/ ( keith powers. cis man. he/him ). ⸻ vincent parker, a twenty-nine year old swimming coach, still wears last summer like a scar. he moves through the heat as the legacy, each step a reminder of the role he's never quite outrun. carried like souvenirs from something he won't talk about, you'll recognize him by sunshine bottled in a body that forgets how to rest; a calendar full of plans, busy enough to keep the questions quiet; goggles like blinders, silence like comfort, stroke after stroke like trying to outswim a question he’s not ready to answer. he's always been magnetic and restless, depending on who's telling the story. the sand shifts, the shoreline whispers, and everyone pretends not to notice what's changed. but secrets rot faster in the sun & someone out there still remembers exactly what he did… (sj, thirty-one, she/her, est, n/a).
he remembers his mother only in fragments - a voice in another room, the warmth of her hands. enough to know that she loved him, but not enough to stay, not enough to ever return. this is not to say that his father failed him; the opposite, really. his father was steady, present, a kind shelter
he grew up happy, a bright child with an easy laugh. people were drawn to him, just as much as he was drawn to them. and when his father remarried, he opened himself to this new family. a stepbrother, and a stepmother who gave him something deeper, and the attention that mended what had been missing. whatever his mother had left undone, his new family, quietly, stitched closed. and to him, the family was whole enough - the obvious cracks never mattered.
swimming was where he became himself. other sports came easy, of course, but the water was something else - it carried him, stripped him of the weight of the world, helped him keep moving. in the pool, he was unburdened, like he belonged to another element. he was gifted, yes, but more than that - he was seen. swimming carried him through school and all of university, easily getting him into a top university on full scholarship; the entire neighborhood came out to celebrate. for a time, it seemed only certain that he would rise higher still - olympic prospects whispered like prophecy.
but as life goes, something happened. he never tells it plainly, and what he offers others instead is a softer lie - that he fell short by fractions of seconds, that he became disillusioned with the world of competition; he tells them he found more joy in lifting others, in community, in coaching, than he ever did in chasing his own reflection on the water's surface. and people still clap him on the back, laud him for his goodwill.
now, lethe - for him, it's reprieve, but it's also a welcome distraction. each summer, beneath the sun, he feels purpose return to him like breath. among friends, he knows he matters - not in some grand, conceited way, but in the simple fact that without him, none of them would be here. he feels the weight of it now, though, more than ever. if he falters, the whole of them might come undone.
once upon a time, his dream was to become a professional athlete. ever since he's had to give up on that dream, he's returned home and worked at a community center (and a handful of other places) as a swimming instructor and lifeguard during summers, but he doesn't actually know where his career is going or what his next steps are.
despite how confident and sure of himself he tends to come across, a part of vinnie is deeply insecure. some aspect of it comes from the fact that he doesn't feel like he's actually accomplished much and doesn't know what to do with his life. a deeper part of that likely comes from the fact that he still feels unwanted by one of his birth parents (hello attachment).
