15. Ripples
Ripples
Maren sits at the desk in the coach’s office, the surface completely swallowed by the printouts she managed to save.
Pages with smeared ink, wrinkled corners, a few still smelling faintly of chlorine.
She is trying to place them in some sort of order, if by some grace of God her laptop survives.
The screen had flickered earlier in a way that felt personal.
Betrayal by technology was one thing. Betrayal by her own carelessness was another.
She glances through the narrow window toward the pool.
The overhead emergency lights cast strange patterns across the water, soft lines of light drifting and breaking apart as the ceiling fans turn in slow circles.
On the bleachers sits her laptop in a giant Ziploc bag filled with rice.
An age group parent had heard what happened and arrived carrying a fifty-pound bag of rice like they were delivering supplies to a bunker.
They poured half into the bag and nestled the laptop inside as gently as if it were a living thing.
Maren was willing to try anything at this point.
Miracles come in strange forms, she keeps telling herself.
Her attention drops back to the papers in her hand. She tries to sort them by meet, by event, by date, by the logic she had so carefully built into her spreadsheets. None of it feels right now. It is like trying to rebuild a house from scattered bricks while the foundation crumbles under her feet.
The silence in the pool is deafening tonight.
It is not really silent. The pumps and filters are still running, steady and constant, but her brain refuses to register them.
All she can hear is her own heartbeat mixing with the messy churn of her thoughts.
Everything keeps circling in the same place.
If she could not even protect a laptop or keep practice running efficiently or hold herself together through one chaotic morning, how is she supposed to be a head coach?
Five years after graduation, and she is exactly where she was before graduation.
Same pool. Same office. Same tired notebook with the corners bent from being shoved into her bag a hundred times.
The only difference is that she is on this side of the desk now.
That check is in the right column. She tries to take comfort in that, tries to believe that progress can be measured in something other than yards and medals and years. But tonight, it feels small.
She stacks another pile of papers. They slide sideways, and she catches them with a frustrated sigh. Her fingers are cold and pruney from hours of damp pages and stress. She pulls her hoodie sleeves over her hands and presses her palms to her forehead.
Maybe it is not the mess that bothers her.
Maybe it is what the mess represents. She has spent years holding everything together through a sheer force of will.
Schedules. Practice plans. Emotions. Walls she built so she would not break again.
And one chaotic morning was enough to knock her sideways.
The office feels too warm. Too tight. Too filled with noises she cannot name.
Maren pushes away from the desk and steps out onto the deck.
The air smells like chlorine and wet tile, familiar and sharp in a way that settles deep in her chest. She lowers herself onto the cool floor, letting the temperature bite gently at her skin.
The chill shoots up her arms and through her palms, steadying her breath.
She has been grounding herself like this for years. Long before she knew what it meant. Long before she had the words for why her brain spiraled and spun out. The cool tile always gave her something real to hold onto. Something constant. Something that did not ask anything from her.
She closes her eyes and presses both hands flat against the deck. The tile is smooth and cold, and it pulls her back into her body. The space around her widens. The water laps quietly against the gutter, steady and rhythmic. For the first time all day, she finds a calmer pace.
A few feet away, the ripples on the surface catch the emergency light and scatter it into soft, moving lines.
The whole building feels like it is moving with her.
This is the part of the pool she trusts.
The part that does not demand perfection or control.
The part that always held her when her mind refused to settle.
She stays there for a long moment, letting the cold seep into her hands, letting the quiet do the work she cannot seem to do for herself. It is not enough to fix anything. It never is. But it is enough to keep her steady.
And for tonight, steadiness feels like a small kind of victory.
A blast of air hits Maren as she lies on the deck outside the office.
She does not register what it means until she hears footsteps crossing the tile.
She squeezes her eyes shut, silently begging the universe for it to be the janitor and not a swim parent.
The last thing she wants is to be found mid-grounding moment like some sort of poolside cryptid.
She is not sure how she would even begin to explain it.
“Um, I brought you some coffee,” a familiar voice says. “You know, if you are not too busy having, um, is this a midlife crisis?”
Maren’s eyes fly open.
Reese stands over her, framed by the emergency lights, long legs and damp hair making her look taller than she is. From down here, Maren could swear she had gained an inch.
Maren pushes herself into a seated position, dignity failing to keep up. “Would you believe that I lost my contact and had to look for it down here?”
Reese raises an eyebrow. “Maren Clarke, you have perfect vision. You have never needed contacts in your entire life.”
“So that’s a no,” Maren mutters.
Reese extends a cup toward her, and the sight of it hits Maren hard. It’s not just a cup. It’s the cup. A Red Cup sleeve, her name written in looping handwriting, the little heart added as thoughtlessly and consistently as ever.
A memory wrapped in cardboard and cinnamon.
Maren takes it and holds it under her nose. Coffee, vanilla, and cinnamon. Her favorite. Reese remembered.
They scoot back until they rest their shoulders against the wall, the cool tile sending a shiver up Maren’s spine. She keeps both hands wrapped around the cup.
“You did not have to come back,” she says softly. The confusion is there in her voice, no matter how she tries to hide it.
“Would you not do the exact same for me?” Reese asks.
Maren does not answer. She does not have to. They both know the answer already.
She never would have left.
