The next morning I woke up to Michael kissing me on my neck and burying his face against my shoulder. “Morning baby.” He mumbled.
“Morning,” I answered, wiping away the sleep that was still in my eyes. Glancing at my alarm clock, I saw the date. “Happy anniversary!” I said, seeing that it had been a year since Michael had asked me to be his.
“Happy anniversary.” Michael replied, “Get dressed, I got the day off from training for you. I have a surprise for you.”
I smiled up at him, getting dressed and linking hands with him as we walked to his car. The day was spent at a park eating picnic lunch and chasing each other around, laughing. Dinner was at a fancy restaurant, where reporters soon bombarded us. Laughing and answering as many questions as we could, we excused ourselves and tried to escape the flashes from their cameras as we made our way back to Michael’s house where we spent most of our time.
“So, I have something for you.” Michael said, pulling out a box. My heartbeat increased drastically until I forced myself to calm down, pointing out that it wasn’t the right size for a ring. Plus Michael knew that I felt like I was too young to get married and that I wanted to wait until after the Olympic games in London for anything major to happen in my life.
“Valencia…will you move in with me?” Michael asked, opening the box to expose a ring. I laughed, nodding my head yes, and kissed him. We spent the next few days moving my stuff into his house, and getting settled in. After my mini vacation from training, however, I forced myself to get back to the pool. Three years until the next Olympics I told myself, pushing myself even more, still wishing Michael would get serious and get back into the pool.
I pulled myself out of the pool, listening to my coach, Jeff, as he gave me a few things to work on at my next practice. I saw Tabitha, my dance coach making her way towards me with two other people, one an older man and a younger female who looked about my age and had the body of a swimmer. Confusion crossed my face as I made my way to meet them, asking Tabitha what was up.
“This is Thomas Learman, the coach for the synchronized swim team. This is Sofia Williams, she’s trying to qualify for the even, but she needs a new partner. I recommended you. You swim and you dance. Just think of this as combining the skills.” Tabitha said. I listened in shock as Thomas explained that I would still be able to compete in my swimming events and that he needed to know my decision soon so that he could either start teaching me, or could try to find someone else.
“I’ll do it.” I blurted out, not even completely registering that the words had left my mouth. “Let’s get started tomorrow.”
“Thank you so much!” Sofia squealed, “I was hoping that we would be able to convince you!” I laughed and pulled my new teammate into a hug.
I wandered into my and Michael’s house in a complete daze, still trying to process the fact that I had a chance to use my dance skill once again. I stopped cold when I saw Michael, still in his pajamas, sitting around playing video games. I felt myself snapping on the inside. Michael had been miserable lately but claimed he didn’t know why.
“That’s it!” I yelled, turning off the television. Michael’s face turned around with confusion etched across it. “You miss swimming! That’s why you’ve been so miserable! You’re wondering what would happen if you competed in London. And you’ll never know if you keep sitting around like a slug not doing anything! You’ll never actually know what you could have accomplished because you’ve wasted so much time that you could have spent swimming! You hate losing yet you aren’t doing anything about it. You are going to London. You claim that there is nothing left for you to accomplish, but you could go for getting nineteen medals and beating that record as you’ve mentioned. So go do it! Get your swimming stuff. Now.”
