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