46. Olivia
DAY EIGHT OF THE 2024 OLYMPICS
As Olivia walked into the laundry room, she smiled at all of the random things she’d done since she’d arrived at the Games that she could now put on an alternate version of her CV. She’d become an expert in horse-hay delivery, stacked up hundreds of miles’ worth of golf buggy trips, learned how to get 200 journalists through the accreditation office in less than ten minutes, and could pretty accurately guess what sport someone did just by glancing down at their shoes.
Since unfollowing Lars Lindberg, she’d stopped fixating on the summer she’d anticipated and allowed herself to focus on the summer she was actually having. And it had made all the difference. She’d spoken to Sierra Leonean sprinters about their favorite TV shows, helped Peruvian badminton players get new keys to their apartments, and tried Indonesian food for the first time with a group of weightlifters who’d given her a spoonful of everything they’d cooked for their team meal. Her walkie-talkie calls allowed her to really explore the Village, and she couldn’t count how many interesting conversations and experiences came from just saying yes.
In a break between replenishing bath towels in the gym that the Serbian women’s basketball team had just used, she picked up her phone to scroll for a few moments. And as she did, she saw a picture of someone she recognized. Zeke.
She clicked on the photo to be sure, and there he was. Sitting out in the sun, eating gelato. He looked so good. His face was lit up, and he was leaning forward with that expression that she’d grown to hopefully anticipate whenever she walked past a guy his height and complexion in the Village. His smile felt like summer, and the slight sparkle the sun was casting on his eyes made her even more excited for their date tomorrow. She was about to press the “like” button when she realized that the photo was just one in a long series of photos of him. She scrolled through them, and then she froze. She didn’t want to believe what she was seeing, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away.
The photos were grainy, but the facts were clear. Right next to Zeke—looking gorgeous in a green dress—was Valentina Ross-Rodriguez. They were sitting so close together that Olivia had no doubt that the photographer had captured a private moment. She looked down at the grass and saw that Valentina was holding Zeke’s hand. She flipped through the photos and zoomed in to check that what she was seeing was really true. She knew that ice-cream truck; it was just a ten-minute walk away from where she was. At first, she tried to tell herself that they were old photos, taken right at the start of the Games. But there on the grass next to Zeke was something that Olivia immediately recognized: Aditi’s favorite cardigan.
She’d given it to Valentina the other night, so it was clear that the photos were taken in the last two days.
Despite herself, Olivia scrolled through the comments from self-proclaimed “Zekentina” stans celebrating their favorite couple’s reunion. Olivia tried to come up with an excuse for why Zeke would be sharing a serving of gelato with his ex-girlfriend and holding her hand… platonically. But there were limits to what she could convince herself of. It was Tiago all over again. Zeke had told her there was nothing going on between him and Valentina. But as Olivia zoomed in on the other photos and saw the way Valentina looked at him, it was clear that Zeke wasn’t as honest as she’d hoped he was.
Her fears confirmed, she turned her internet off, put her phone on “do not disturb,” and pushed it down to the very bottom of her bag so it couldn’t hurt her feelings anymore. She lay down on one of the benches in the gym and stared up at the ceiling, pinned to the spot as she felt an overwhelming wave of sadness.
Of course he still liked Valentina. Who wouldn’t still like Valentina? She was beautiful—so beautiful that if she hadn’t become a gymnast first, she would have been snapped up by some modeling agency. She was successful—she’d literally won an Olympic gold medal three days ago. And the whole world was rooting for them to get back together. She’d seen the fancams and viral tweets. She didn’t need to be a Zekentina stan to know that Zeke and Valentina just made sense. They were both athletes and famous and beautiful and charismatic. Valentina was ambitious but in an inspiring way, impressive but with humility, beautiful but oh so effortless.
Olivia stood up and began to push the cleaning cart out of the gym. She felt her eyes well up but immediately blinked the tears away. She shook her head in embarrassment. Didn’t she know better than to trust a boy in the summertime? How could she have let herself get carried away so quickly? Zeke had told her that he liked her. But that didn’t mean anything. He was an athlete, and this was the Olympics. She was just another girl watching from the stands. How could she have been naive enough to think she was the only one?
She left the gym and walked back out into the Village, silently berating herself for losing sight of reality so quickly. Then she began to cry. Slow, quiet tears. She stopped rolling the cleaning cart and sat down on a bench outside the gym, looking out as the Village moved on without her. Olivia hated that she’d allowed herself to care so much. It was like Lisbon all over again.
She could still remember locking eyes with Tiago’s girlfriend as she explained that Olivia had wasted her summer with a boy who did the same thing with different girls year after year. She’d spent the whole plane journey home crying. But they’d been tears of embarrassment more than anything else. She’d been angry at herself for getting so caught up in the romance of it all that she hadn’t been able to spot the glaringly clear signs that Tiago wasn’t the dream boy he’d made himself out to be.
But this time, with Zeke, was different. She wasn’t embarrassed, and she didn’t regret a single moment. Because, despite her instincts to run, over the past couple of days she’d started to imagine what it would be like to truly give herself over to her feelings for him. It was too much and it was too soon, but she could already feel herself falling, which made the realization that she couldn’t trust him hurt more than any other disappointment she’d ever experienced.
Olivia could feel the heartbreak setting in, making the world look different and shaking her sense of self. She knew from experience that there was no use in trying to outswim the wave. She’d have to let it wash over her and distract herself enough so that she didn’t drown. So, she wiped away her tears and headed back over to the Hub, hoping that pouring herself into errands and walkie-talkie calls would take her mind off him for long enough to get her through the rest of the day.
But, when she got there, Zeke was standing right in front of the door.