10. Zeke
ONE DAY BEFORE THE OPENING CEREMONY
If Zeke had met Olivia when they were twelve, they probably would have become friends. Zeke would have laughed at Olivia’s quick, scalding wit, and Olivia would have smiled at Zeke’s boyish sense of humor. They would have been put next to each other in Year Seven maths because a teacher would have figured out that Olivia’s focus would rub off on Zeke and that Zeke’s easygoing nature would rub off on Olivia.
If they’d met at seventeen, they would have run for head boy and head girl and spent the year antagonizing each other. Olivia would have rolled her eyes at Zeke’s teenage humor, and Zeke would have shaken his head at the fact that Olivia always had to be right. They would have hooked up at the last sixth-form party before results day, and it would have been earth-shattering.
If they’d met at university when they were nineteen, they would have become debate club partners. And if they’d met at eighty-six in a care home, they would have become fierce bingo rivals. There were a dozen alternate universes in which Olivia and Zeke could have first met. But on that day in Athens at the end of July, they met when Olivia was falling into a pit and Zeke was slipping into the worst version of himself.
After his morning workout with Haruki, Zeke and his teammates gathered around the track for their first practice. One of their team traditions was to watch each other practice on the first day. Usually, they competed at the same time, so they rarely got to cheer each other on. But on that first day, they all sat around the empty athletics field and watched their teammates do what they did best. They clapped as Sammy Nolan, the triple jumper, skipped three times and landed on the sixteen-meter mark. They cheered as Amina Aziz, the pole vaulter, defied gravity by launching herself over the five-meter bar. And shouted in excitement as Johnny Campbell, the shot putter, spun around with the elegance of a dancer, then threw the shot with the might of a warrior.
When it was Zeke’s turn to practice his 100m, he gave it his all. The first-day team training was just a warm-up. But Zeke surprised himself, his teammates, and all their coaches by reaching the finish line so quickly that he unintentionally beat his own record. He was high on adrenaline and fulfilled ambition.
As he walked across the Village, an excited group of teenagers wearing the uniforms of the Guatemalan team ran toward him. There were thousands of athletes in Athens that summer, but Zeke was an athlete’s athlete. In the same way that incredibly famous actors fangirled over Beyoncé or award-winning musicians got starstruck near Meryl Streep, other athletes became awestruck when faced with Zeke Moyo. He was a star, and he didn’t hate the attention.
He took a group photo with the Guatemalan teenagers and wished them luck with their diving competition. When he went to get a postworkout smoothie, he noticed how the girl working at the juice bar let her eyes linger on him as he walked in. Then he smiled to himself on the way out as he saw the number she’d scribbled on the back of his cup. Maybe he would call her.
After he left the juice bar, he scrolled through his mentions and laughed at the thirst tweets people had attached to the photos he’d taken for his GQ cover shoot. Somehow, he’d become the internet’s crush of the month. With the sun on his arms and the world at his feet, Zeke began to walk across the Village like it was his own personal kingdom. His mum was always quoting Bible verses about humility and scolding him through pointed prayers like “Humble my son, Almighty God! Make him remember that the Olympian is also a boy who must take out the bins at his mother’s house.” His brothers teased him down to earth, and his teammates were so talented that he never got complacent. But when Zeke was having a good day, he stepped into the most confident version of himself and became capital “E” Ezekiel Moyo.
If Zeke hadn’t beaten his own record that morning, he wouldn’t have put on his noise-cancelling headphones to listen to his favorite playlist. If the Guatemalan teenagers hadn’t treated him like a god, then he wouldn’t have felt like one that afternoon. If he hadn’t been allowing his own hype to get to his head, he would have noticed Olivia walking across the pavilion at 3:28 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of July.
If Olivia’s first day had gone according to plan, she wouldn’t have even been walking past the athletes’ apartments that day. If she hadn’t seen Lars’s Instagram page, she wouldn’t have been as annoyed as she was that afternoon. If she hadn’t been so focused on the photo of Lars with his arm around a tall, silver-medal-winning sprinter, she would have noticed Zeke as he walked across the pavilion at 3:28 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of July.
If Olivia hadn’t had such a terrible day and Zeke hadn’t had such a brilliant day, they would have never crossed paths. But they did. And before either of them had the chance to look up and realize they weren’t the only person walking on the path, they crashed right into each other.