Chapter 20
LEDGER
By the time Trials prep officially ramped up in the beginning of June, my body stopped pretending it had limits, stopped distinguishing between tired and broken.
Every muscle carried a dull, persistent ache that never fully went away. Even sleep didn’t reset it anymore. It just blurred the edges enough for me to get back in the water and do it all over again.
Morning lifts bled into pool sessions. Pool sessions bled into dryland. Dryland turned into film review, nutrition meetings, and media prep. The days stacked so tightly on top of one another that I stopped counting them. I measured time in soreness instead—how deep it went, how long it lingered.
There was no room left for anything else. No room for softness. No margin for mistakes.
That was intentional.
It had to be.
And still, my times were good.
That was the part no one warned you about. That sometimes your best performances came wrapped in the worst kind of pressure. When everything clicked, expectations didn’t just rise. They hardened.
You stopped being allowed to fail.
This was the phase that separated contenders from casualties.
Coach liked to say the work didn’t get harder. You just ran out of places to hide.
I felt fast. Strong. Dangerous in the water in a way that made my pulse buzz even after I climbed out. My turns were cleaner than they’d been in years. My starts snapped sharp and aggressive. I hit the wall one morning and heard a couple of the younger guys whistle under their breath.
That used to feed me.
Lately, it just reminded me how much there was to lose.
Coach caught me as I was toweling off. She tucked her clipboard under her arm, eyes unreadable.
“You’re swimming like a man who knows what’s on the line,” she said.
I gave a half smile. “Isn’t that the point?”
She didn’t return the smile. “You’re good,” she said instead. “Better than good.”
I waited. Praise from Coach always came with a blade hidden inside it.
“But you’re not bulletproof.”
The words weighed heavier than any compliment. I wiped water from my face, heart still hammering.
“I’m fine,” I said, because that was the answer everyone expected.
She studied me like she could see straight through the muscle and discipline and routine. “You’re older than a lot of the contenders this year. That’s not a bad thing. Experience matters. But it means recovery matters more. Focus matters more.”
“I’m focused.”
“Make sure you stay that way,” she said. “Because one race decides everything.”
That was the cruel math of it. Years of work, thousands of hours in the water—reduced to a handful of seconds. One missed wall. One sloppy breath. One guy touching before you.
One race deciding whether I was still relevant.
Whether I was still worth investing in.
Whether this thing I’d built my entire life around would keep letting me belong.
“Remember,” she continued like she hadn’t been dropping anvils on me. “You’re human. That’s not a weakness—unless you forget it.”
I nodded, even though I was annoyed at how human I’d been feeling lately.
Because this human was getting easily distracted more often than not.
Distraction didn’t always look like partying or slacking off.
Sometimes it looked like hope. Like something bright and promising that wanted your attention at the worst possible time.
Like someone who had infiltrated my life and was taking up a lot of headspace.
Like curly blonde hair, deep blue eyes, kissable lips, and silky skin.
Like Roxie.
I didn’t let myself say her name during practice. I didn’t think about the way she laughed under her breath when she was nervous. I didn’t think about how we’d crossed a line we couldn’t uncross.
I told myself she was a complication.
Worse—a countdown.
Everything in my life had a clock on it right now. Trials were coming whether I was ready or not. Whether my head was clear or crowded. Whether my body held together. Whether my heart wanted things it couldn’t have.
And Roxie—she was becoming something real. I saw it in the way she moved through the apartment with purpose now, phone glued to her hand, notes scribbled everywhere. I saw it in the way her confidence sharpened instead of frayed when she talked about work.
She wasn’t drifting anymore. She was building.
And it put a crack in the careful calculations I’d been doing.
Because I was chasing something that might disappear in a blink. One bad race. One missed wall. One hundredth of a second.
She was chasing something that would still be there after the noise faded.
If I made the time and went to Worlds, there were no guarantees waiting on the other side. No contracts neatly lined up. No promise that sponsors would still care about a guy creeping toward the wrong side of twenty-five in a sport obsessed with youth.
Swimming didn’t care how loyal you’d been.
It didn’t reward longevity.
It only asked one question: Can you still touch first?
Swimming didn’t come with a retirement plan.
You were either fast enough—or you were done.
Roxie was at the dining table when I got home, papers spread out, phone tucked between her shoulder and ear. She looked up when she saw me, smiling automatically before returning to her attention.
“Yes, Friday works,” she said. “I’ll send over a draft proposal by the end of day tomorrow.”
She hung up and exhaled, pushing her curls back from her face. There was a spark in her blue eyes I’d been seeing more and more lately. Confidence. Momentum.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
Her smile widened. “Really well. They’re excited.” She shook her head like she still couldn’t quite believe it. “That’s the second company that’s reached out.”
“Good,” I said, and meant it. Pride cut through the heaviness in my chest, clean and sharp. “I told you they would be.”
She studied me for a second, like she was deciding whether to ask something harder. Then she said, “You okay? You look … wrecked.”
I snorted. “High praise.”
“I’m serious,” she said softly.
