It was a swimming challenge, how lucky could he get? The joust, the final challenge in panic, the final challenge he would be participating in regardless, the one last thing he needed to do before hopefully presenting his best friend with a check that would set him up properly for college was a swimming challenge, and Cal couldn't have been happier...at least that's what he thought until the rules were further explained, because it wasn't just a swimming challenge, it was more so from how it sounded, was just a challenge that involved swimming, and while Cal's expertise in the water would come in handy in way of breath control and maybe swimming fast, it in no way helped the main component of this challenge, or at least the part he was hung up on more, which was removing his own weights (bad), and giving it to the other two competitors (worse).
Whoever put these challenges together, Calvin thought had to be like a legion of super villains because they always had a way of avoiding the black and white. One of Calvin's biggest problems was that he saw black and white in a world full of gray, and for all of it's faults (and the faults were countless) panic had exposed Cal to, and not only that, but deal with a lot of gray.
Cal told himself that he wouldn't hurt other people, in fact, the best thing about panic up until now was that the challenges were solo and didn't hinge on interactions with the other contestants, but that was shot to hell now in the final round. Hunger Games comparisons were abound all summer, but this was the first time Cal actually had felt that way, looking over at his two competitors.
Was putting an extra weight on them really hurting them? In one sense it was kind of a no brainer: weights on people made them sink, if you sink for too long, you die, but weights on a person underwater wasn't an automatic death sentence, hell people swam with weights for exercise, so was it really hurting? He decided quickly (he had to) that it wasn't and if at any time someone was under the water for too long he'd go under and save them , no, nobody was going to die because of this thing, not when Cal was apart of it.
It wasn't all for nothing, Cal's constant trips to the gym, it wasn't solely for panic, it was initially in preparation for the Marines, but once he entered the contest it became for both the military and the game, and swimming, well he did that for exercise, practice for the team, and because his sheer love of water, and by the looks of it, it would help him at least a little.
He had his orders, and he would follow, they were all going to jump pretty soon, he, Effy and this guy. It was either an inner cockiness he wasn't explaining, or just his confidence that he could navigate through the water just fine, (the water had always been his friend and refuge for as long as he could remember), or maybe he was overlooking something, but Cal wasn't worried for his safety. His performance in this final game? Yes. The safety of the other contestants, 100%, but even with the weights he hardly thought that he was in danger.
Down below were the spectators, just as many as there were when this whole thing started, but there were only a few pairs of eyes that mattered to him, number one being Penn's, knowing he was down there would give Cal a point of strength and focus should he want to give up if it wasn't needed.
Right before they took the leap, Cal, in his concern for the others couldn't help but give both Effy and Two-Bit two small pieces of advice that could damn him from winning, but mean the difference between them hurting themselves.
"When you jump, do it straight down, feet first, don't dive, and don't panic when you hit the water because you're sinking more, it'll just make it that much harder for you guys to break the surface. Just keep calm and used hard steady strokes...good luck, guys."
There was no time for them to respond, the joust was here, the jump was here, and right before he stepped off, ram rod straight as he made his descent, Cal held his breath, his strategy in mind: get the weights off while he was underwater, that way, when he did break the surface, all he had to do was get them on someone else, Effy first and then the bigger guy as Cal figured it would take her longer to get off her weights and his, and he would need longer to get the second weight on the other guy. He would give it his all without the disregard for another person's life, he just hoped his all was enough, it hadn't always been in the past, but Cal was an ever changing man, and as of now he was stronger and smarter than he'd ever been, and when it was all said and done, at least he could say that he'd made it to the end, but hadn't lost his sense of self. Regardless of what happened, Calvin James was sure of one thing, that'd he'd still be able to live with himself and like himself.
