Silence
Chapter fifteen
The heat in Dubai was oppressive, a dry, baking intensity that radiated from the hard courts and shimmered in the air above the stadium.
Blake didn’t feel it.
He didn’t feel the heat, or the exhaustion in his legs, or the ache in his serving shoulder. He felt nothing at all. He was a machine again, stripped of emotion, stripped of humanity, operating on pure, cold instinct.
He won his first-round match in forty-five minutes, dropping only two games. He hit the ball with a brutal, punishing violence, his forehand a weapon of mass destruction that left his opponent stranded behind the baseline, shaking his head in disbelief.
When the match was over, Blake shook hands at the net, packed his bags, and walked off the court without acknowledging the crowd.
In the locker room, Doug was waiting.
“What was that?” Doug asked, leaning against the lockers, his arms crossed.
“I won,” Blake said, unzipping his bag and pulling out a clean shirt.
“You didn’t just win. You tried to hit the ball through the back fence on every point. You’re playing angry, Blake. It works against a qualifier, but it won’t work against the top ten. You need to dial it back.”
Blake pulled his sweaty shirt over his head, throwing it into a plastic bag.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Doug said, his voice dropping, losing the harsh edge of the coach and taking on the quiet concern of a friend. “You showed up at the airport five hours early. You haven’t spoken two words to me since we left London. And you look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
Blake closed his eyes, gripping the edge of the metal bench.
The silence in his head was deafening. For four years, his internal monologue had been a constant dialogue with Andre. He thought about what Andre would say about a particular shot, what Andre would want for dinner, what Andre was painting. Now, there was nothing. Just a vast, echoing emptiness.
“Leave it alone, Doug,” Blake said, his voice tight.
“Is it Andre?”
Blake’s head snapped up, his blue eyes flashing with a sudden, dangerous fury. “I said, leave it alone.”
Doug held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Okay. But you need to find a way to channel whatever this is, or it’s going to burn you out before the quarterfinals.”
Blake didn’t answer. He finished dressing, grabbed his bags, and walked out of the locker room.
Back at the hotel, the silence was even worse.
The room was luxurious, a sprawling suite overlooking the Persian Gulf, but to Blake, it felt like a prison cell. He dropped his bags by the door and walked to the window, staring out at the water, the bright, artificial lights of the city reflecting on the dark surface.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He pulled it out. The screen lit up with a notification.
Andre (18:45): Please, Blake. Just tell me you arrived safely. Tell me you are okay. I am so sorry. I love you.
It was the fourteenth text Andre had sent since Blake had walked out of the flat.
Blake stared at the words. He read them over and over, tracing the letters with his eyes, trying to find some meaning in them, some comfort. But there was none. The words were empty, hollowed out by the reality of what Andre had done.
He swiped the notification away.
There were other messages.
Talia (10:12): Blake, please. We need to talk. I am so incredibly sorry. It was a mistake. We were out of our minds. Please don’t throw everything away because of us.
Liam (11:30): Mate, I don’t know what to say. I’m a piece of shit. We both are. But Andre loves you. He’s destroyed. Please call him.
Blake felt a surge of nausea. He deleted the messages without opening them, his index finger swiping across the screen with vicious, robotic precision.
He didn’t want their apologies. He didn’t want their explanations. He wanted his life back. He wanted the man he had loved, the man he had trusted, the man who had looked at him across a crowded room and made him feel like he was the only person in the world.
But that man didn’t exist anymore.
Blake threw the phone onto the bed, walked into the bathroom, and turned the shower on as hot as it would go. He stood under the spray until his skin was red and raw, trying to wash away the feeling of contamination, the lingering, phantom touch of a betrayal he hadn’t even been present for.
In London, the flat in South Kensington was a tomb.
Andre sat on the floor of the living room, his back against the sofa, staring at the blank screen of his phone. The battery was at twelve percent. He hadn’t plugged it in. He hadn’t moved in hours.
The flat was empty in a way that went beyond sound. There was no sound of Blake moving around in the kitchen, no sound of tennis matches playing softly on the television, no sound of the deep, familiar voice that had been the soundtrack to Andre’s life for four years.
