by Sarah Tomp
“I made my gainer two-and-a-half tonight.”
“Maximum Mags! Why didn’t you tell me right away? Did you rip it?”
“Duh. No way. But I didn’t bruise anything, either.”
“You’re such a big-girl diver.”
“I thought Benny was going to cry, he was so happy.”
“Of course. Now the colleges are going to be knocking down your door. That’s a real money dive.”
“Should I call the coach at Uden College? Or wait until I get it on video?”
“Don’t settle, Mags.”
“It’s not settling. Uden is a really good school.”
“Why be good when you could be great?” Bennyisms had a way of slipping out of her mouth before she thought them.
Softly Maggie asked, “Why quit now? After everything . . .”
That’s what diving had been for her. Everything.
“There’s no point. Not after I blew my chance at Nationals.” She had to make Benny’s words her own by saying them over and over again.
“You fell. You got hurt. Stop me if I’m missing something.”
“Stop.” Her voice held a warning that Maggie would recognize. After she’d scratched the meet, Benny had banished her. He’d quit her. “It’s over and done. And now I might as well enjoy my senior year.” Maggie would help make these words mean something. She knew Ria had never cared about school. It was something to endure rather than enjoy, but she’d promised her parents—and herself—she’d at least graduate from high school. “I’m not going to college like you, Mags.”
“If I get a scholarship,” Maggie said. “I hope I have a coach long enough to sign somewhere.”
“What do you mean? What’s going on?”
“It’s basic math, Ria. If your parents aren’t paying him anymore . . .”
She didn’t have to know numbers to know Maggie was right. Between paying for her extra workouts, private lessons, and miscellaneous other ways of supporting his gym, her parents had made sure Benny stayed in business. They had to—there was no better coach in town. Or the county. There was no one as good as Benny for endless miles in all directions. But now there was nothing for them to pay for. Even Benny needed money.
Ria felt Maggie’s blame weighing down the trampoline. If Benny stopped coaching, her whole team would be lost. The ripples of one mistake flowed outward, expanding.
A song popped into Ria’s head. If wishes were fishes and fishes could sing . . . Except she didn’t know the rest of the words. They’d floated away, off into the blurry stars.
Three
Ria woke at dimmest dawn. Even a month after quitting, her body was still conditioned to wake up early. Ready to be put in motion. Eager to perform. On autopilot, she got dressed to work out. She was downstairs before the sun had fully lit the sky. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, the day already felt longer than it should.
When she heard her parents moving around upstairs, she bolted for the back door. She darted across the yard, climbed the wooden fence, and escaped to the trail that ran behind her house. She sent them a text: Went for a run.
Then, to make it true, she bent over and stretched. Lifted her arms above her head. Twisted and turned to loosen her back, her neck. Out of habit, she did the dry-land modeling exercises Benny insisted on at the start of every water workout. She went through the motion of doing her dives, standing in place.
It was too hard being around her parents’ frustration and questions. Diving had left this big hole, bigger than the quarry, for all of them. They didn’t know how to talk to each other anymore. Their lives had always revolved around it. After school and work, on weekends, all the time, all year long, everything was to make sure she could dive. Even their vacations had been planned around her meets. She’d loved Seattle because that was the first time she’d swept an entire meet, winning her age category in every event. It wasn’t the Space Needle or the fish market or the ferry ride that she remembered best—it was that giddy, impatient feeling of wanting to get back to the pool.
Last year they’d skipped the vacation they’d planned in Orlando. None of them were in the mood after that meet. Benny had wanted her to do her reliable inward dive during Optionals, but Ria was sure she could nail her new gainer for more points and way more bragging rights. Which she did. It was the best one she’d ever done. But then Benny wouldn’t coach her for the rest of the meet. He’d said, “You want to be on your own, be on your own.” She’d completed her last two dives, but his silence was excruciating.
Her parents hadn’t noticed the way he’d shunned her. They had no idea he’d been mad until he left before the medals were presented. The whole drive back her mother had ranted and called him unprofessional and immature. Dad had steamed silently. And Ria cried in the back because she knew she should have listened to her coach.
And now, ever since she’d scratched the meet in Los Angeles, he’d shut her out completely.
After she’d cycled through her list, Ria stopped diving into air and took off running. Down the trail. Along the ups and downs. Past the shrubs and boulders.
She hated running.
There was the wearing of shoes. The monotony of doing the same motion over and over. The hard pounding on the ground. Fighting the heavy pull of gravity. No adrenaline thrill to balance the effort. The awkward feeling that she was taking up too much space. Sweating. Panting.
All the ways it wasn’t diving.
There was no finesse required. No precision. No power laced with grace.
But her body needed to get tired, so she ran harder. Faster. Even if she hated it, she knew how to push herself to that edge of not being able to go one more step, and then taking that next step anyway. To keep going. If it’s possible, then do it. Pain is temporary. It’s the body’s warning, but not the defeat.
She hit a patch of gravel, slipping sideways. As a reflex she hugged her arms close, ready to roll, but she regained her balance before hitting the ground. The near-fall shook her, made her slow her pace.
