Chapter 12
This is the longest rally of my life—backhand to backhand, crosscourt, over and over.
Put an end to it. Make him run.
I load up and smack the ball back, this time sending it straight down the line. It’s beautiful. It’s speeding. Volt is running, extending his arm to chip it back. My ball lands—
“Out!”
—just past the line.
“Game, Volt.” the umpire announces.
No. No, no, no. I glance at the score like I don’t already know what it is.
I’m down 0–4 in the first set, haven’t managed to win a single game.
I’ve come close, but the score doesn’t reflect that.
Just a big ol’ zero is all I have to show for my effort, and he’s two games away from locking it in.
I’m two games away from getting bageled. This is my debut, and it’s a nightmare.
I’m simmering to a boil as I walk over to the corner of the court to towel off. I’ve made plenty of unforced errors solely because my racket’s been slipping like a bar of soap in my hand.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. We got time,” Robbie says from the front row. It makes me angrier, his calm at odds with my inner storm. Charlotte nods next to him, quietly trying to lift me up. She knows better than to say anything right now. He should too.
I scrape my fingers across the terry cloth of the towel so hard that I could draw blood, and then I whip around back to the court. The serve clock is ticking.
Breathe. I cannot go down like this. Settle. This match is far from over, and I refuse to set this tone so early. Breathe. I fucking refuse.
All at once, I can’t contain my rage anymore, and the lid flies off. I thrust my racket up to the sky, and smash it down, stopping just before contact with the court. I empty my lungs into the ground—
“Aghhhhhh!”
My scream echoes across the stadium, and the crowd falls silent. I open my eyes to find a kid staring at me from the front row, wide-eyed, scared to death. He must have jumped in his seat.
I hold my hand up as an apology to him and his dad, both in matching US Open hats. The dad waves me off like I shouldn’t worry about it, but the kid’s still recovering. Murmurs travel the crowd.
My cheeks flush with regret. Players explode on court all the time.
Yell. Scream. Cry. Bash their rackets on the nearest surface.
And go to their bag to bash another one.
Commentators give us shit for it—fans do too—but it’s hard to control emotions out here, when you care this much, and sometimes you have to find a way to let it all out.
I want to be cool, to let nothing get to me, but I can’t chase the impossible, so I’m not gonna try.
With six seconds left I walk up to the baseline to serve.
A ball kid tosses me two balls. I keep the one with the least fluff—I need it to be fast—and I pocket the other.
Bounce, bounce. Bounce, bounce.
I take a deep breath through my nose and catch a hint of salt water—and I’m back on the beach in California, with Char and Mom and Dad. I’m on my stomach, floating on a surfboard. Behind me, Dad holds it steady, guiding me gently over the waves. The sun warms my neck, just as it does now. I exhale.
Toss. Hit. The ball flies—right past Volt.
Ace.
I glance at the screen. One hundred thirty-five miles per hour. Well, shit. Tied my personal record.
“15–Love.”
I serve again, this time slicing to the outside of the court. He barely returns it, and I swat it from the air, a clean winner.
“30–Love.”
The crowd claps hard, sensing a shift in momentum. Let’s try that again.
“40–Love.”
A few people shoot up to their feet, including the kid I scared. He shakes his fist at me, intensity building in his eyes. I chuckle.
All right, one more point and we’re on the board, a chance to upgrade from a bagel to a breadstick.
My serve flies into the net.
“Fault!”
It’s okay. It’s okay. I take a second to reset—and something from earlier enters my mind.
Normally I’d hit another slice serve—it’s forgiving, and it gets the ball in play—but I’ve got a little room to work with here, and, for some reason, I’m feeling like taking a risk.
I toss the ball, it hangs in the air, and I think about something Helen said. I wrote it off at the time, but now it feels appropriate. I choose to be brave.
Smack!
Silence.
“Game, Hardy.”
The crowd erupts.
And then I check the speed clock. One hundred forty-six miles per hour. I catch Robbie mouthing, Holy shit.
He joins the clapping—remaining fully seated, of course—but astonishment posters his face.
I don’t think I can climb out of this hole to win the set, but something has definitely changed. I feel it. The crowd feels it. I glance over to Volt, limping off to his towel. He actually feels it.
A match can turn in an instant. I watched every single Eriksson match when I was a kid, and when he lost a first set I was devastated, convinced that it was all over.
But the more matches I watched, and the more I played, I learned that it’s never over until it is.
I have confidence, I have momentum, and I have the crowd, and that can make all the difference.
My buddy in the front row is on his feet again. When I walk by him, he throws his head into the air and releases the deepest, most guttural scream I’ve ever heard come out of a child.
I laugh. I relax. Volt wins the set—but I take the next one, 6–3.