Miguel turns to me and I can see the genuine hurt in his eyes. He was quiet all through practice, so unlike the usual exuberant guy he is. And this should be a time of celebration: he made it into state. We both did. It makes me sad that, after all this time, instead of bonding over what badass swimmers we are, our only high school memory together is going to be how we were both fucked over by Dominic.

“Miguel, I am so sorry. This was never supposed to happen.” Except it was. I wanted Dominic to leave Miguel for me, and even if that isn’t the plan anymore, the whole chain of events that led to this moment was my fault.

“How did we get here?” he asks.

“Dominic,” I start, but he holds up his hands.

“No, not that cabrón. Us. We used to be best friends.”

For some reason, I can’t look him in the eye. “I don’t know, I just . . . thought you were too cool. I got here and you already had all these friends, when before it was just you and me. I couldn’t keep up.”

“Are you kidding?” Miguel says. “I joined the swim team for you! All those times we went to the beach? I did it because swimming was your thing, and I wanted to hang out when you got to Shoreline. And then things just”—he flutters his fingers in an arc—“faded.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

Miguel shrugs. “You stopped hanging out, man. You only had lunch with Kavya, and when you’d show up to swim practice, you were all business. Not making eye contact, leaving as soon as Coach let us out. You seemed standoffish.”

That is the exact last thing I thought he would ever say. I stopped talking to him at the pool because I felt like such an idiot. He and the rest of the team could do all their bro talk, and I’d just be quiet. It became too much to see how different Miguel and I were, so I hung out with the team less and less. Not because I didn’t like them, but because I thought they wouldn’t like me.

“I always felt that I’m not like the other guys on the team,” I finally say. “So I kind of shut off, I guess. And now I feel like a real asshole. All this time I thought the only way you could be a dick was to be a cheater like Dominic, but I guess I was wrong.”

Looks of terror, confusion, and repulsion pass over his face in a heartbeat. “Wait. What?”

“He lied to you when he said we’d broken up just before you guys hooked up at your barbecue. We hadn’t. We were still together. Dominic cheated on me, and made you a part of it.”