Deep End

by Ali Hazelwood

The fuzz of his jaw, like he hasn’t shaved in a while—typical preseason swimmer stuff, but instead of sloppy it looks kind of GQ on him. And those freckles that shouldn’t work, but really do. I wonder whether he’s considered handsome in Sweden, or just your run-of-the-mill ordinary guy. Is it a favorable exchange rate—a Stockholm three translating to a US ten?

but putting on makeup to drag myself to a bar sounds more exhausting than a decathlon—a normal feeling, surely appropriate for a twenty-one-year-old.

“Come closer,” he orders. Lukas stopped a step behind me. I turn and frown up at him. “Why?” “Because I just asked you to, Scarlett.”

It might seem a bit out of character, given my…proclivities, but I really don’t like people who order me around with no authority to do so.

Same girl

A breathless laugh bursts out of me. He’s just so blunt. Direct. Difficult, to not be direct back.

“You just recently broke up. Are you really not jealous?” “Nope.” “Is it a Swedish thing?” “Maybe? I’ll ask my brothers. They might have some insight.”

The thing is, I love reading Mafia erotica as much as the next girl with daddy issues, and my attraction for fictional guys making scenes in iconic, over-the-top ways is among my most virulent traits. But jealousy is born less of love and more of insecurity. And it intrigues me, the way Lukas obviously cares about Pen without being possessive of her.

His quiet self-assurance seems surprisingly mature. Boys around me, they feel like…well. Boys. But Lukas might already be a man.

“You can probably go to a bar tonight and find five hundred options.” “Five hundred.” “Well…many. Several.”

“What about you?” “Me?” “Are you seeing someone?” “Oh. No.” “Then you’re free to fuck whoever you like.”

“I guess I am.” “You could go to a bar. Find some options.” “Five hundred?” I smile. He doesn’t. “Realistically, no. But several. Many. You could look for someone who’ll give you what you need.” Drip. Drip. “Yeah. I could.” “Will you?” “It’s not so…” “Simple?”

“Is it me? Or men, in general?” Jesus. Does he always just—say what he thinks? Narrate the world as he sees it? Shouldn’t some things stay unspoken?

So odd, the sense of kinship I feel toward this man with whom I’ve exchanged no more than a couple hundred words.

If you decide to go for it, I think it should be me.

I wonder what that’s like. My old synchro partner and I had a good relationship, but she was older than me. We dove together for only a year or so, and outside of that we had little in common. I’ve never been bullied or maliciously isolated, and I hardly ever don’t get along with people. Unfortunately, I rarely ever get along with them enough to qualify as more than an acquaintance.

Being a good athlete, a good student, reaching for perfect—those were the building blocks of me. Now that I’m struggling with almost everything, do I still have a fully fleshed identity? Or am I just an assembly of meat pieces, to be sold separately on clearance?

How did we go from avoiding even the slightest passing interaction for two whole years to this? His presence feels so…brutal. I’m not sure how to phrase it any better—he’s just aggressively, unyieldingly here. A command to pay attention.

“Are you planning to call her Dr. Smith for the rest of the semester?” “Of course.” The corner of his mouth curls like he’s entertained. Me: a spectacle. “What?” I ask, defensive. “You really do like your authority figures, don’t you?” I gasp in outrage. And then…then I laugh. “Seriously?”

“You’re just as much of a perv as I am.” “Oh, no.” My eyebrow lifts. “Way more,” he adds. “I guarantee it.”

“One of us gets off to…flogs?” “The other, to calling people ‘Doctor.’ ” “Just two regular freaks.” “Nothing to see here.”

“You took my physics class last year. Orgo, too. We were constantly in the same lectures.” “Are you sure?” He just smiles, like he’s charmed by my total lack of recollection. “I never…I didn’t notice you.”

On top of being Lukas Blomqvist, freestyle god, he’s also some kind of premed semi-deity. How annoying of him.

“I thought it was just me,” he says. “But it’s men in general, isn’t it?” “What?” “We make you nervous.”

“I function fine,” I say, chin tilted up, a hint of challenge. It’s unnecessary. “I don’t doubt it.” “Okay. Good.”

You get it. Thank you for getting it.

I know Lukas is our age, but he seems to have skipped the self-doubt stage. Resolute. Strong-willed. Knows what and where and when he wants to be. I bet he wrote his med school essay in twenty minutes.

