Chapter 14
JASMINE BURIED HER FACE INTO HER PILLOW. SHE WASN’T ready to face the day. She could still hear it in her mind, like a song on infinite repeat for the last two days. The chair umpire’s voice amplified by the microphone—Game, set, and match, Gaffney—as the crowd roared.
Sleep was impossible. She tossed and turned late into the night, body exhausted, but replaying the match over and over again.
Then the expression on her father’s face when he saw her afterward would swim behind her eyes, part disappointment and part disbelief.
She’d let him down and that hurt even more than the loss itself.
“Jasmine!” Her mother’s voice carried up the stairs, followed by the pounding of footsteps. “Jasmine, wake up!” Her mom, bracelets jangling, burst through her door and grabbed her duvet cover, yanking it away.
“Mom,” she grumbled. “Go away.”
She’d been staying at her parents’ house in her childhood bedroom since the Classic, not wanting to face anyone on campus. Her dad’s disappointment was one thing; the poorly disguised glee of the people she thought were her friends was another.
“You have to get up, mija. You gave yourself a couple of days to wallow. You lost. It happens from time to time, but today you must go back to training. The OBX Classic is over and the French Open begins. Simple as cake.”
“Pie. Simple as pie or piece of cake.” Even after nearly twenty years in the States, her mom tended to mix up her idioms.
“Cake, pie, I love both. Now, get up.” She felt a soft tap against her backside and then her curtains and windows were thrown wide open, the morning air blowing in and the sunlight blinding her.
Jasmine rolled over, sitting up, and her stomach lurched. She couldn’t go in and face everyone, not after that loss, and not after what the Athlete Weekly article wrote about her.
Dom probably went nuts on Hodges for focusing his article on Penny and Alex’s off-the-court relationship in what was supposed to be a serious sports publication, but it wasn’t the tabloid crap that worried Jasmine. It was a separate section entirely, one that focused on the results of the Classic.
Mental toughness is a necessary quality in any champion.
Both John Randazzo and Lisa Vega had it in spades, along with superior athleticism and instinct, but the same can’t be said for their daughter, who folded under the pressure in the tournament’s final after coasting through a relatively weak field…
There, in black and white, was an analysis of what had happened during the final match that hit far too close to home. Athleticism, instinct, mental toughness, things necessary to succeed as a top athlete in any sport, qualities Harold Hodges, a tennis expert, didn’t think she possessed.
That was why the loss was eating away at her.
She’d lost big matches before and they were always disappointing, but this one was different.
It was a match she should’ve been able to win.
The competition at the Classic was good, but at the end of the day, it was only the up-and-coming talent that played in it, and up-and-coming didn’t necessarily translate to a career on tour.
Indiana was very good, but she had a week of elite-level coaching under her belt after a two-year hiatus and managed to beat her.
It shouldn’t have happened, and yet it did.
“What if he’s right? What if I’m not good enough?”
“Mija, he is one man.” Her mom sat down beside her on the bed and wrapped her arm around her shoulders. “He is one man who watched you play for one week. He is not God. He is not the final word.”
“He’s one of the best tennis reporters in the world.” She slipped out from under the embrace and stood, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It’s his opinion. He doesn’t know you and the article is trash.”
It didn’t make her feel any better, but she knew her mom wouldn’t stop, so she plastered a grin on her face and nodded.
“Fine, you’re right. He’s one man and he doesn’t know me.”
“Good, get dressed. I’ll make you breakfast before training.” Sometimes her mom saw what she wanted to see and not what was right in front of her.
Jasmine eyed the crumpled printout of the article sitting on her nightstand next to her phone, which had finally stopped beeping at her after she ignored Teddy’s tenth message.
Harold Hodges was one man, a man who didn’t know her game beyond what he saw last week.
Her parents were great, but they couldn’t be objective.
And Teddy, he was the last person she wanted to talk to about anything.
There was only one person she knew who would be brutally honest.
The atrium was empty when she arrived at OBX, aside from Roy, his nose buried in his newspaper as usual.
Jasmine made a beeline for Dom’s office, knowing he usually set aside mornings for paperwork.
As she climbed the stairs, she had to move aside for Penny, who nodded at her quickly, and Alex Russell, trailing behind, his eyes boring into the back of Penny’s head.
“Jasmine,” Dom said from behind his desk as she entered his office. He motioned for her to take a seat. “What can I do for you?”
She ignored him. “You know why I’m here.”
Dom pinched the bridge of his nose. “That damn article. I wish I’d never agreed to it.”
She nodded, but Dom’s regrets were the least of her worries.
“Was he right?” she asked.
He leaned forward, rubbing his face with both hands, before looking at her again.
“Jasmine, you’ve got to understand, Hodges wasn’t writing about how you performed in the tournament, at least not entirely.
You did a great job against your competition, and that final match, well no one saw that coming. ”
“Then what was he writing about?”
Dom paused, pulling his lips into a thin line.
Jasmine felt her knees shake and she let herself sink into a chair across from him. “You agree with him.”
“No.” There was no hesitation, and Jasmine felt a little better, but he still hadn’t given her a straight answer. “I think his analysis was shortsighted at best.”
“Then what? Either I have what it takes or I don’t.”
“It’s not that simple. The tennis world isn’t black and white.
You’ve worked so hard all these years to try and measure up to your parents.
” She started to protest, but Dom kept talking.
“Don’t deny it. I’ve known you since you were seven years old.
I know you want to prove to the world that you’re every bit the tennis player the daughter of Lisa Vega and John Randazzo should be. ”
“But I’m not,” she finished for him. “Is that what you’re saying? That I’m not as good as my parents?”
