Sprint

Chapter ten

Archer doesn't come home that night.

I lie awake in the dark, waiting for him to return, to say something scathing or maybe to explain what that whole dramatic exit had been about. Eventually, I drift off into a fitful sleep.

At practice Monday morning, he arrives with Sennels, his head bowed, something vacant about his eyes when he glances my way. He instantly looks away when our eyes meet and refuses to look at me again.

I feel weird, on uneven footing. I'd finally found a place I could call mine on this team, and it mainly consisted of annoying Archer and chatting with Mitch, Sennels, and Davis between laps. But none of them are saying anything either, so now I don't know where I belong.

When we exit the locker room, Sennels and Davis tap the lifebuoy on the first column in turn, and Archer doesn't call them superstitious fools. Now I know something is wrong.

I try to say something to him as we get ready to jump in the pool, but he twists his hands uncharacteristically and disappears under the water.

I look towards the far lane where the three other medley members are getting ready for their practice and catch them looking my way; something unreadable about their expressions.

I don't understand. Archer had seemed genuinely surprised at finding out I'm gay and mortified that I would presume him homophobic. He said he didn't have any issues with me being into men, but this is the first night since my arrival that he hasn't slept in his own bed, and the first day, he hasn't jumped at the chance to rip me a new one.

Before, he treated me with an air of superiority and condescension. Now, he acts like I have contracted the plague, and he was the one to give it to me.

The rest of practice is the same; despite swimming right behind him, I feel like I can never catch up. I don't know how many times I've wished for Archer Salisbury to leave me the fuck alone - now that he has, I'm not sure how to feel.

I meet up with Mia for lunch, and as soon as she sees my face, she convinces me to buy a slice of cheesecake because, apparently, there's nothing a little dairy can't cure. She asks me what Archer did now, but I don't know how to explain that it's the absence of action on his part that's the problem.

I think maybe that's why I'm this turned around; we had been in the midst of a heated argument, arguably the most intense conversation we've had so far, and then he'd turned quiet and pensive, apologized, and left. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to remember that he's declared me his sworn enemy, and until he does, I'm caught in a weird limbo where he won't look at me.

We always have dryland on Monday afternoons. It's the part of being a swimmer that I dislike the most. I understand the physiological advantages of maintaining muscle strength, but lifting weights and doing lunges is tedious. Give me a pool and have me swim in circles any day of the week.