“He deserves to live his best sexy, depraved, dungeony life.”

Diving necessitates balance and control of powerful bursts of movement. Swimming is all about reducing drag through the water to increase speed. We are all muscular, but the sports have different demands, and swimmers’ bodies tend to be cut in a way divers’ aren’t. And Lukas…well. Lukas is one of the fastest swimmers in the world. He looks the part.

I know, rationally, that it’s nothing to write home about. I grew up in pools, surrounded by rippling lats and arching trapezii since before I fully understood what sex was.

But maybe it’s just this kinship I feel for him. Maybe Pen hacked my head, and I’m imagining what he could use all that strength for. Maybe I finally reached puberty at the geriatric age of twenty-one.

Unknown: I do. I have a thing for women who are smarter than me.

Scarlett: I’m not ready for the responsibility of being part of your lucky routine. If you lose, will the King of Sweden get mad at me? Unknown: My country is a parliamentary democracy. Scarlett: You’re a man of science. You’re not really superstitious, are you? Unknown: Maybe I am.

I dislike the Use Your Words part of therapy. A problem, since it’s all of it.

I’m not sure what it says about the fun house of horrors that is my social life, but the meeting that follows is the most fun I’ve had in a while.

“Collecting archetypes is my passion.”

It’s just the way I’m wired. It’s written in my neurons, how much I enjoy the strength behind his grip. His size. The ease with which he could overpower me. He could make me do things, and knowing that stokes a hollow ache in my abdomen. But he will not, not unless I give him the go-ahead, and that’s the kind of belly-warming knowledge that makes that ache even sharper.

It’s not morally wrong. It doesn’t hurt anyone. There are no victims here, but maybe it’s messed up? At the very least it’s so fucking—I don’t even know, heteronormative of me. Gender conforming. Regressive. Stereotypical. Banal. I hate it. I love it.

Swimming and Diving are more incestuous than we like to admit, mostly because our chaotic schedules match well enough to allow the penciling in of some fucking.

“You are very literal.” A twitch of his lips. “And you are prone to exaggerations.”

On Saturday, I take the MCAT. Or maybe the MCAT takes me. I’m no linguist, but afterward I lie face down on the couch while Maryam stacks an increasingly tall pile of textbooks on my butt. (“JengAss, this fall’s hottest game.”) There seems to be little agency in what I was put through.

“Nope. Just took the MCAT.” “What’s the—hang on, is that the seven-hour test for med schools?” “Yup.” “Oh my god. Lukas took it last year.” She pulls out of the parking lot. “He was toast after that.” “I’m starting to suspect it’s part of a Big Pharma conspiracy to force us to seek psychiatric care.”

“Did Lukas do well?” “I think so?” She glances at the directions. “He was satisfied, which is unheard of. I think the score was 525.” I almost choke on my tongue. Screw Lukas Blomqvist and his 525. Is it too much to ask for a bilingual Olympic gold medalist to not be in the ninety-ninth percentile for the test I’ve bombed?

Some student athletes are able to have high GPAs, sport their little hearts out, and maintain fulfilling and exciting social calendars that yield solid lifelong friendships. I am not one of them.

I’m just not in the mood for this. And by this, I mean the way Lukas looks at me, like he can see the little crumpled-up piece of paper tucked in a corner of my head, the one where I wrote down my secrets. Like he could easily flatten it and read every last word.

If only googling whether someone hates me were a possibility.

“I was going to return downstairs in a minute. I just…I’m tired, I think.” “MCAT’ll do that to you.” How does he…? “Did Pen tell you?” “You did.” “When—oh.” On Wednesday. The Day. The Day of the Touch. “It’s so barbaric.” “Yup.” “I feel like I could sleep for a hundred hours.” “Hyperbole?” I snort. “Not this time.”

“Lots of med schools don’t have foreign language requirements, Scarlett.” So unnervingly compelling, the way my name is distorted through his accent, inside his mouth. “It looks good, though.” “So does a near-perfect GPA.” “I don’t have—” “Yes, you do.” I pinch my lips. “How do you even—” “I don’t. But you’re not the type to leave that to chance.”

Where is his filter? Was he born without one? How did Pen ever get used to this?

“What I want from you requires enthusiastic consent, not convincing.”

I could tell when you didn’t know I existed, and I could tell when you became aware of me.”