Page 159 of Summer After Summer

I know.

Please promise me you won’t do anything stupid.

I promise.

I don’t believe you.

I have to go.

Don’t do it, Olivia.

Bye!

I put my phone down, then turn it off for good measure.

I don’t need Ash, of all people, to tell me how to live my life.

If I want to screw it up again, I should be entitled to.

I spend the week between the warmup tournament and the start of Wimbledon working on my game. My phone stays off. I tell Wes I need to go dark, that the pressure is getting to me and it’s the only way I know how to control it. He says he understands, but I know he’s hurt. But I can live with his hurt. It’s temporary. If I do the right thing and avoid Fred, despite my texts, it will all be forgotten.

And if I do the wrong thing and see Fred, with all that means, then …

I hit what feels like a million balls. I run and I eat, and I sleep. I watch tape of my likely opponents. I come into the first round strong and win my game. A day off and then repeat. That buzz is building around me again—I can feel it. Not because I read the press, but because of the questions that get asked at my press conferences, the number of journalists that show up. The buzz in the crowd as I play. The closer my matches get to center court.

Another win and it doubles. Win, repeat, win, repeat and now I’ve made it one round further than I did the last time. I’m not the phenom—I didn’t come out of qualifiers—but it hardly matters. Everyone remembers that’s who I am, and it’s like it’s happening all over again. I’m floating, seeing the ball well, playing without injury, and it all starts to feel inevitable that I’ll make it to the final round and then … Fred.

It doesn’t work out like that.

Instead, my next opponent is Kendall, the woman who just beat me. Again, I win the first set. Again, she wins the second. Again, it’s because my mental focus slips, just for one game, but one game is enough.

And now we’re in the third set, and it’s neck and neck. I don’t flinch and neither does she. I hold serve, she holds serve, the games creep up, the crowd is loud and enthusiastic. They’re on both our sides, that center court thrall, and it feels like the game will never end. Kendall is tired. Her arms droop between shots, she’s hunched over when she serves, and yet the shots are still precise, the serve still a kicker.

It’s the third set and we’re six and six. There’s still no tiebreaker here, so the points mount and mount and mount, and then I miss. An easy shot at the net where I could’ve won the point goes into the net instead. I can hear the crowd sigh, like I’m in a large lung. Everyone knows what’s going to happen. Neither of us has made a mistake until now, and now she’s about to break me.

I shake the mistake off, trotting back to the baseline, trying to read her toss. She goes out wide and returns it, but not as cleanly as I’d like, and she rips a forehand winner past me. And now here we are, match point. Everyone is leaning forward in their seats, and I’m waiting too. Her serve is a bit weak and my return lands on the baseline. She puts one up in the air, and I move around to get the overhead. It comes down hard, but without the angle it needed, and now she pops another one up, a lob that goes over my head and lands in. I run to it, turn, hit it, but I know when it leaves my racquet it isn’t going in. It lands two feet outside the sideline, and she screams and falls to her knees.

She won. I lost.

I lost; I can’t believe it.

The crowd is on its feet for both of us, cheering, recognizing the amazing performance. I’m fighting back tears. I put my stuff away quickly, wave to the crowd, then I’m in the locker room, alone on a bench, surrounded by players getting ready for their matches. It all overwhelms me. The loss. The loneliness. All the choices I’ve made in my life that have led me to this moment, with no one here to celebrate with because I wanted to keep my options open.

So, I do two things:

I go into the press conference and announce my retirement.

And then I text Fred and tell him to meet me at the apartment tomorrow night at eight.

For once, I feel in control of my fate.

The next morning, I’m a bundle of nerves and second thoughts. Matt is furious with me for not consulting with him about retiring. I’ve got offers pouring in, he tells me. I’m walking away from millions, potentially, the millions I haven’t made till now. But I’m sick of tennis. Tired of the sacrifices it requires. I want a life, a family, a home. I want to move my life forward.

I wake at my usual early hour and pace the apartment. I could go out, but it’s pouring down rain. All the matches are postponed, not that I’d watch them if they weren’t. Instead, I take a long bath and order a massive English breakfast from the pub down the road because I can eat what I want now. The man who delivers it tells me, “Too bad about the game,” and I peel off enough cash to make him leave happy.

I bring my breakfast to the kitchen table, and as I’m loading up a scone with a heaping of cream and jam, my phone pings.

It’s Fred.

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