Dream, Dive, Daley?

Chapter 7

Eric’s point of view

Mexico was hot. It was early in the morning. The red sun rose from the horizon through the large windows. Sutton did a handstand on the edge of the 10m platform. Her legs were straight, body tightened and toes pointed. The perfect starting position, I thought as I stood on the edge of the pool munching on a carrot like a little rabbit.

‘How long are you going to stay like that?’ I yelled between bites of carrots. My little sister didn’t respond. Her face was turning into a bright shade of red. In seconds she had taken off, twisted several times in the air and entered the water without a splash. Marvelous... 

‘She’s good, isn’t she’ Sutton’s Coach, Andy Banks or Coach Andy, sat in a chair with his nose in the Daily Mail newspaper. He nodded behind the large piece of paper.

‘How do you know? You didn’t even see her dive’ I was offended in a way. The man had clearly no clue about diving, neither about respect. How was he going to train me?  When Sutton was tired of only doing cheerleading, she started diving just to mock me. Before, she would have no interest in diving.

‘Easy as pie!’ She had said then before she got obsessed. Diving is a sport of art. Every movement has to be done with caution. Throughout what was her high school time, she had six hours of practice five days a week. Well, that’s about just as much as I had when I was her age. 

‘I heard her entry’ he said slightly annoyed. Her entry had been simply splash-free. The pool was free for people apart from the morning water aerobics class for elderly ladies. ‘Another one, Sutton’ he returned to the newspaper. Coach Andy read an article about Prince William and Kate’s engagement.

‘Eric, do you want to join me on back two and a half twists?’

‘Sure’ I said when Sutton got out of the pool. I took my chamois cloth and went straight up to the stairs.

Sutton’s point of view

I was super pumped! The FINAs were amazing! Although, Mr. Wagner wasn’t really impressed with the silver medal I achieved. I reached the last step of the stairs up to the ten meters platform. Eric was directly behind me, drying off his body with his towel. My legs were cramping up after all those steps. I put my leg on the handrails, stretched and afterwards, repeated with the other leg.

‘What happened to your wrist supporters?’ Eric asked before he tossed his shammy down over the rail.

‘Long gone’ I said before I threw mine down the stairs. It hit the ground with a smack!

‘Shall we?’

‘We shall’ I nodded at my brother as we took our starting positions. Quickly, I took a glance down at Coach Andy to see if he was paying attention, which he was not. In matter of seconds, we took off into the air, twisted and twirled in the air before we entered the water together.

‘Well, done Halls. If only you were on the team, and mixed gender category existed, you would get straight tens’ Jack mocked my brother. When did he arrive?

None of the guys seemed to like him very much. So maybe Eric wasn’t their next potential best mate. I can’t believe he was going to practice with Coach Andy the next six months. That made me sort of angry at him. He had to take everything that was mine to make it his.

‘Look who finally decided to show up’ I pulled myself up from the pool. A cold breeze stroke over my half-naked body, and I shivered a bit.

‘Good morning to you too’ He said to me. Eric had ignored Jack the minute he walked in and just went straight into the men’s locker room to shower and change.  

‘I’m sorry. He’s… Eric is … Well, you know.’ Luckily, he understood. Eric is simply just Eric. A lonely wolf. I tilted my head to get some water out of my ears. ‘Aren’t you and Tom doing the three meter springboard in two days?’

‘Yeah, want to stay and watch?’ Jack ran his fingers through his hair. His pale torso was toned nicely and a little bit more tanned than it usually was. I nodded, smiled and said;

‘I would love to! Just let me change first and I will come out soon’