Page 25 of Depths of Desire (The Saints of Westmont U #4)
EIGHTEEN
LENNOX
The episode was playing, but I wasn’t really watching it.
Jim was mid-prank, Dwight was shouting something about protocol, and I was curled up in my bed, thumb mindlessly scrolling Instagram.
The glow of my phone screen painted my comforter in shades of blue and white.
Rhett was out. The room was quiet. Just me, the hum of the fan, and the low murmur of sitcom voices looping through plotlines I already knew by heart.
I wasn’t really thinking, either.
I was just waiting.
Waiting for the next message from Oliver. Not that he was late. Not that we had a plan. But we usually said good night, even if it was just a sleepy emoji or a voice note of one of us yawning. Dumb, sweet things. Private things. The things I never knew I needed until he started sending them.
My phone buzzed in my hand. A reel auto-played, all splash and motion and high-energy synths. Swim footage, sprinter clips, underwater shots, edited in quick, flashy bursts. The caption read:
Ready for history?
#Nationals2025 #DenverAquatics #WhoWillTakeGold
I let it play. I even smiled a little when I saw Oliver’s name flash across the bottom of the screen, Oliver Hayworth, Westmont U, 200m Freestyle. The camera caught him mid-stroke, sleek and powerful, water breaking like glass off his arms. He looked focused. Unstoppable.
God, he was beautiful.
Even through the grainy video, even reduced to a few seconds of footage, he took my breath away. The way he moved through the water like he belonged there. Like it was home.
But then the screen cut to the final card.
NATIONALS — June 10–13 — Denver Aquatic Arena
My smile died in my throat.
I blinked. Paused. Rewound.
June 10.
My thumb hovered over the screen like it might change if I stared hard enough. Like I’d misread it. Like the video would blink and laugh and say Gotcha! and revert back to the dates I thought I knew.
But it didn’t. It just sat there. Clear as day.
The second weekend of June.
Our weekend. The weekend I’d been planning for months. The weekend I’d circled on my calendar in red ink and counted down to like Christmas morning. The weekend that was supposed to be ours—just ours—away from pools and pressure and everything else that pulled him in directions I couldn’t follow.
I dropped the phone on the blanket and stared at the ceiling.
He hadn’t said anything.
Not once.
Not during our walk last week when I’d pulled up the lodge photos again, pointing out the hiking trails and the lake.
Not when I’d made that joke about packing extra sunscreen because I planned to keep him naked most of the weekend.
Not when I’d kissed him goodbye yesterday and whispered how much I was looking forward to finally having him all to myself.
No mention. No warning. No “Hey, just so you know, there’s been a change.”
Just the usual sweetness. The usual quiet heat. The usual “I miss you’s” and “come over soon’s” and lingering kisses that made me feel like I was the only thing that mattered in his world.
But apparently, I wasn’t.
Or maybe I was, and that was the problem.
My chest grew tight now. My heart, confused and loud, was hammering against my ribs like it was trying to break free. I sat up, pushing my hair back from my forehead, trying to breathe through the sudden rush of panic.
This wasn’t usual.
This was a choice.
A choice he was making without me. Without telling me. Without even giving me the chance to understand.
I fumbled for my laptop, nearly knocking over the water glass on my nightstand.
My fingers shook as I typed USA Swimming Nationals 2025 into Google.
The results loaded instantly, a dozen articles about the venue change, about scheduling conflicts, about how this was the earliest Nationals had ever been held.
“Due to unforeseen circumstances at the originally planned venue, USA Swimming has moved the 2025 National Championships to June 10-13 at the Denver Aquatic Center…”
June 10. The same day we were supposed to drive up to the mountains. The same day I was supposed to wake up next to him in that cabin I’d spent three months’ savings to book because I wanted to give him something perfect. Something that was just ours.
I kept scrolling, looking for more details, more dates, something that might give me hope. But every article said the same thing. June 10-13. No flexibility. No alternatives.
Now, he had to choose.
And the fact that he hadn’t told me meant either he was still choosing, or he’d already chosen and didn’t know how to tell me.
Both options felt like drowning.
I closed the laptop and lay back down, staring at The Office without seeing it. Michael was doing something ridiculous.
My phone was warm in my hand. I could text him. Call him. Demand answers. Demand honesty. Demand the truth I deserved after six months of falling so hard I’d forgotten what solid ground felt like.
But I didn’t.
Because if I asked, he’d have to answer. And if he answered, this perfect bubble we’d been living in, this fantasy that I mattered as much as his dreams, would finally, irreversibly pop.
And I wasn’t ready for that.
Not yet.
I turned off the TV. The room fell into darkness except for the streetlight filtering through my blinds, casting prison-bar shadows across the wall.
I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I hadn’t seen the dates. Or that Oliver’s silence was just Oliver being Oliver, thoughtful, careful, not wanting to worry me with work stuff.
