Rivals: A Locker Room Confession

I've hated David Chen since the first day of freshman orientation.

That's what I told myself, anyway. Four years of college swimming, and we'd been neck and neck the entire time. Same events—the 200 freestyle, the 400 IM. Same times, within tenths of seconds of each other. Every meet came down to the two of us, every race a war for hundredths of a second and conference records.

My name is Marcus Williams. I'm a senior at State, captain of the swim team, and I've spent four years convincing myself that the way I feel when I look at David Chen is hatred.

It's not hatred. I've known that for a while now. But admitting it—to him, to myself, to anyone—would mean facing something I've been running from since I was fifteen.

Today is the last race of my college career. Conference championships, 200 free, the event where David and I have split victories two years each. Winner takes the title. Winner takes everything.

And after tonight, I'll never have to see him again.

That should feel like relief. It feels like something else entirely.

The locker room is chaos before a finals session. Athletes everywhere, coaches yelling last-minute instructions, the thick smell of chlorine and nervous sweat. I'm doing my pre-race routine—stretching, visualization, the mental preparation that's gotten me through a hundred competitions.

David walks past me without a word. We don't talk before races. Never have. It's an unspoken agreement: save it for the water.

But today he pauses. Looks at me with those dark eyes I've memorized without meaning to.

"Last one, Williams."

"Yeah."

"Make it count."

He walks away before I can respond. I watch him go—the way he moves, all controlled power and perfect form even on land. I've watched him for four years. Studied his technique, analyzed his races, tried to find the weakness that would let me beat him consistently.

There is no weakness. He's as good as I am. Maybe better.

And in two hours, it'll all be over.

The race is everything I expected and nothing I was prepared for.

We're side by side the whole way. Turn for turn, stroke for stroke. I can feel him next to me in the water, can sense his presence without seeing him. Four years of this—pushing each other, driving each other, being the best because we refused to let the other win.

The final fifty meters, I give everything I have. Lungs burning, muscles screaming, vision narrowing to nothing but the wall ahead. I touch and come up gasping, searching for the scoreboard.

LANE 4: CHEN - 1:42.57
LANE 5: WILLIAMS - 1:42.58

One hundredth of a second. One goddamn hundredth of a second.

David is next to me in the water, breathing hard, and when our eyes meet there's something in his expression I've never seen before. Not triumph, though he just won. Something softer. Something almost like relief.

"Hell of a race, Marcus."

First time he's ever called me by my first name.

"Yeah. Hell of a race."

The medal ceremony is a blur. Gold around his neck, silver around mine. Photos, congratulations, coaches saying things I don't hear. All I can think about is that it's over. Four years of rivalry, four years of whatever this tension between us is, and now it's done.

I should feel closure. I feel empty.

The team party is in full swing by the time I escape. I'm not in the mood for celebration—second place never sits well, no matter how close the race was. Instead I find myself walking back toward the natatorium, empty now, the pool dark and still.

I'm not surprised to find David there. He's sitting on the bleachers, still in his team sweats, staring at the water.

"Shouldn't you be celebrating?"

He looks up. "Shouldn't you?"

"Silver medalists don't celebrate."

"That's bullshit and you know it." He moves over, making room. An invitation. "Sit down, Williams."

I sit. We're quiet for a long moment, looking at the pool where we've spent so many hours trying to beat each other.

"Four years."

"Four years."

"I'm going to miss it."

I turn to look at him, surprised. "Miss what? The rivalry? The races?"

"All of it." He's not looking at me, still staring at the water. "You pushed me harder than anyone ever has. Made me better than I would have been without you. I don't know if I would have worked as hard, improved as much, if you weren't always right there, ready to beat me if I slipped for even a second."

"Same goes for you."

"Does it?" Now he turns, and there's something raw in his expression. "Because sometimes I thought you hated me. The way you looked at me, the way you never talked to me off the pool deck. I thought maybe I'd done something, offended you somehow."

"You didn't offend me."

"Then what?"

Tell him. Four years of pretending, four years of lying to yourself, and in two weeks you'll never see him again. Tell him the truth.

"I didn't trust myself around you."

"What does that mean?"

"It means—" I stop, struggling to find the words. "It means that the way I felt about you was never as simple as rivalry. And I didn't know how to handle that."

The silence stretches between us. I can hear my own heartbeat, loud in the empty space.

"Marcus."

"Forget I said anything. I know you're not—I didn't mean to make it weird—"

He kisses me. Right there on the bleachers, in the dark natatorium, with the smell of chlorine in the air and four years of tension breaking like a wave. His hand comes up to grip my jaw, and I'm frozen for a second before I'm kissing him back.

When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.

"Four years," he says. "Four years I've been wanting to do that. And you—I thought you hated me."