I sank into the chair across from her, elbows on the table. The words were there, right under the surface. I hadn’t planned on saying them. Hadn’t planned on letting the weight spill over.
But I was tired.
“Trials are coming up fast,” I said. “And everyone keeps talking about Worlds like it’s the finish line.”
She tilted her head. “But it’s not.”
“No,” I admitted. “It’s more like a cliff.”
She didn’t interrupt. Just waited.
“If I miss the time, that’s it,” I continued. “I don’t get another shot this year. And if I make it …” I trailed off, rubbing my hands together. “I don’t know what comes after. Sponsors don’t love guys who are aging out. Teams don’t build around maybes.”
“And swimming is all you’ve ever known,” she said quietly.
Her statement was as accurate and surprising as a bull’s eye.
“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
She reached across the table without hesitation, her hand warm over mine. Grounding.
My first instinct was to grab her.
To pull her into my lap, bury my face in her shoulder, let myself take the comfort she was offering so freely.
Gosh, I wanted it. I wanted the solid presence of her, the quiet reassurance of holding and being held.
“You’re allowed to be scared,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you’re failing.”
I swallowed. “Feels like it.”
She squeezed my hand. “You’ve given everything to this sport. Whatever happens at Trials or Worlds doesn’t erase that.”
I looked at her then, really looked at her. At the certainty in her eyes. The way she believed in forward motion, even when the path wasn’t clear.
“You’re building something,” I said before I could stop myself.
Her brows knit together. “What?”
I huffed out a quiet breath. “Sorry. I know that came out of nowhere.”
I ran a hand over the back of my neck, eyes flicking to the spread of papers between us, the way her phone kept lighting up with reminders and follow-ups. Evidence of momentum. Of a plan.
“It’s just …” I hesitated, searching for words that didn’t sound as raw as they felt. “You’re setting something up. A future. Past all of this.” I gestured vaguely between us, to the apartment, the arrangement, the timeline neither of us ever said out loud. “Past the marriage.”
Her expression softened, but she stayed quiet, letting me talk.
“I can see to Worlds,” I admitted. “That’s it. That’s as far as my brain lets me go.” I swallowed. “Everything after that feels blank. Or dark. Like I’m standing at the edge of something, and I don’t know if there’s ground on the other side.”
And maybe, though I didn’t say it, that blank space didn’t just scare me because of swimming.
It scared me because I didn’t know if she was in it.
“This.” I gestured vaguely toward her papers, her phone. “Your business. You’re not just waiting for the next thing. You’re creating it.”
She shrugged, but I could tell the words mattered. “I’m trying.”
A sense of defeat washed over me. Because she was moving forward in a way I couldn’t control. In a way that didn’t depend on hundredths of a second.
And because part of me wanted to follow her—to imagine a life where I wasn’t constantly racing a clock I couldn’t see.
“I’m proud of you,” I said quietly, the words slipping out before I could overthink them. “You didn’t have to do this. You could’ve stayed comfortable. Let everything be handled for you.”
I hesitated, then added, more honest than I’d meant to be, “But you didn’t. You chose the harder road.”
It was my way of saying what I’d only recently started to understand. That she wasn’t the trust fund baby I’d pegged her as in the beginning. That the money didn’t define her choices. That she wasn’t waiting for someone else to build her life.
Her eyes lifted to mine, surprise flickering there before something warmer settled in.
“You’re brave,” I added. “Building something from scratch? That takes guts. More than most people realize.”
The corners of her mouth curved, soft and genuine. “Thanks.”
We sat there like that for a moment, quiet and close, the air between us tangible with everything we weren’t saying.
Her hand was still on mine on the table, the heat of her skin seeping through me.
We were close enough that my instincts screamed to close the distance.
Again, I felt the urge to pull her into my lap, to anchor myself in the steady rhythm of her breathing and pretend, just for a minute, that I wasn’t running out of time.
Instead, I leaned back first.
“I should stretch,” I said, already retreating. “Early practice tomorrow.”
Her hand slipped away from mine, slow enough that I felt it all the way up my arm.
“Of course,” she said.
I couldn’t tell if there was disappointment in her voice or if it was just my own disappointment echoing back at me, filling in the spaces I’d created by stepping away.
Either way, the loss of her touch lingered longer than it should have, like my body hadn’t agreed with the decision my brain had made.
Later, her voice floated out through the bedroom door. Confident. Knowledgeable. Leading.
She wasn’t just planning anymore. She was executing.
By the time she hung up, I was already halfway done stretching, heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with training.
She was going somewhere—of course she was. Roxie didn’t drift. She moved with intention, with momentum, like a force you either learned to keep up with or got left behind by.
And I was still measuring my future in races I hadn’t swum yet.
That night, I lay awake staring at the ceiling, Coach’s words echoing in my head.
You’re not bulletproof.
So I made a decision.
I would lock everything down. Fixate on the work. On the water. On the only thing I could control.
Trials first.
No distractions. No emotional risks.
Because getting closer to Roxie—falling harder for a woman who was already building a life beyond this, beyond me—felt like a mistake I didn’t have the luxury to make.
Not now.
Not when everything was on the line.