Page 103 of Diving In
“How was the hospital?” Sam asks. He alwaysasks.
“Fine. Busy.” A dog rushes past me, distracting me from my otherwise negative thoughts. I don’t want to talk about work. “So, retiring?” I ask him instead.
There’s a pause before he accepts my change in the direction of the conversation.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I think I just need a break and to work out what I want to do. And I need to deal with this anxiety. I can’t just call you every time I start panicking, you have a job and a life.”
“Not much of a life at the moment,” I joke. But it falls flat. I’ve been struggling with my mental health recently, and witnessing Sam’s panic attack has made me realise that. Realise that the difficulty sleeping, the fact that I don’t want to see anyone and that I don’t have energy to do things might actually add up to more than just being a bit drained. I don’t want to ignore it until it becomes a bigger problem, but I just don’t know how to talk to my friends about my experiences. Does that make me the same as Sam? Shutting people out?
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
“Soon, maybe.” I swallow. “So what’s your plan?”
“I think I should talk to a sports psychologist. And I need distance from swimming to work out whether I still love it. At the moment, swimming is tangled with guilt and selfishness and anxiety, and I need to deal with it sooner rather than later. I regret not putting in the work earlier.” He sighs. “It’s just a bit of a mess.”
“Taking the first step with a psychologist makes a lot of sense. I can’t remember when you last took a break.”
“Yeah. It must have been Rio,” he says quietly.
There’s a breath where I’m sure we’re both thinking about the aftermath of that ‘break’. The ensuing fight, the years of silence. I try not to dwell on it too much. I don’t want to start unpacking those thoughts yet.Someday soon I’m going to have to work out whether I can really forgive him.
“So, back to London?” I ask. “When are you coming home?”
“I think maybe two weeks. I need to chat with my dad. And also the coaches in Florida.”
He pauses.
“Can I— um, would you be open to meeting up with me when I’m back?”
I suck in a breath. We’ve been talking on the phone for a week, but other than talking about his panic attack, it’s mainly been surface level. Seeing him in person feels different. It feels more real. It feels like something I need to be ready for, and I’m not sure if I am yet.
“Maybe,” I hedge. At least I have a few weeks to analyse my decision.
“I need to apologise,” he says. “Again. In person.”
He apologises every time we talk and though I understand a bit more about why he pushed me away, I just wish he had spoken to me about it rather than making the decision for both of us. Or maybe not done it in a way that felt so cruel. In a way that made a mockery of my feelings and left scars it took me years to learn to see past.
“Well, let me know when you land,” is all I say in response.
Chapter 45
Twenty-five years old
Kath
Sam’s coming over to spend the day together. He ended up arriving back in London at the start of September, which gave me a month to overthink every angle of the pair of us meeting up. I’ve now received pep talks from multiple people: a long lecture from Claire about not being a pushover, a chat from Tom about his willingness to inflict bodily harm. A few texts from Austin about how much Sam has been struggling over the last few years, and another set of messages from my dad that are mainly strings of emojis which I can’t decode. I doubt he knows what half of them mean.
All of it helped, in its own way. The warnings, concern and threats of violence, but none of those conversations made the decision for me. Instead, I mulled it over for weeks on my early morning runs across the Heath, letting my thoughts settle. It was panting at the top of one of the hills that I realised I’m not fully ready to forgive him, but Iamready to see him. Holding a grudge would be easier, but it would also keep me stuck in the past. I can only lie to myself for so long that I don’t care about him.
Neither of us have ever been any good at pretending we don’t matter to each other.
But I’m not a hurt twenty-one-year-old girl anymore. I knowwhere the boundaries of my love and friendship lie, and I know how to tell when they’re being crossed.
When Sam arrives at the door, he looks drained but happier than when I last saw him on FaceTime. He’s in scuffed shoes and a faded blue UF T-shirt that matches his eyes.
“Hi, Kath.” He gives an awkward half-wave, and then flushes.
“Hi,” I mumble.
