Excerpt from The Easy Part of Impossible by Sarah Tomp, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Stop." Her voice held a warning that Maggie would recognize. After she'd scratched the meet, Benny had banished her. He'd quit her. "It's over and done. And now I might as well enjoy my senior year." Maggie would help make these words mean something. She knew Ria had never cared about school. It was something to endure rather than enjoy, but she'd promised her parents—and herself—she'd at least graduate from high school. "I'm not going to college like you, Mags."

"If I get a scholarship," Maggie said. "I hope I have a coach long enough to sign somewhere."

"What do you mean? What's going on?"

"It's basic math, Ria. If your parents aren't paying him anymore ..."

She didn't have to know numbers to know Maggie was right. Between paying for her extra workouts, private lessons, and miscellaneous other ways of supporting his gym, her parents had made sure Benny stayed in business. They had to—there was no better coach in town. Or the county. There was no one as good as Benny for endless miles in all directions. But now there was nothing for them to pay for. Even Benny needed money.

Ria felt Maggie's blame weighing down the trampoline. If Benny stopped coaching, her whole team would be lost. The ripples of one mistake flowed outward, expanding.

A song popped into Ria's head. If wishes were fishes and fishes could sing ... Except she didn't know the rest of the words. They'd floated away, off into the blurry stars.

Three

Ria woke at dimmest dawn. Even a month after quitting, her body was still conditioned to wake up early. Ready to be put in motion. Eager to perform. On autopilot, she got dressed to work out. She was downstairs before the sun had fully lit the sky. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, the day already felt longer than it should.

When she heard her parents moving around upstairs, she bolted for the back door. She darted across the yard, climbed the wooden fence, and escaped to the trail that ran behind her house. She sent them a text: Went for a run.

Then, to make it true, she bent over and stretched. Lifted her arms above her head. Twisted and turned to loosen her back, her neck. Out of habit, she did the dry-land modeling exercises Benny insisted on at the start of every water workout. She went through the motion of doing her dives, standing in place.

It was too hard being around her parents' frustration and questions. Diving had left this big hole, bigger than the quarry, for all of them. They didn't know how to talk to each other anymore. Their lives had always revolved around it. After school and work, on weekends, all the time, all year long, everything was to make sure she could dive. Even their vacations had been planned around her meets. She'd loved Seattle because that was the first time she'd swept an entire meet, winning her age category in every event. It wasn't the Space Needle or the fish market or the ferry ride that she remembered best—it was that giddy, impatient feeling of wanting to get back to the pool.

Last year they'd skipped the vacation they'd planned in Orlando. None of them were in the mood after that meet. Benny had wanted her to do her reliable inward dive during Optionals, but Ria was sure she could nail her new gainer for more points and way more bragging rights. Which she did. It was the best one she'd ever done. But then Benny wouldn't coach her for the rest of the meet. He'd said, "You want to be on your own, be on your own." She'd completed her last two dives, but his silence was excruciating.

Her parents hadn't noticed the way he'd shunned her. They had no idea he'd been mad until he left before the medals were presented. The whole drive back her mother had ranted and called him unprofessional and immature. Dad had steamed silently. And Ria cried in the back because she knew she should have listened to her coach.

Excerpted from The Easy Part of Impossible by Sarah Tomp. Copyright © 2020 by Sarah Tomp. Excerpted by permission of HarperTeen. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.