“I’m saying that not everyone is top ten material, Jasmine. Not everyone is going to win Grand Slams and Olympic medals.”
“Not me, you mean.”
“Not yet. You’re only twenty years old. You have to give yourself some time. You can still have a very good career. You’ve got a great head for the game and you’re a hard worker.”
His words didn’t have much meaning in that moment. The whole world expected greatness from her. Good, in the face of those expectations, wasn’t good enough.
“Thanks,” she said, leaping up from her seat and striding to the stairs.
“Jasmine,” Dom called, but she didn’t turn back. She didn’t need Dom to see her cry. It would be one more thing to add to the list of her faults as a player: emotional basket case.
She raced down the stairs and flew through the atrium toward the women’s locker room.
There was a maintenance man standing at the end of the hallway, a small power drill pressed into the wall.
The shrill whirring of the drill bit securing Indy’s victory plaque into the Title Wall was worse than nails on a chalkboard, setting her teeth on edge.
She swiped under her eyes, forcing the tears back.
After stalking past him into the locker room, she changed into her training clothes and marched out to the practice courts.
OBX was in full swing, courts packed with players and coaches.
“Bene, Indiana, keep your feet moving. No hesitation. Bene,” Coach D’Amato said as Jasmine stepped onto the court where Indiana Gaffney and the others were on an agility course meant to increase stamina and improve footwork.
Jasmine felt her stomach clench. The OBX Champion was getting better, doing what she needed to do to win again.
“Nice job, Indy,” Lara called from the line of girls at the baseline.
Indy skidded to a halt as she finished her agility run, then turned and nodded, but didn’t say anything as she went to the back of the line.
“Ah, Jasmine. Eccellente. Join us.” Coach D’Amato greeted her with a sharp nod. “I will be right back and then you girls will play a set.”
Jasmine blinked in total confusion as her coach left.
She was late, but D’Amato hadn’t said anything about Einsteins.
Did they really think she was that much of a lost cause?
No sense in making her run, because it wouldn’t make her any better.
She turned to Indy, whose mouth twisted into a pout, but obviously Indy couldn’t come up with anything to say, so she just shrugged.
Jasmine tried to ignore it, how easy it was for Indy to shrug and dismiss it, just like it had been easy for her to show up and win the tournament Jasmine had been working toward for years. Just like it was easy for her to make Teddy…
Fuck it. She couldn’t think about that. She was here to train.
She took her spot at the front of the line and ran through the agility course, as familiar to her as breathing after years training with Coach D’Amato, her shuffling feet controlled and smooth as she completed the short circuit.
She finished up and then made her way to the back of the line, but as she did, her foot tangled with someone else’s.
She stutter-stepped, catching herself just before wiping out entirely, and then she whirled around to see who’d tripped her.
It was Indy’s foot. Of course it was.
Jasmine saw red, something inside of her snapping, as blood roared in her ears.
“Really?” she barked, getting right up into Indy’s face and looking her dead in the eye, rage fueling every word. “You didn’t take enough from me this week, you need to finish the job?”
“It was an accident, I’m—” Indy began, taking a step back.
Jasmine cut off the fake-ass apology. “This was supposed to be my year. And then you came out of nowhere and stole it.”
“That’s not—” Indy tried again.
“Come on, Jasmine,” Lara said, trying to step between the two.
“Stay the hell out of this, you little hypocrite,” she snapped, and then whirled to Indiana again.
“And don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about.
You waltzed in here like you owned the damn place.
You’ve been here two seconds. I’ve been training my whole life, and in one week, you took it all from me. ”
People were wandering over to the court—the guys’ group from the adjacent court; Jack Harrison, who’d been working with them; and dozens of others drawn by Jasmine’s raised voice—but the rage boiling through her veins couldn’t be cooled, not even by embarrassment.
She had to get away before she did something really stupid, like burst into tears in front of everyone.
She turned and started to run off the court, but her retreat was interrupted.
“No,” Indy yelled at her back.
“No?” Jasmine repeated, wheeling around so fast her ponytail whipped Indy in the face. “What the hell do you mean, no?”
Indy stalked forward, coming straight at her, her hands clenched into fists. “No, you’re not going to dump all your shit on me and then run away. I beat you. It’s that simple. I beat you. You want to blame someone? Take a look in the mirror. Maybe next time you won’t fold under the pressure.”
With that parting shot, she spun away. Her long blond braid, a clear attempt to copy Penny Harrison, whipped out behind her as she did and smacked Jasmine straight across the face.
The sting of it combined with the exact words Hodges used in the article spilling from the lips of her biggest rival was too much for her.
“You don’t know shit about me,” Jasmine screeched, and she launched herself forward, grabbing that fucking braid and yanking hard.
Indy wheeled around in time for Jasmine’s free hand to strike, open palm to the side of her face.
She lurched backward, her hair slipping from Jasmine’s grip, and clutched her cheek, thrown off-balance from the blow. But Jasmine, ready to spring forward and tackle the bitch, wasn’t done. Her forward momentum stopped, however, as an arm snaked around her waist and lifted her up and away.
“Easy there.” Jack Harrison’s voice rumbled through his chest and into her back.
She struggled against him for a moment, but his grip was like iron.
He took her weight easily enough and carried her off the court.
She thought about kicking him in the shins, but once they were outside the gate, he let her down.
She pushed her way out of his arms and whirled around to run away but was suddenly face-to-face with Coach D’Amato.
Jasmine felt herself deflate, the reality of what happened, what she’d just done, sinking in. She’d found a new rock bottom, maybe one there was no coming back from, and it was all her own fault.