There was only the ticking of the clock on the wall, a steady, relentless reminder of the time passing, of the distance growing between them.
Downstairs, the bakery was closed for the day. Pierre and Claire had come up earlier, knocking softly on the door. Andre hadn’t answered. He couldn’t face them. He couldn’t look at his mother’s kind, worried eyes and tell her that he had destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to him.
He had tried to paint.
He had walked to the studio on The Cut the day after Blake left, longing for the familiar, grounding routine of the canvas. He had mixed his colors, prepared his brushes, and stood in front of the easel.
But when he raised his hand, he saw Talia’s skin. He saw Liam’s face. He saw the cold, dead look in Blake’s eyes as he walked out the door.
He had dropped the brush, the paint splattering across the floorboards, and had sunk to his knees, weeping until he couldn’t breathe.
Now, he was just waiting.
He didn’t know what he was waiting for. A text. A call. A sign that Blake was still alive, still out there in the world, still connected to him by some invisible, fraying thread.
His phone buzzed in his hand.
Andre gasped, his heart leaping into his throat. He fumbled with the device, his fingers slipping on the screen, frantic to open the message.
It was from Liam.
Liam (20:15): Have you heard from him? He’s not answering us.
Andre let out a broken, wrenching sob, dropping the phone onto the floor. He pulled his knees to his chest, burying his face in his arms, and let the darkness swallow him whole.
The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships was played in the punishing heat of the Arabian desert. The hard courts absorbed the sun all day, radiating it back up in shimmering waves that distorted the air and made the lines on the court dance.
The days blurred together. First round. Second round. Third round. Blake moved through the draw like a man possessed, each match shorter and more brutal than the last.
He didn’t speak to anyone outside of the practice court. He ate alone in his hotel room.
He slept three hours a night, waking in the dark with Andre’s face burned into the backs of his eyelids.
Doug watched him from the player box, his expression growing more concerned with each passing day. But he didn’t push. Not yet.
Blake didn’t feel the heat. He didn’t feel anything.
He was playing the quarterfinal against a towering Russian player known for a massive serve and a volatile temper. The Russian was currently screaming at the chair umpire over a line call, his face red, his racket raised in a threatening gesture.
Blake stood at the baseline, bouncing the ball. He didn’t look at the Russian. He didn’t look at the umpire. He stared at the yellow fuzz of the tennis ball, his mind a cold, empty void.
The anger that had consumed him in the flat in South Kensington had crystallized into something far more dangerous. It was a dark fury, a relentless, driving force that stripped away all emotion, all hesitation, all humanity.
He was playing the best tennis of his life.
He had torn through the first two rounds without dropping a set, dismantling his opponents with a ruthless, surgical precision that had left the commentators stunned.
He wasn’t just beating them; he was destroying them. He was hitting the ball harder, flatter, and closer to the lines than he ever had before.
“Play,” the umpire finally called, issuing a code violation to the Russian.
Blake tossed the ball.
He didn’t aim for the corners. He aimed straight for the Russian’s body. The serve was a blistering 135 miles per hour, a flat, heavy missile that jammed the Russian, forcing him to hit a weak, defensive block.
Blake was already moving forward. He took the ball out of the air, driving a forehand volley deep into the open court.
Winner.
The crowd in Dubai, usually polite and reserved, roared in appreciation. Blake didn’t acknowledge them. He walked back to the baseline, his face a mask of absolute, decisive focus.
In the player box, Doug watched him, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Doug had seen Blake play angry before. He had seen him play frustrated, exhausted, and injured.
But he had never seen him play like this.
It was like watching a machine. There was no joy in it, no passion, no art. It was pure, unadulterated execution.
The match lasted exactly one hour and twelve minutes. Blake won 6-2, 6-1.
When he hit the final winner — a backhand down the line that the Russian didn’t even try to chase — Blake didn’t celebrate. He didn’t pump his fist or look up at the box. He simply walked to the net, shook the Russian’s hand, and packed his bag.
