Chapter 31
Before it all happens, a thought enters my head like a warm Saturday morning.
I’m killing it.
It stands out because friendly thoughts aren’t normal visitors for me.
Yes, I can recognize when I’m playing well—I see it on the scoreboard.
There’s actual evidence. But even when I win, it feels like a surprise, because throughout the match, and certainly afterward, I focus on what I could do better. It never lets up.
Except for tonight. Diego hits a flat backhand crosscourt, and I’m dashing to it. There’s no way in hell I can make it, but I do. And I whip a running forehand back. It zips like lightning, and lands straight on the line.
“Game, Hardy.”
Cheers take over the stadium. And I let them lift me—I don’t buckle under the pressure of the crowd’s expectations.
I turn to Robbie and Mom and Char. They’re on their feet.
This feeling…Oh, this fucking feeling…It finds its way to every doubt in my head, every sadness, every insecurity, and it vaporizes all of that.
The crowd is ten times louder with the roof closed, their screams and claps echoing straight down into my brain. This feeling…
Remember it. Don’t let this get away. Can’t this feeling pull you out of anything? Can’t you see you deserve to be here? Can’t you see you’re amazing?
That was before it all happened.
That was before.
Diego and I have been neck and neck since the rain delay. Both of us held serve, taking us to 6–6 and into a tiebreaker. The pressure of an entire set is bottled up in one game. The first player to seven points wins the set.
I serve first. An ace.
“One–love, Hardy.”
Diego prepares to serve the next two.
I get ready to return and attack, my eyes narrowing in his direction. He waits for the crowd to settle and begins his serve routine. He examines three balls, tosses one to a ball person, and pockets the other. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Bounce.
His head tilts up as he prepares, and that’s when I notice his tongue—yards and yards away, much farther than it was during Ping-Pong days ago, but there it is, pointing to my right. He’s going wide?
He serves, it hurtles at me—wide—and I jolt out and return it. His forehand blazes back but hits the net.
My point.
He serves again. This time his tongue peeks out to the left—I think. It’s hard to see through the sweat stinging my eyes.
He hits a flat T serve. Correct again. I return it and we rally. His ball lands just beyond the baseline.
My point again.
The crowd claps as I take a healthy lead. I’m three points ahead, and I’m gonna take this thing, but Diego doesn’t flinch. There’s not a hint of worry on his face, just the same look he’s had the entire set, like he’s turned off his brain and is letting his body do the work.
He returns my serve, and we pummel the ball back and forth, battling for the next point.
The amount of force coming off his forehand is absolutely wild—I’ve never experienced this—and his grunts match the intensity of his shots.
With a deep scream, he whips his racket above his head and drives the ball at me.
It’s too hard. I don’t prepare fast enough.
It collides with the frame of my racket and sends a shock wave up my arm and through my core. The ball flies into the crowd.
“Three–one, Hardy.”
As I stand there, fighting to catch my breath after the rally, my heartbeat never slows.
Since we were in the locker room, a pressure has been building inside me—in my chest, my face, my ears.
If I ignore it, it isn’t real, it isn’t happening.
That’s what I told myself before, and I say it again now. Please. Please don’t let this be real.
Diego wins another point. The crowd erupts, encouraging him in his comeback, but I can barely hear it. The washed-out roars feel like water shoving against my head.
Somehow, I win the next point, and I force a smile for Rob, Char, and Mom. I stretch it from ear to ear, as far as I can across my face. It’s a hack, a desperate attempt to trick my body into thinking everything’s okay. It’s worked before. It doesn’t today.
The dizziness comes next. I knew it would. I prepare for Diego’s serve. The slight bend in my knees almost takes me down. I stay up long enough to watch his serve fire past me. I lean on my racket like it’s a cane. I have to steady myself.
I start to rationalize. If I can just get through this tiebreak—let him win, even—I can have a break, sit, eat something, drink something…anything to kick this. I just have to get through this tiebreak. I can’t go down. I can’t go down in front of everyone. I need a fucking miracle.
But the floodgates burst when I double-fault on my next serve, and the thoughts come rushing in. Hello, strangers.
He didn’t even think you could win. And he’s right.
He isn’t right. I still can.
If you lose this tiebreak, it’s over.
I still have another chance. Another set after this.
You know you can’t win that one either.
I can.
You think you can play five whole sets against him?
Yes.
No.
I don’t remember much after that.
I remember Diego looking at me funny. Desperate to release what was inside me, I started to grunt when I hit the ball, just like him.
A guttural uhuuaaaa trailing each smack of my racket.
Laughs from the crowd. Maybe they thought I was making fun of him.
Maybe he did. But I was desperate for any kind of release. Live, laugh, grunt let me down.
I remember when the score turned 6–4, Diego one point away from winning the tiebreak and taking the set. I remember trying to get to his forehand.
I remember falling. Hard. Standing back up. Blood. Blood running down my knee. The look on Robbie’s face. My vision darkening.
“Medical! Call a medical time-out!” Robbie. Shouting.
“Physio,” I remember saying. Barely uttering the word. Pointing to the hip I landed on. A lie.
A wrist digging into my leg, my hip, pushing farther and farther into the muscle, me slouched on the bench. I remember.
A towel over my head. Don’t let them see me. Heaving in and out.
Am I dying? Is this death?
“Austin—” A voice. Distant. “Austin.”
The physio, under the towel with me, his features blurred except for his eyebrows. Cloaked together, shielded from the stadium, the crowd, the noise—I tried to say it.
“Attack.”
That’s all that came out. “Attack,” I said through my wheezing, desperate to stay alive.
I remember the talking, my head between my legs. So much talking. I hear it but I don’t understand. The words of the umpire into the mic.
I remember the sound being sucked out of the stadium, like I was the only living person there.
I remember the towel coming off my head, the light flooding my eyes.
A figure—Robbie?—beside me. How did he get here? He’s not allowed on court.
I’m standing. I’m standing now.
Diego. Clapping. Solemn.
Peter. Crying. No, no, no. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.
Everyone clapping. I’m walking. Off the court. I’m leaving? It’s over? It’s done? Oh god, it’s not done, is it? Why? No. I’m better. I can get better. I can get better. I can get better.
Clapping.
Faces.
Hands.
Clapping.
I raise my arm up to wave. I can’t.
The tunnel swallows me away.