It only took one slip to change everything.
If she hadn’t slipped in Los Angeles, she wouldn’t have fallen, wouldn’t have invited all the trouble that followed. If she hadn’t been running, she’d still be diving.
She left the trail, away from the slippery gravel. As she jogged down the grassy hill, momentum made her slide. Thick blades scraped against her legs. At the bottom, the land flattened out amid the weeds. This area was filled with hazards like rocks and sticks and who-knows-what living behind the bushes and trees. She should turn around before she got hurt or lost. But it was easier to keep moving in the same direction.
Her contacts felt dry and scratchy, and sweat dripped around her eyes, making it hard to see. Her breaths came rough and jagged, sounding loud and embarrassing.
As she followed the trail around a collection of boulders, she slammed into what felt like a wall.
A muddy, moving wall.
She stumbled backward, awkwardly bending her legs beneath her. “Damn!” was all she could manage around her gasps for air.
Two figures stood in front of her. One—the wall—was enormous, the other shorter and wiry, both of them covered from head to toe in mud. They each wore a yellow hard hat with a lightbulb in the middle.
“Ria?”
The enormous wall took off his helmet and wiped the mud coating his face. Now she could see it was Cotton Talley. They used to be friends back in elementary school—the kind of friendship too embarrassing to reminisce over. He was with his friend Leo, who she didn’t know as well.
“Were you cleaning out sewers or something?” she asked.
“No. We were not cleaning sewers. We were spelunking.”
She had no idea what that meant. “Well, you have some of it on your face. And your clothes. And pretty much all of you.”
“We were in a cave. Over that way.” He swung his arm outward, sending a spray of gunk through the air.
Ria wiped the mud droplets off her le
g. “Is that allowed?”
The two boys looked at each other briefly. “Yes and no,” said Leo.
“Technically, we should have written permission from the owner of the property,” Cotton said in his usual stiff way of talking. “But as the owner is the housing developer who built our neighborhood and is based out of Alexandria, Virginia, we assume we, as residents of this neighborhood, have access rights.”
He sounded so formal. Even though they were both wearing the same kind of weird olive-green full bodysuit, Leo’s looked loose and baggy, while Cotton’s was zipped all the way to his neck and fit him precisely, borderline tight. Maybe that was just because he was so tall. His dark brown curls, matted and twisted from the helmet, looked more rebellious.
“We know what we’re doing,” said Leo dismissively.
She scanned the overgrown field of shrubs and knobby trees. In the distance were hills and boulders—but also, somewhere, apparently not too far, was a cave.
“The latest rain made it muddier than usual,” said Cotton.
“Looks like it,” she said, even if she wasn’t entirely sure how they’d gotten from one place to another. “You’re completely muddened.”
Cotton laughed. Loud and staccato. The same laugh she remembered from when they were little. As always, it made her laugh, too. With the way he grinned, the cave must have been worth the mess.
“Muddened,” he said. “We are muddened. Completely muddened.”
“Yep,” said Leo, loudly, as if hitting a reset button.
She hated the way Leo looked embarrassed for his friend. She ignored him and instead focused on Cotton. “I had no idea there was a cave nearby.”
She knew there were caves, in theory. They were probably composed of the same limestone that was dug out of the quarry back when mining employed most of the town. Every year in elementary school they’d been given a safety presentation warning of the dangers lurking below the ground. It had never occurred to her to look for one so close to her house. She shivered in the early sunlight, but it wasn’t only the breeze hitting the sweat on her skin.
Now she was thinking about Esther, Cotton’s little sister. When they were in fifth grade and Esther was in third, she’d gone out to play and never came back. She was someone Ria had seen almost every day, even if she never thought much about her. Esther was always there, until she wasn’t. Their quiet town had suddenly become big news. Invaded by strangers, all wanting to help, but making everything feel wrong.
“Where’s the entrance?” Ria turned to Cotton, felt him tense up. She’d forgotten he didn’t like being touched without warning. She pulled away, leaving a clear space between them. She felt desperate to know more. “Will you show me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please? I don’t want to go in there by myself.”
“No!” he said, obviously agitated. “You can’t do that. Caving requires a partner. And proper gear.”
“Then take me. For a peek, that’s all,” she begged. “So I can see where it is.”
It was like she could see the struggle going on in Cotton’s mind. He wanted to show her. But something was in the way. “My mother is expecting us home. She’ll worry.”
“Because of Esther.” She knew it was true, but the shocked look on Leo’s face made her wonder if she’d blown her chance by being too blunt.
“Yes. It’s a matter of safety.”
“Can’t you call your mother?”
“I don’t have my phone.”
“There’s no reception in the cave,” explained Leo.
“Use mine.”
“No, thank you.” Cotton tucked his hand behind his back.
“Just show me where it is.” She knew she was obsessing, but she couldn’t give up, not this close to almost. The promise of a thrill hummed in her ears. “Please say yes.”
“Yes,” said Cotton. Then, to Leo, “That is a compromise. Right? Isn’t this the kind of flexibility you say I need?”
