Sprint

Chapter twelve

I stay under the warm spray of the shower for a few extra minutes.

You get used to taking quick showers when you share with thirty-something dudes - or you have an impatient Archer on the other side of the door back at the dorm.

But today, I'm blissfully alone in the Canham Natatorium changing rooms, rinsing off after a private session with Coach Lewis.

She's not impressed with my progress since arriving here. I'm swimming well, consistently, but I haven't shown any sign of being able to match my own world record. If I want a chance at going to the Olympic Games and winning a medal, I need to be faster. So she had me hang back after our usual mid-morning Saturday swim.

My muscles are sore after an unusually long and hard practice; I consider the warm shower my reward.

I try not to think about the implications if I don't manage to meet Coach Lewis' and my own expectations - things will unfold regardless of my anxiety.

Once I can no longer stretch out my shower, I wrap a towel around myself and walk towards the lockers. I'm not wearing my prescription goggles, but in my two months at U-M, I've memorized the number of steps to my locker, and without having to dodge teammates in various stages of undress, it's a walk in the park.

I open the locker, sticking my hand in for my glasses as the first thing. Even though I can dress myself without being able to see, the blurriness of my natural vision gives me a headache. My hand fumbles around inside the locker, coming up short. I can't find my glasses.

As I search the small space with my fingers once more, I realize three things simultaneously.

One: My phone isn't on the top shelf, where I always keep it, either.

Two: Actually, besides an old pair of goggles with the wrong prescription, my locker is empty. Which means my clothes are gone.

Three: This is not an accident.

As I squint my useless eyes, my hand lands on a little slip of paper at the bottom of the locker, scribbled with words I have no hope of reading, and I understand that someone took my things - and they left a message behind.

Trying not to panic, my thoughts race, attempting to guess who did this. A week ago, I might have thought it was Archer. In fact, I would have been one hundred percent sure it was him, but things have been weirdly amicable between us as of late - as far as throwing insults at each other can ever be amicable, at least.

I don't think he'd do something like this now... And I can't for the life of me think of anyone on the team who'd think this was funny. Is it some kind of hazing ritual that I haven't heard about? Because then it's like a month and a half too late.

Trying to figure out the motives behind my disappearing things when I can't read the note is useless. Instead, I'll need to find a way to get home without having to walk across campus with a towel wrapped around my naked ass. I can't call for help, and even if Lewis is still on the premises, I would rather streak across the grounds than bring this to her attention.