Page 15 of Clean Point

Dylan’s tone was icy, ‘She cheated, plain and simple. How he can ever trust her again, I’ll never understand.’

My fingers clenched the edge of the door, knuckles turning white. I could just hear them over the thumping of my heart, the air feeling thin and my head woozy. I’d told myself this was going to happen. I was a cheat to them. I was a cheat to the entire world. For them, I’d crossed that threshold, tried to steal a title for myself, when in fact everything had been stolen from me.

Henrik’s voice cut in, a touch of annoyance in his words, ‘Look, she paid her dues for the mistake. We’ve all moved on. It’s water under the bridge.’

Dylan’s response was sharp, ‘Has she, though? You’ve seen her on Instagram. The Daily Tea has a shortcut for her on their homepage.’

‘And why do you care so much?’ Inés sighed, her voice carrying a hint of exasperation. ‘If Jon said it’s fine, then it’s fine.’

‘You won’t be saying that when she’s back on court, and it’s your title she’s snatching away,’ Dylan retorted.

I watched as Inés’s dark eyes narrowed, her back stiffening. ‘I can beat her.’

‘You haven’t before.’ Inés’s attention immediately pulled to the Czech.

‘She wasn’t clean before.’ A sharp laugh follows Dylan’s words. ‘And now her daddy isn’t here to help her win.’

All the air had been sucked out of the room, my chest tightened and my lungs burned for a simple breath. This was it, the fear becoming a real, palpable thing. I knew these people, how they thought, and they all had counted me out. Believed I was nothing without cheating, easy prey ripe for the picking. They didn’t know the truth, and wouldn’t believe it if they did.

I leaned back against the wall, closing my eyes as I pictured that day again. My last day on the court at Wimbledon, finally achieving everything I’d ever dreamed of, only for it to all be tainted without my consent. I had to be better than I was. Had to be clean and vicious and a goddamn animal on the court so there would be no question I’d earned every title I took home. I needed to come back from this stronger, or they’d eat me alive.

8

Nico

Will We Talk? – Sam Fender

The cool water glided down my back as my left arm extended in front of me, pulling my body forward through the villa pool. Tilting my head, I took a quick breath of fresh air before resubmerging under the surface. The movement was second nature, my mind preoccupied with the words of a certain blonde she-devil.

‘Aren’t you worried you’ll never play again, that you’ll need to rely on somebody younger and faster if you want a chance in hell of coming near another title?’

What did she know?

Whatever had gone down to split Matteo Rossi from his golden child prodigy, I knew it could only spell trouble. I’d been a teenager when I first faced him on the court. Nobody had expected me to make it out of the qualifying rounds, let alone the finals. But there I had been, at Flushing Meadows, standing across the net from him.

When I’d won, it felt like a dream. The months after; a nightmare.

I was a kid who found himself at the top of the tennis world and enemy number one to its most successful player. For that first year, hardly anyone would touch me. Coaches would quit overnight, sponsorship deals would be on the table one day, and disappear the next, with Matteo suspiciously promoting the brand instead.

And the media. They loved the story of the young underdog taking down a legend until they realized I could do it. An eighteen-year-old against the world’s media, nobody reliable to back him up. I couldn’t have a life outside of tennis without them reporting on it, barely talking to another person without photos appearing.

Then, when a car crash sealed the fate of Matteo’s career, he disappeared to train her.

Matteo Rossi 2.0.

Emerging for a breath of fresh air, I broke the surface but immediately considered sinking to the bottom when I saw who was there.

Speak of the devil, and there she stood – Scottie. With her hand on her hip, wearing a white oversized T-shirt and shorts that accentuated the entire length of her long legs. Her sunshine blonde hair was tied up and tucked under a familiar-looking baseball cap, a few tendrils of her hair playfully escaping around the edges.

To make matters worse, there it was – the infuriating smirk on her face, as if she had been waiting for this moment.

‘Well, well, look who’s decided to come up for air.’ She stood there, a mug in hand, clearly revelling in this opportunity to provoke me. ‘Thought you’d hide at the bottom of the pool forever, huh?’

My jaw clenched, and I forced myself not to let her get under my skin as I swam to the edge of the pool, before my feet found the tiled bottom, water dripping from my body as I stood.

‘Bet you were hoping I’d drown.’

While Scottie Sinclair had been no overnight success, you could see her father’s influence giving her a clear advantage in her early days. He’d use his connections, again stealing away people from my team, but this time to her benefit. She certainly had talent. You don’t get far in this sport without it. But she also had her father’s name and money, and that opened doors. That alone, however, didn’t win championships. For that, you had to earn it.

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