“Sure, okay,” said Leo. Then, glaring at Ria: “We’ll show you the entrance, but that’s it. We’re not taking you inside.”
“And you can’t go in by yourself.”
“I won’t,” she said, not entirely sure what she was promising.
The entrance to the cave was close to invisible. A large boulder and a scraggly, forgettable pine blocked the opening, only a few steps off the trail. She could have passed this spot a hundred times and never noticed it. But once she ducked her head around the tree, she immediately saw the hole. Cool air wafted over her skin as she breathed in something like mildew, but greener. Ria moved closer, squatted, and peered in. She could only see a few feet inside of the rocky entrance before meeting a wall of dark.
“What do you do in there?” she asked, standing up.
Cotton tilted his head like he didn’t understand the question. Then said, slowly, “We explore. We walk around. We see what we find.”
“So it’s like hiking, but in the dark?”
He frowned, and for a minute she thought she’d said something wrong. But then he laughed.
“We’re also mapping it,” said Leo.
“What does it look like inside?”
“Well,” said Cotton, settling back on his heels, “it’s dark. And damp. There are tunnels and rooms. And there’s a small stream. There are several different geologic formations and types of crystals.” He pulled a small notebook from one of his many coverall pockets, opened to a page filled with lines and shapes. He traced one of the darker lines with his finger and started talking faster. More animated. “You come in this way, and there are two different paths. This one”—he circled one side—“ends with a stone wall. But the other side opens up after a narrow tunnel. It’s actually quite amazing.” His enthusiasm poured out, filling the space between them.
“It’s not something for everyone to know about. It’s kind of a secret.” Leo sounded borderline threatening.
“I can keep a secret.” She stepped back. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Ria is not like normal girls.”
Damn. She and Cotton had each spent plenty of time not fitting in, but she hadn’t expected to hear the obvious truth so harshly stated.
“We can trust her.”
He smiled suddenly, showing one crooked tooth on the side. Not enough to be snaggled, but more like it had its own ideas about the way it should go. Reflexively, she ran her tongue over her own teeth, feeling for the chipped spot. It was still there, even if it was too tiny for anyone else to notice.
Four
Ria waited for Benny in the dry gym parking lot. After running, she’d showered and gotten dressed in her dive team warm-up suit. It was the one she wore to meets. It always made her feel more confident.
She’d parked down the street and now stood behind the corner of the building so she could avoid talking to her teammates. The first week after she’d been banished, she’d driven by here every day, hoping she’d misunderstood. She’d even parked outside Benny’s apartment as if she could somehow telepathically change his mind. He’d known, of course, and sent her a text threatening to call the police, or worse, her parents, so she’d been forced to face the truth, complete with withdrawal symptoms.
Right now, right here, she needed to stay focused on what she wanted to say. She knew how to fix everything. For Maggie. And the rest of her team. And for Benny, too.
She knew better than to try to talk to him during a workout. As long as everyone did their assigned reps and exercises, the team could talk about anything and everything, but he never chatted. He sat back and watched. Evaluated. Rated.
They’d probably watched film today. With their previous night’s practice projected on the wall, he would have narrated each dive, stopping mid-flip, stretching flash-seconds into minutes, rewinding mistakes in slow-motion. He’d spout off his insights as to where and why a dive went wrong. He could always spot wrong. And he knew how to fix it.
That’s why he was the one person in the
world who understood her. Only he saw her hyper-distractibility as a good thing. She’d always been in trouble at school. The reason her parents put her in gymnastics, oh so long ago, was because she drove them nuts with her constant need to move. Tired of peeling her off the furniture and forcing her right-side up, they’d looked for a way to wear her out. Then she’d been too wild for that prissy world, too.
She’d finally found her place on the diving board. Benny knew how to channel her impulsiveness, her way of leaping first and looking later, her flaws and messes, into something that worked. Everything she’d accomplished—her dives, scores, wins, championships—were because of him.
Finally, an eternity after the last diver’s car left the lot, her coach appeared. His hat blocked his face, but she knew his posture, the brisk way he walked, always with purpose.
“Hi.”
He stopped, a few feet from his red SUV. Stared for a full minute before his face broke into something she was almost sure was a smile. She licked her lips, tried not to fidget.
“I went to the quarry. It looks dive-able. It must have been a freak accident when that boy lost his head.”
He stared at her but didn’t take it back, didn’t pretend she’d heard his story wrong.
“Did you go for it? Or did you walk away?”
They both knew the answer.
“Why are you here, Ria?”
A shiver of doubt ran over her skin. But then she shook it off. “Let me come back.”
“Not happening.”
“Please?” Sometimes begging worked. “I’ll do whatever you say. You can work me as hard as you want. We can go back to the way it was.”
“I got you there, Ria. I got you ready. We were going to go all the way.” His voice was steely, metallic and cold. “But you blew it. You ran away.”
“I know.” There was no point in apologizing. Benny hated the word “sorry.”
“You could have been a champion, but now you’re nothing.” He shifted his bag to his other shoulder. He was getting irritated. Not quite pissed, yet. She still had time. “You were barely hurt after that fall. You quit!”
