Strike Pattern

The pool lights flickered—once, twice—before everything went dark. Great. Just great.

"Anyone else see that?" Marcus asked, treading water somewhere to my left.

"Yeah, dipshit, we all saw it," Kayla shot back. "The power's out."

I stayed pressed against the pool wall, grateful for the cover of darkness. Summer league swim practice had ended twenty minutes ago, but somehow we were all still here, lingered by the humidity that clung to our skin and the unspoken thing that'd been sitting between Marcus and me since Regionals.

Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating the pool deck in stark relief. For half a second, I saw it: Marcus watching me. Not glancing. Watching.

My heart did that stupid flutter thing it'd been doing since June, when he'd beat me in the 100 free by two tenths of a second and then smiled like it was nothing.

"That's bullshit," someone muttered. I think it was Ty.

"What is?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"Coach switching up the relay," Marcus said. His voice carried differently in the dark. "Putting you on anchor instead of me."

The air left my lungs.

I'd been spying on the roster sheet in Coach's office for three days straight, waiting for him to notice the change. Waiting for Marcus to say something. He hadn't. Until now, in the dark, during a thunderstorm, while we were all swimming in our collective awkwardness.

"You're faster on the back half," Marcus continued, like it was nothing. Like he hadn't fought for that anchor spot all season. "You deserve it."

Another flash of lightning. This time I saw Kayla's expression—she knew. She'd known about the spine-tingling, stomach-dropping, completely disastrous crush I'd been failing to suppress. She'd been covering for me during practice whenever I got distracted watching Marcus dive.

"Since when are you so chill about losing your spot?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Marcus swam closer. I could feel the water moving around him.

"Since I realized I'd rather watch you race it," he said. "I mean—if that's not weird. Is that weird? That's probably weird."

Thunder rumbled directly overhead, and I started laughing. I couldn't help it. The absolute absurdity of it all—the stolen glances, the roster sheet reconnaissance, the way my heart had been bull-in-a-china-shop charging toward this moment for months.

"Yeah," I said, still laughing. "It's weird. But I think I'm okay with it."

The emergency lights clicked on. Marcus was right there, smiling crookedly, water dripping from his hair. Kayla made gagging sounds from the other end of the pool. Some things don't need lightning to illuminate them.