"I thought you were straight."

"I thought you were straight."

"We're idiots."

"Complete idiots."

He's laughing, and then I'm laughing, and then we're kissing again because it's better than laughing, better than talking, better than four years of distance and denial.

We end up at his apartment—it's closer to the natatorium, and his roommate is at the party. The whole walk there, we keep finding excuses to touch: hands brushing, shoulders bumping, a constant confirmation that this is really happening.

Inside, with the door locked behind us, I finally let myself look at him. Really look. The body I've seen in a swimsuit a thousand times but never let myself appreciate. The muscles earned through years of training. The way his chest rises and falls as he watches me watching him.

"I've imagined this," he admits. "More times than I should probably say out loud."

"Me too."

"How do you want to do this?"

"However you want. I'm not..." I struggle with the admission. "I've never actually—with a guy—"

"Neither have I." He steps closer, cups my face in his hands. "We can figure it out together. Like everything else."

We figure it out. Slowly, clumsily, with laughter when something doesn't work and gasps when something does. His mouth on my neck. My hands on his thighs. The slick heat of bodies pressed together, four years of tension finally finding release.

When I come, it's with his name on my lips. When he follows, he buries his face in my shoulder and holds on like he's afraid I'll disappear.

Afterward, tangled together in his narrow bed, he traces patterns on my chest with one finger.

"What happens now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean graduation's in two weeks. You're moving to California for work. I'm staying here for grad school. What happens to... this?"

I should have an answer. Should have thought about it. But the truth is I was so focused on the race, on getting through tonight, that I never let myself imagine what might come after.

"I don't know."

"Do you want there to be a 'this'? Or was tonight—"

"It wasn't just tonight." I pull him closer. "Not for me. Four years, David. That's not just a hookup."

"Then figure it out with me." He props himself up, looks down at me. "We've been competing for four years. How about we try being on the same team for once?"

📅 One Year Later

The flight from LA to State takes about three hours. I do it twice a month—once when David has a break from his thesis work, once just because I miss him and can't wait for the scheduled visit.

Long-distance is hard. Everyone warned us it would be. But we've spent four years pushing each other to be better; we can handle a few hours on a plane.

He meets me at the airport every time, wearing that same smile that used to infuriate me and now makes my heart race for entirely different reasons. We have rituals now—dinner at the same Vietnamese place, walks around the campus that still feels like home, nights in his grad student apartment that are exactly as cramped and perfect as that first time.

"I've been thinking," he says over pho, on my latest visit. "About next year."

"What about it?"

"I could do my research anywhere. Stanford has a good program. Berkeley too. I could transfer."

"You'd move to California?"

"I'd move to wherever you are." He reaches across the table, takes my hand. "I'm tired of the distance, Marcus. I want to wake up next to you every day, not twice a month."

"What about your advisor? Your program?"

"My advisor is supportive. The program can transfer. The only thing I can't transfer is you, and you're the only thing that really matters."

I turn his hand over in mine, trace the calluses that four years of training put there. He's giving up so much—his routine, his community, the safe academic world he's built—for me.

"You're sure?"

"Marcus." He squeezes my hand. "I spent four years chasing you in the pool. I'm done letting you get away in real life too."

⏳ Three Years Later

We coach together now. A local club team, kids who remind me of who we used to be—hungry, competitive, pushing each other to be better. David handles the technical training; I handle the mental preparation. We're a good team. We've always been a good team, even when we thought we were rivals.

The wedding was last summer. Small ceremony, poolside because where else would we do it. My old coach officiated; his parents flew in from Taiwan and cried through the whole thing. We wore matching suits and read vows we'd written on the plane together, still competing about whose were better.

Mine were, obviously. He'd disagree.

There's a photo from that day that I keep on my desk at work. The two of us standing at the edge of the pool where we met our swimmers, arms around each other, laughing at something the photographer said. We look happy. We are happy.

Sometimes I think about that race, the one I lost by one hundredth of a second. For years, I thought that was the worst thing that could have happened—losing to David, again, in our final competition.

Now I understand it was the best thing. That loss broke something open, made space for the conversation we should have had years earlier. If I'd won, maybe I would have left feeling vindicated, complete. Maybe I would have walked away without ever knowing what we could be.

Instead I walked toward him. Toward this. Toward everything.

He catches me staring at the photo sometimes.

"What are you thinking about?"

"That race. The 200 free."

"Still mad you lost?"

"I'm starting to think I won."

He smiles, crosses to where I'm sitting, drops a kiss on the top of my head.

"We both won. That's the whole point."

He's right. He usually is, not that I'd ever admit it out loud.

Four years of rivalry. Four years of pretending I hated him. And now a lifetime of loving him.

Not a bad trade.