Page 25 of Game Point
‘Thanks,’ I said, sadness curling up around my edges.I could’ve stayed up all night with her.‘Goodnight.’ The words tasted so sour.
‘Night.’ She moved to end the call, but instead panic wrapped itself around me as a single thought slammed into me.
‘Wait, Dylan.’ The words fell out of me, my mind going back to the original reason for the call.
‘Yeah?’
I swallowed down my panic, taking another moment to consider my words. ‘Don’t let Brooke …’ I trailed off, trying to get the sentiment right. ‘Don’t let her bully you. If you don’t think there’s anything wrong with themovement, and she can’t give you specifics, don’t let her make you feel awful about it,’ I warned, trying to calculate if I was overstepping.
From what I could see with Dylan and her playing, footwork and game play weren’t the issue. But another person bringing her down, toying with her confidence for fun, it was the last thing she needed.
‘That’s not her job,’ I added, ‘to bring you down. It’s not what she’s supposed to do.’ There was a long silence between us, and when I started to worry I’d made a mistake, she replied.
‘I won’t let her,’ she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. I nodded, having already said everything I’d wanted. ‘Goodnight.’
I barely had my responding ‘night’ out before the line went dead.
7
Dylan
The News – Paramore
I didn’t know which maniac had scheduled me in for an interview and photoshoot in the middle of a training camp, but I had their number. Slumping down into the make-up chair, I stared back at my reflection. Fake lashes, make-up, my brown hair curled. I looked like a Barbie doll a toddler had taken a crayon to.
I shouldn’t be here, locked away for an entire morning shooting a cover for a magazine nobody would care about. I needed to be out on the court, practising, running drills, getting ready for the China Open.
‘If you can wrap the interview up in less than thirty minutes, I can schedule some more court time for us to go through your inside-out forehand again.’ Brooke appeared, sitting down on one of the chairs next to me, her phone in hand as she furiously typed away.
Tiredness ached my body at the idea of following up this circus parade with more practice. She’d been running me hard. The practice relentless. And then there were my late-night sessions when sleep didn’t come because I was still trying to perfect the movement she had been torturing me all day with.
‘I’ve got some drills for us to go through and we can sort the bad habits you’ve picked up. You’ve gotten sloppyover the years with your technique,’ Brooke muttered. I squeezed down my retort, reminding myself how hard I’d begged her to work with me again.
Rage boiled up inside me at her words. Instead, I re-focused on the mirror, grabbing the wipes available and furiously removing the make-up from my face, pressing hard against my skin to scrub the mask away.
‘Dylan?’ I turned to find a smiling assistant standing in the doorway. ‘We are ready for the interview if you are.’
Brooke looked up at me, her expression stern. ‘Don’t say anything stupid.’
I could barely contain my eyeroll. ‘Thanks for the reminder.’
The hallway was busy with members of production moving around the equipment from the photoshoot, some of them side-eying me as if they were remembering all the times I had beaten their favourite player on court.
‘You’ll be through here.’ The assistant guided me to a small room, a large glass window revealing the city around us, two sofas sitting opposite each other.
As the door clicked closed behind me, the room’s white walls began to press in on me and my heart began to pound harder in my chest.I felt trapped.
I hated talking to journalists; the way they could take your words and twist them. I sounded enough of a bitch in context; imagine how much worse it was out.
Fame wasn’t why I played. Sometimes, it was like a surprise tax on following a public-facing career.
‘Hi, Dylan,’ another voice flooded the room. I turned to find Rachel Kenrick walking across towards me. Ishould’ve left when I had the chance. She continued, ‘It’sgreat to sit down with you. I’m glad the magazine put us together.’
If the devil walked the earth, it wore the skin suit of Rachel Kenrick, sports gossip columnist for theDaily Tea. She’d risen to power in the last few months, out of the burnt wreckage that had been the previous administration of the so-called ‘news outlet’.
They’d chased down celebrities for decades, always digging up some hot scoop paired with a scandalous and blurry photo to go alongside their eye-catching headline. But when they’d been found to be in the pocket of some shady characters, the kick back from the public had been glorious and well deserved. But like most things, the changes were cosmetic. Out with the old administration, in with those they’d been teaching to follow in their footsteps. Like the infamous Hydra, if you cut one head off theDaily Tea, three more appeared. And one of those ugly heads was named Rachel Kenrick.
‘I thought it was someone else doing the interview.’ I sounded dumb, still wondering why Rachel of all people was here.
