Chapter One: Accused

Naomi's POV

The pool is the only place my heart ever feels steady.

This was the final lap of the eight-hundred freestyle. My lungs burned and my arms had gone numb, but my heartbeat stayed steady, the same as every time I swam.

My best friend, Octavia was in the lane beside me, stroke for stroke, exactly like she'd been since we were nine years old.

I touched the wall first. I always did. Octavia followed a half second later.

I ripped my goggles off excitedly and saw my name at the top of the scoreboard, exactly where it belonged. Everyone was cheering loudly.

For one second, everything was exactly how senior year was supposed to end. Then, I climbed out, legs shaking, chest heaving, and let the towel someone handed me settle over my shoulders.

My mom was somewhere in the stands. I could hear her voice above the others.

Coach Reyes met us at the edge of the pool deck with his clipboard tucked under one arm, the same way he always held it. He was still in the black Maristen singlet he trained us in; one of those ones that showed every line of muscle when he crossed his arms over his chest. His forearm flexed without him even trying.

His hair had come loose from its tie during the race, falling just past his shoulders, damp at the ends from the spray off the water.

Then those eyes? God help me. His eyes were pale gray, almost silver under the pool lights, set in a face carved sharp enough to stop a conversation before he even opened his mouth. Looking at hm always made my throat dry.

Forty-two years old, and he still made anybody close by stop talking when he walked past.

I caught myself twisting a piece of wet hair around my finger and made myself stop.

Octavia shifted her weight from one leg to the other beside me, towel clutched tight around her shoulders, refusing to hold still.

I made myself look at the clipboard instead of his face. I always did. It was the only trick that worked. Every single time I looked at him straight on, I said a quiet prayer that I wouldn't lose the last bit of control I had left where he was concerned.

It wasn't only me. The whole town looked at Coach Reyes the same way, women twice my age included. I'd caught my own mother once, standing closer to him than she needed to at a fundraiser, laughing at something he'd said with her hand resting on his arm a beat too long. Neither of us ever brought it up again.

"Both of you, up on the podium," he said. "Photo time."

I climbed the steps behind Octavia, medal already looped around my neck. Maristen's sports director, Ashworth, climbed up behind us with a clipboard of his own.

I assumed he was there for the photo as well.

But when he held up a small plastic cup instead, with my name written on the side in black marker, my stomach dropped before he said a single word. What the hell?

That cup had been sitting in my swim bag since that morning. It was always in my bag.

"Before we close out today's results," he said into the microphone, "there's something concerning our best swimmer that the athletic department needs to address."

That line alone was enough. Six hundred people turned to look at me before he said another word.

I looked at Octavia but she averted my gaze and stared at her feet instead.

"As you all know, today's competition was our final screening stage to choose who would represent us at the regionals. To be sure we chose the best of the best, we agreed to run drug tests at random. This morning's random screening came back positive for drugs," Director Ashworth said. "A banned substance no prescription of hers could explain."

Someone in the crowd gasped loud enough to carry over the speakers.

"That's not possible," I said, and my voice cracked into the microphone he hadn't taken away yet.

"I don't take drugs. I take my heart medication. I've taken it every single day since I was twelve years old."

"The lab results say otherwise," Director Ashworth said, not looking at me.

I searched the deck for Coach Reyes.

He was standing exactly where he always stood during results, hands shoved in his pockets. He knew exactly what was in my bag every single day. He had filled my prescription log himself, more than once. So why wasn't he saying anything to defend me?

"Coach," I said, and it came out smaller than I meant it to. "Tell them," I pleaded.

He looked at Director Ashworth's clipboard instead of at me.

Six hundred people watched him choose silence over one sentence that would have ended this.

"Given this result," Sports Director Ashworth continued, "It breaks my heart to announce that Naomi Cole is hereby disqualified from today's finals, and her position representing Maristen College at the Nation's Regionals is forfeited."

A loud noise broke out in the audience. Unfazed, the director turned toward my best friend.

"Octavia Vance will take the open spot," he said, "as our second-place finisher today."

Octavia's head snapped up so fast her wet hair slapped against her shoulder.

Her eyes found mine for half a second. Then Coach Reyes stepped closer and set a hand on her shoulder, and whatever had been on her face was gone before I could read it.

Someone in the crowd started clapping, unsure of what else to do, and the sound spread until it swallowed the silence whole.

I stood there with a medal I was about to have taken back, watching my best friend get walked to the front of the podium to take the spot that should have been mine.

A staff member touched my elbow and steered me off the platform before I could say another word.

They walked me straight to the equipment room behind the pool deck instead of letting me back into the stands.

A compliance official was already waiting inside with a folder and a second cup, ready to test me again like the first result hadn't just ended my season in front of everyone I knew.

I sat on a cold metal bench in a wet swimsuit and answered the same three questions four different times.

By the time they let me out, the deck was almost empty, and my mother was standing by the door with her arms crossed and her eyes red.

My swim bag was sitting on the bench where I had left it before the race, right next to Octavia's. I picked it up and stopped short, my chest pounding.

It wasn't zipped the way I always left it. I have never made such mistake. Not once. In fact, I get teased sometimes for how careful I am with my belongings.

Then I picked up water bottle to find that it was not closed well. Oh my goodness; someone had clearly tampered with my bag.