But I knew better.
I’d known better the moment I’d seen him in that video, looking like he belonged in that pool more than he’d ever belonged in my arms.
I couldn’t even blame him.
This was Nationals. This was everything he’d been working toward since the disaster of last year, since the fourth-place finish that had left him hollow-eyed and unreachable for weeks. This was his shot at redemption, at proving he belonged among the best swimmers in the country.
How could I compete with that?
How could I even ask him to try?
But God, it hurt.
It hurt like a physical ache in my chest, like someone had reached inside me and squeezed until I couldn’t breathe. It hurt like realizing you’d been living in a beautiful dream and someone had just shaken you awake.
I pulled my pillow over my head and tried to muffle the sound of my own heartbeat.
Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow, I’d figure out what to do. Tomorrow, I’d decide whether to confront him or pretend I didn’t know.
Tomorrow came sooner than I wanted.
I lasted exactly fourteen hours.
Fourteen hours of carrying this weight in my chest, this knowledge that sat like broken glass in my throat every time I tried to swallow. Fourteen hours of staring at my phone, drafting texts I couldn’t send, practicing conversations I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to have.
By six in the afternoon, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I walked to his apartment in silence. I needed the time to think, to prepare, to figure out what I was going to say when I saw his face.
But when I got there, when I stood outside his door with my fist raised to knock, I realized I didn’t have a plan at all.
I only had the truth.
And maybe that would have to be enough.
I knocked instead of letting myself in.
Footsteps on the other side, light and quick. The sound of the lock turning. And then the door opened, and there was Oliver, hair still damp from practice, wearing that soft gray T-shirt I liked to steal, eyes lighting up the moment he saw me.
“Hey,” he said, that smile spreading across his face like sunrise. “I wasn’t expecting…”
The smile died. He saw my expression, and everything in his face shifted. The warmth flickered out like someone had blown out a candle.
“Lennox?” His voice was careful now. Cautious. “What’s wrong?”
I stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. The apartment felt smaller than usual, like the walls had moved closer together while I wasn’t looking. I didn’t sit down. Didn’t take off my jacket. Just stood there in his living room like a stranger.
“When were you going to tell me?”
The question hung in the air between us, sharp and unavoidable.
Oliver frowned, but there was something behind it, a flicker of recognition, of guilt. “Tell you what?”
My chest was tight, but my voice came out steady. Clear. “That Nationals fall on the same week as our trip.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Oliver went very still, like a deer caught in headlights. His mouth opened slightly, then closed again. And in that moment, that horrible, confirming moment, I knew.
He knew. He’d known.
“I just found out myself,” he said finally, but the words came out too fast, too defensive. “I wasn’t?—”
“You weren’t going to tell me, though.” I cut him off, and something in my tone made him flinch. “Were you?”
His jaw tightened. His hands, which had been reaching toward me, dropped to his sides. “I was figuring it out. I didn’t want to worry you.”
The words hit me like a slap.
“Figuring it out means you knew.” My voice was getting tight now, strained with the effort of keeping it level. “And you didn’t tell me. That’s a choice, Oliver. That’s a choice you made without me.”
Something snapped in his expression. Not cruelty, exactly, but pressure. Like a dam about to burst.
“I haven’t made any decisions yet,” he said, and there was an edge to it now. Frustration. Desperation. “I’m trying to figure out what to do, and I didn’t want to…”
“Yes, you have.” The words came out harder than I meant them to. Colder. “You just didn’t say it out loud.”
Oliver stared at me, and I watched the fight drain out of him in real time. His shoulders sagged. His eyes went distant. And I knew that I was right.
The silence stretched between us, thick and final, heavy with everything we weren’t saying.
I stood there in his living room, looking at the boy I’d fallen in love with, the boy who’d given me a key and made me believe I belonged somewhere in his carefully ordered world. And all I could think was how stupid I’d been to think that love was ever going to be enough.
“Then let me make it easier for you,” I said, and my voice sounded strange even to my own ears. Too calm. Too controlled.
Oliver’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
I looked at him, really looked at him, and memorized the way the light hit his cheekbones, the way his hair fell into his eyes when he was worried. Tried to burn it into memory before I said the words that would end us.
“You don’t have to choose anymore.” Each word felt like swallowing glass. “I’m out of the equation.”
The color drained from his face. “Lennox, no. Wait?—”
But I was already moving, already walking toward the door. My legs felt unsteady, like I was walking on the deck of a ship in rough seas.
“Lennox, please?—”
I paused with my hand on the doorknob. Didn’t turn around. Couldn’t look at him, because if I did, I might break. Might beg. Might make this even worse than it already was.
“I hope you win,” I said quietly. “I really do.”
And then I walked out.
The door clicked shut behind me with a sound like finality.
I made it home before the tears came.
But I didn’t make it through the night without wondering if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.