He walked off the court, ignoring the cameras, ignoring the fans leaning over the railing with oversized tennis balls and sharpies.
He pushed through the doors of the locker room, the sudden blast of air conditioning hitting his sweat-soaked skin. He dropped his bag by his locker, sat down on the bench, and buried his face in his hands.
The adrenaline of the match began to fade, and the cold, empty void in his mind began to fill with the images he had been fighting to suppress for five days.
Andre’s face, pale and terrified. The smell of the flat. The sound of the door clicking shut behind him.
His phone buzzed in his bag.
Blake didn’t move. He knew who it was. His phone had been buzzing constantly since he landed in Dubai. Texts from Andre, pleading, urgent, broken. Texts from Liam, apologizing, begging for a chance to explain. Texts from Talia, long, rambling messages filled with tears and regret.
He hadn’t read a single one. He had deleted them all without opening them, the act of swiping left on the screen a small, petty assertion of control in a world that had suddenly spun violently off its axis.
Doug walked into the locker room, carrying two bottles of water. He tossed one to Blake, who caught it without looking up.
“That was a clinic,” Doug said, sitting down on the bench next to him.
“You hit thirty-two winners and four unforced errors. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you play a cleaner match.”
“He was slow,” Blake said, his voice flat. “He didn’t move his feet on the backhand side.”
Doug looked at him, his expression serious.
“Blake, you can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Playing like you’re trying to punish the ball for existing,” Doug said. “You’re hitting everything at a hundred percent. You’re going to blow out your shoulder, or your knee, or your mind. You need to pace yourself.”
“I’m fine,” Blake said, opening the water bottle and taking a long drink.
“You’re not fine,” Doug countered, his voice rising slightly. “You haven’t slept more than three hours a night since we got here. You’re barely eating. You’re running on pure adrenaline and rage, and it’s not sustainable.”
Blake turned to look at him, his blue eyes cold and hard. “I’m in the semifinals, Doug. I’m doing my job. Let me do my job.”
Doug sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He knew when to push Blake, and he knew when to back off. Right now, pushing him was like pushing against a brick wall.
“Alright,” Doug said, standing up. “Semifinal tomorrow night. You’re playing the Spaniard. He’s a grinder. You’ll need your legs.”
“I’ll be ready,” Blake said.
When Doug left, Blake pulled his phone out of his bag.
There were three new messages. Two from Andre. One from Claire.
He stared at the screen, his thumb hovering over the delete button. He could feel the familiar, leaden weight of the betrayal pressing down on his chest, making it hard to breathe. He wanted to read them. He wanted to know what Andre was saying, what he was feeling. He wanted to hear his voice.
But the anger was stronger. The anger was safe. The anger protected him from the pain.
He swiped left. Delete. Delete. Delete.
He turned the phone off, shoved it back into his bag, and stood up to take a shower. He had a semifinal to win. He had a job to do. And as long as he kept moving, as long as he kept hitting the ball, he didn’t have to stop and he didn’t have to feel.
Blake won the tournament.
He beat the Spaniard in the semifinal in three sets, dropping the second before roaring back with a ruthless third, and then dismantled the world number seven in the final, 6-3, 6-2.
When he hit the final winner — a blistering backhand down the line that kissed the baseline — he didn’t celebrate. He simply walked to the net, shook the umpire’s hand, and packed his bags.
In the locker room afterward, Doug stepped in front of the exit, blocking his path.
“I don’t know what happened,” Doug said, his voice low and steady. “And I’m not asking. But you can’t keep doing this. You’re going to break.”
“I just won a 500-level tournament,” Blake said, his voice flat. “I think I’m doing fine.”
“You’re playing like you hate the sport. Like you hate yourself.”
Blake looked away, the cold knot in his chest tightening.
“We fly back to London tomorrow,” Doug said gently. “Go home. Talk to him.”
“I’m not going home,” Blake said, pushing past Doug toward the door. “I’ll find a hotel. I’m not going back to the flat.”
He walked out of the locker room, leaving Doug standing in the silence.