Halo Effect

I've spent my entire life chasing Olympic gold, measuring my worth in split times and stroke counts. Every morning at 4 AM, every sacrifice, every moment of pain—it's all been building toward one goal. Making my family proud. Proving I'm worth their investment.

Then Seven crashes into my carefully controlled world like a perfect dive, and suddenly, I'm drowning in feelings I never saw coming. My dive partner is everything I'm not—effortlessly talented, devastatingly beautiful, and dangerously distracting from the dreams I've built my identity around.

When I finally work up the courage to reach for what I want, Seven pulls back, choosing his reputation over my heart. The rejection hits harder than any failed routine ever could. I'm left gasping for air in a life that suddenly feels suffocating.
That's when I discovered extreme cliff diving. Ninety feet above a granite quarry, the world goes quiet. No expectations, no disappointment, no heartbreak. Just gravity and the rush of falling. For those few seconds of freefall, I'm not the swimmer who's never fast enough or the son who can't quite measure up. I'm just alive.

But you can't outrun emotional wreckage forever, and some kinds of impact leave more than physical scars. With the Olympic Trials looming and my body broken from my own reckless choices, I have to decide: Will I keep diving deeper into self-destruction or fight my way back to the surface?

Sometimes, the most dangerous dive is the one that leads you back to yourself.

Halo Effect is a M/M Rivals to Lovers Sports Romance.
It contains explicit scenes and profanity. Recommended for mature audiences, please check trigger warnings.