Deep End

by Ali Hazelwood

Lots of competitive sports require a delicate balance of physical and psychological strength, but diving…diving has trained long and hard to become the mind-fuckiest of them all.

Maybe I’m hypersensitive when it comes to situations like this one—okay, I’m a stack of hypersensitivities in a trench coat—but I have my reasons, and I’d rather make a fool of myself and err on the side of caution than…whatever the alternative is.

A guy who looks remarkably like Dr. Rodriguez’s fascist TA, the one who docked one point off my orgo final for writing the wrong date, walks by.

“I feel like I know so little about you.” What a coincidence. I, too, know very little about me.

I sigh. “Is he mortified? Am I bestowing dishonor upon my old club?” “What? No. You’re not a white-collar defense attorney on the Sacklers’ payroll, Scarlett. You had a bad injury. Everyone’s rooting for you.”

Notable fact of the day: he’s wearing shoes.

I watch them a little enviously, 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.

It could be the glossy patina of the deep learning algorithms, but my brain has classified him as Fairly Unthreatening.

If only googling whether someone hates me were a possibility.

I managed not to burst into tears at the far-reaching, existential implications of his words, but decided to make a mental note for future me. Highly susceptible to inspirational messaging. Must NOT join cult.

“I have hobbies,” I counter weakly. Sometimes, when I’m done with homework at a decent hour, I read Mafia erotica until I fall asleep. Eat crackers in bed. Consider calling 911, just to talk to someone.

I may be at my worst, but I can masquerade as someone who’s doing perfectly fucking fine.

“Whatever just happened with that accent is a violation of NCAA bylaws and the Geneva convention.”