Love Interests

Chapter 35

Riley's POV

It took the boys a little while to finally understand what we were talking about. It had always been my dream since I was little to be on the Olympic team, swimming for my country, and vying for that gold medal. Tyler had this unbelievable look on his face as I told him that I had been training to go to trials and I was hoping he would understand that this was my dream. "Riley I am so proud of you I can't believe it. I'm going to get tee shirts to wear when I'm there and my mom and sisters can come and-" Tyler begin to tell me after he finally realized what was going n. Before he could finish, however, I stopped him and said, "You're going to come and see me swim?" "Of course I will babe, I wouldn't miss it for the world." It was in that moment when I realized just how much I couldn't wait to marry him and become his wife.

2 Months Later

It seemed like forever ago that Tyler and I got engaged and my sister told me I was going to Trials, but now today was the day. Day 1 of Trials and I was going to swim the 200 back. It was the most realistic event for me to make, but I was confident in myself that I could do it. I got up to the blocks ready to compete in lane 3. The official blew the whistle and I got in, remembering what Thomas told me earlier, "Remember steady pace for the first 100 then the 150 we start to pick it up and the last 50 give it all you got, bring it home for us" I was ready. The official started us off we went, I started off strong and steady making sure to hold my underwaters with a fast fly kick off the wall. I turned for the 3rd 50 and off i went building that lap. As I was going in for my final turn I told myself you got this, and I pushed off and started to sprint. I got to the wall looked up at the scoreboard and realized that my dream had come true. I finished in first and had punched my ticket to the Olympics. I shook hands with the other girls and then looked at my family and gave them a wide smile. I finally got out of the pool but I was immediately met by a reporter who wanted to chat for a minute. I honestly didn't remember what I had told her, but son I was finished and she was congratulating me and wishing me luck on my other events. I wanted to go see my family but I knew that there was more work to be done today. I went over to the cool down pool to talk to Thomas before I saw a couple of laps before getting ready for my next race tomorrow. "Riles that was a pretty decent swim, I want you to work on your head position a little more and we need to work on those fly kicks off the wall. They need to start sooner, if we can fix those things you could be 1-2 seconds faster on each lap." Thomas said to me. As soon as he was done talking to me I got in and did a 500 just to cool down and catch my breath a little bit. After my cool down I went to go change before heading back to the hotel for dinner and an early night knowing I was going to have to be up early tomorrow. When I got back to my room my family, Tyler's family and Anna's family were all in the room ready to celebrate. We all went out to eat and soon I was back in my room alone getting ready to swim tomorrow.

1 week later:

It was the most amazing experience to have been at Trials and I was so happy that I made 4 events. It definitely was the best experience but I am so happy to be back home with Tyler knowing that we only had a little while together before I would have to go to Arizona to train with my team. Knowing how supportive Tyler was of me I knew that it wouldn't be long until he would come down to visit, but we were determined to spend this next few days together getting our details for our wedding set up and spending time together.