They sit in a small pocket of silence. Comfortable is not the right word. Familiar is closer. The kind of pause that used to live between them when everything mattered too much to say out loud.
Reese leans her head back against the wall. “The alumni were still buzzing when I headed out.”
Maren groans. “Of course they were.”
“One of them tried to start a relay using kickboards,” Reese says. “He declared himself team captain and immediately fell off the block.”
Maren huffs a quiet laugh. “That makes more sense.”
“It was chaos. But Coach Hensley handled it. I promise.”
Maren looks down into her cup. “I’m sorry I disappeared on you guys this afternoon. Feels like everything I touched today went wrong.”
Reese’s voice softens. “It didn’t.”
Maren does not look up.
Reese nudges her knee gently. “Your laptop may have hissed, though.”
“It did,” Maren says. “I think it cursed me.”
“Oh, it did,” Reese says with mock solemnity. “Ancient pool spirits. Very dramatic.”
Maren snorts into her coffee, a sound that feels like it has not existed in her in a long time. Reese smiles at that, small and warm.
The banter eases. The quiet shifts. Not awkward. Just waiting.
Reese lowers her cup, turning it slowly in her hands. “Can I ask you something?” She says, voice softer than the room.
Maren’s pulse flickers. There it is. The turn.
“Yeah,” she says.
Reese does not look at her at first. She watches the water instead, the way the lights ripple across the surface. “Were you actually okay today,” she asks, “or were you just pretending you were?”
Maren swallows hard. Her throat feels tight. “Pretending,” she finally says. “Mostly.”
Reese nods like she already knew. She always knew.
They sit with that for a beat. Then another.
“I didn’t mean to disappear,” Maren adds. “I just… needed a second. Everything felt like it was slipping out of my hands.”
Reese turns her head. “Yeah. I could see that.” Her voice is soft, not judgmental, not pity. Just real.
The quiet stretches out again.
Maren stares at the cup between her hands. “You used to tell me I bottled everything up. I didn’t believe you.”
“You never did,” Reese says with a faint smile.
“Maybe you were right.”
Reese speaks slowly. “I wasn’t right about everything.”
That catches Maren off guard. She looks over. Reese is watching the water again, jaw tight in a way Maren knows all too well.
“I thought staying in North Carolina would help you focus,” Reese says. Her voice is steady, but it carries a kind of old exhaustion. “You were drowning in pressure, and I thought my stepping away would make it easier for you. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“You thought wrong.”
It comes out before Maren can stop it. Not sharp. Not bitter. Just the truth.
Reese closes her eyes. “Yeah. I did.”
Maren presses her thumb into the paper sleeve of her cup. “I didn’t need you gone from my world. I needed you with me. Even if it was messy. Even if I was hard to be around.”
“You needed anchors,” Reese says quietly. “And I needed air.”
Maren’s breath stutters. That is it. The root. The simple truth that hurt them both in equal measures in the end.
Reese pulls her knees up, resting her chin on them. “I felt like I was losing pieces of myself back then. Like everything was about diving and scholarships and expectations. And you were carrying so much. I did not know how to be with you without adding weight. To either of us.”
Maren nods, staring at the tile, tracing the lines with her fingertips. “And I didn’t know how to let you in without feeling like I was failing. How to let you see my mess.”
They sit there in the strange stillness of the pool, emergency lights flickering across the water’s surface, everything quiet except for the hum of the pumps.
“I loved you,” Reese said suddenly. Barely a whisper.
Maren’s breath catches. She looks over. Reese is staring straight ahead.
“I loved you,” she repeats. “But I handled it badly.”
Maren’s chest tightens. “I loved you too,” she says. “I probably still do in some way.”
Reese nods once. A small, almost broken gesture. “Yeah. Me too.”
The silence that follows is softer. Not heavy like before. Not sharp like the years between them. It was almost forgiving.
Reese uncurls slowly, setting her empty cup aside. She reaches into her sweatshirt pocket and pulls out a small scrap of paper, folding and unfolding it with her thumb.
“I do not know what is meant for us,” she says. “But… in case my phone number was stored on that laptop of yours.” Reese nods toward the massive bag of rice sitting on the bleachers.
She holds the paper out.
Her number. Written cleanly. Without a heart this time.
Maren looks at the number again. Then at Reese. The ache inside her feels a little less like she is drowning.
“Neither do I,” she says.
Reese stands slowly. She hesitates, just for a moment, like there is something else she wants to say. Something she is not brave enough to reach for yet. Then she gives a small, tired smile.
“I will see you around, Maren.”
“Yeah,” Maren whispers. “You will.”
Reese walks toward the door, her reflection trailing across the water.
Maren stays seated on the tile, the scrap of paper held gently in her hand. The lights ripple across the pool, bending and shifting in quiet waves.
Reese turns around when she reaches the door. “You know they are doing a bonfire at the lake tomorrow night, if you want to come.”
Maren looks toward the door long after Reese slips through it. The scrap of paper rests in her palm, warm from her skin. Familiar in a way, she did not expect to feel again.
She used to think everything ended sharply.
She used to think the doors slammed and stayed shut.
But maybe she was wrong about that.
Maybe some things do not close.
Maybe they drift.
Maybe they wait.
Maybe they circle back.
Just enough.