beer trick—drink the whole bottle underwater, then let it rocket to the surface, filled with the air from my lungs. Kevin laughs, and something inside me loosens again.
We dive and splash, wrestle for sunken quarters like kids, like idiots. It doesn’t matter. I want him to laugh. I want to feel good again.
After a while, we drift toward the shallow end and lean our necks against the pool’s edge, floating on our backs, our chests bobbing above the water. We let our breath slow, and our bodies relax, staring up at the stars overhead—quiet now, the space between us calm again.
“I’m so fucked up,” I say before I can stop myself.
He turns to look at me. “You shouldn’t drink so much, then.”
“Not the beer, man.” I stare at the stars, counting none of them. “My life.”
Kevin doesn’t argue. He just listens.
I tell him how I feel stuck. About marrying someone I barely liked. About working at my dad’s restaurant and waking up every day like I’ve already screwed it all up.
“Your life isn’t fucked up,” Kevin says.
“You’re still a baby, for Christ’s sake.
” He tells me I can change things, that people make mistakes and learn from them, and that it’s never too late.
It sounds good, but I’m not sure if I believe him.
It’s so easy for him. Kevin never makes mistakes.
I should have done what he did and gone to college.
He’s always been perfect at everything .
I don’t tell him what I want to say—that seeing him tonight feels like something cracking open inside me again.
Instead, I tell him the story about the waiter at my dad’s restaurant who hit on me.
I ask Kevin if it means something—that I didn’t get mad at the guy—that I didn’t say I was straight, but instead told him I was engaged.
As I tell the story, I shift uncomfortably in the water, suddenly aware of how exposed I feel in his borrowed Speedo—where our attention drifts.
I glance to the side when I realize what’s happening, but Kevin doesn’t flinch.
He’s not joking or getting weird. He’s listening—and he’s staring at my bulge, making it even more pronounced.
I think about ending my float, ducking underwater, but I don’t.
I can’t—frozen in place by how it makes me feel inside, the way desire feels, both sides of it. I can’t move. I don’t want to move.
I catch him blink, and I think he’s suddenly becoming aware that his gaze lingered too long.
He quickly looks at my face, but it’s too late.
I’ve already shifted my glance back to the stars.
I’m not sure if he’s caught me noticing him, but I take a deep breath to recenter my focus as he does the same.
“So,” Kevin finally says, “if you weren’t mad, you think a part of you wanted to?”
“No,” I answer, glancing back at him. “I wouldn’t want to with him.” I could tell he sensed the emphasis land hard and clear.”
We turn in the water and let our arms and elbows rest on the pool’s edge, our chins atop our wrists as our bodies hang relaxed and limp under the water’s surface. We are closer to one another now, and our elbows touch briefly as we lower our voices, as if afraid someone might overhear our words.
“So,” Kevin says softly. “Have you ever thought about being with any other guy?”
“I don’t know.” I take a deep breath. “ I mean, I’ve wondered. You know, not like wanted to, or tried to, or anything. But yeah. I’ve wondered.” I ask him if he thinks that’s creepy.
“Of course not,” he replies. He says everyone has wondered—it’s part of figuring yourself out.
He says everyone is on a sexual spectrum, like other traits, and no one is one hundred percent anything.
Anyone who says they haven’t thought about it is lying.
I believe him. Not because I need to, but because I want to.
“So,” I say, testing the water further. “ You’ve thought about having sex with a guy, then?”
He smirks. “Are you trying to entrap me in my own logic?”
“You said everyone, didn’t you?”
“Okay, fine, if you must know. I have thought about it before. Yeah, sure I have.”
“With anyone in particular?”
“No, not really, just in general.” He doesn’t dodge, but his eyes say otherwise.
“Did you ever do it?” I ask. I feel this buzz in my chest. Not from the beer. From the way he’s watching me now.
“No,” he says. “But I don’t think I’d feel bad or guilty if I had.”
There’s a quiet and dangerous pause between us.
Kevin tells me that if two people have feelings for each other, whether of the same or opposite sex, they should be allowed to express those feelings. “Besides,” he laughs, “sex is sex, and sex is supposed to be fun. What’s the big deal?”
“So you think you ever will?” I ask.