Chapter 32
I don’t know where I am, but I know Robbie’s here, because he’s shouting. “Can we have the room, please?!” All talking immediately stops and bodies melt away.
My legs grip the leather of the couch. Mom is on my left, Char on my right. Robbie stands a few feet away, talking to someone wearing a lanyard. I squint—it’s the same doctor I saw last week.
A hand is on my leg. Mom’s.
The TV mounted on the wall plays Diego’s postmatch interview on mute. He looks like someone I don’t know. I see my name in the subtitles. He’s talking about me. I shut my eyes.
I breathe in as deeply as I can, then out. I don’t want to jinx it, but the worst may be over. The attacks come and then they go, leaving me to pick up the pieces. I lower my head into Mom’s lap. Char slides over on the couch so I can lift my feet.
I can’t take the silence anymore. I have to break the tension.
“Who won?” I ask.
No one laughs.
Mom touches the top of my head. “How do you feel?” She whispers it. “How do you feel, sweet boy?”
I look at her, and the second our eyes meet, I start to cry, like I just woke up from a nightmare. And it’s not just a few tears. I’m weeping. I hoist myself up and bury my face in my hands. She rubs my back as it all floods out.
Another hand. Charlotte’s. I cry harder. They let me. “It’s okay,” they both say. “It’s okay.”
How in the world did it end like this? I think it over and over again. How in the world?
I don’t know how much time passes. Thirty seconds, ten minutes? I don’t know, but at some point, the crying feels like enough. There’s only so much in me. I pull my shirt up to wipe my face, and I look around the room.
“Okay,” I say. “What happens next?”
—
I convince Rob and Mom and the doctor that I don’t need a trip to the ER. We settle for some vitals checks and blood work, just like the first time. Nothing will come back. Nothing ever does.
The first time I had an anxiety attack—or the first time I told anyone about it—I wound up at a cardiologist’s office in a sad strip mall.
Something in my EKG results was weird, so the doctor ordered an ultrasound of my heart.
A few days later, cold metal was sliding across my chest and there was my grainy heart in black-and-white on a screen.
The results came back normal. “You’ve got a strong heart,” the doctor said.
But to be extra careful, for a week they had me wear a heart monitor strapped to my chest, tracking every rhythm, every beat.
The monitor’s battery pack bulged out against my T-shirts, and I was worried that someone at school would notice—another thing to make me feel less normal.
But the tests came back, and they proved that I was… normal—but not.
Nothing is wrong with me, except the one thing doctors can’t measure and apparently neither can I. The one thing that’s keeping me from everything I’ve ever dreamed of. The one thing that forced me to retire from the match and knocked me out of the US Open.
It was my doctor who wrote “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” on my chart.
He told me he was writing it, and he recommended that I start seeing a therapist. I talked about that a few times with Mom and Dad, but we never made moves.
We had other shit going on. And it never really got bad enough. I never thought it would lead to this.
They move me to the medical room on-site.
Ouch. A pinch on my arm. Blood runs up a tube. Dried blood on my knee.
Take it. Drain it all out of me. I don’t need it anymore. I’m done here.
—
I press my forehead against the glass and watch a sea of umbrellas filing out of the stadium, the rain falling in sheets in the wind. What a shitty commute.
We’re in another room now, and Robbie is talking to one of the tournament directors.
“No, we said we’re not doing that,” he says to someone.
I don’t turn. I keep watching the rain. It gushes from the sides of the stadium like waterslides emptying onto the grounds. A thunderclap. A sliver of lightning over the practice courts.
A kid jumps and splashes in a puddle. A hand grabs her raincoat and whisks her away.
I think about Peter, and the look on his face.
He was in tears. Devastated. Confused. The image claws at my stomach.
He’s out there, walking with his dad in this storm, wondering what the fuck just happened. So am I.
“What did they tell people?” I ask, turning to Robbie.
“We’ll release a statement later,” he says.
“So no one said anything? People think I just got up and left?”
“They can piece things together,” Charlotte says. “That’s not something you should worry about now.”
I turn back to the window. I am worried about it. Diego said a lot of shit in the locker room, but one thing cut me especially deep.
There are things that you hide too.
He’s right. I even lied on the court. I called a medical timeout and pointed to my hip when I should have pointed to my fucking brain. I’m hiding just like him.
“Is the press still here?” I ask a guy in a blue polo who’s talking to Robbie. Robbie turns immediately. Charlotte too.
“Cruz just finished,” the guy says, his eyes shifting to Robbie.
“We told them we’re not doing press tonight, Austin. They’re waiving the fine. You don’t have to worry about it,” Robbie says.
“But they’re still here?” I ask.
The guy nods.
“You want to do the press conference?” Robbie says.
I don’t respond.
He steps closer to me, lowers his voice. “Austin, you don’t owe anyone anything. You don’t have to explain. You don’t have to tonight.”
Again I don’t respond.
All of them stare at me—Robbie, Charlotte, Mom—with a look on their faces like what I’m considering is the worst idea in the world. Maybe it is, but I’m already walking down the hallway. I know which way to go.
If Diego won’t be honest with the world, I will.
—
“We won’t be doing questions,” someone says at the front of the press room as I walk in and I take my seat at the table. “Austin has a statement, and that will be it for the night. Thank you for staying longer.”
Robbie, Charlotte, and Mom stand off to the side instead of in the back—I think they’re afraid to leave me.
I look out across the faces, the computers and notebooks open, the microphones pointed, everyone waiting for me and whatever it is I’m about to say. I don’t know where to begin. So I start with the truth.
“I had an anxiety attack on the court tonight.”
Quiet.
“I don’t know what the reporting was, but it wasn’t an injury, it wasn’t from the fall, and it wasn’t my hip. It was an anxiety attack.”
Robbie rubs his hand against his chin. I hear his stubble scraping his fingers.
“I had one on the practice court too, last Friday. I lied about it and said it was heat exhaustion. Yes, it was freaking hot that day, but that wasn’t why I fell.”
Charlotte gives an encouraging nod. Or maybe she’s just relieved that I said freaking and not fucking. I take a breath and continue.
“I was very close to dropping out—some people wanted me to—but I thought I could work through it. I thought I could.” I shake my head.
“I didn’t want to give up on everything I worked for.
And I know there have been a lot of eyes on me, for better or worse, and I didn’t want to let anyone down, or give people fuel to say mean stuff in the comments sections. ”
My mouth is sandpaper. I reach for a water bottle on the table. My hands tremble as I unscrew the lid and take a sip.
“I’m sorry. I regret not being honest. There have been many other athletes before me who have talked openly about their mental health, and they make it easier for me to say this today, and I want to thank them, but if I’m being honest, which is why I’m here, it feels like I’m admitting a weakness.
Maybe it is one. It made me lose today. And I wanted to win so bad. ”
I fight to keep my voice steady.
“I started to see a therapist.” God, they’re really getting the full story here.
“I don’t know if it’s helping. I like her, though.
Shout-out to Helen.” A chuckle slips out of me.
Gotta laugh through the pain. “But I don’t know—maybe I need more than that.
Maybe I’m too broken to fix.” I pause there. Mom wipes away a tear.
“And I know I don’t owe this to anyone—talking about my sexuality, my mental health—but I understand why it’s important. It’s what you all have been trying to get me to say this entire week. You’re doing your job, and I was just trying to do mine.”
There are a few nods in the room. One smile.
“I’m sorry I’ve been an asshole about questions this week, and thank you for sparing me tonight.
I’ve told you all that I have to tell. Maybe I should have done this sooner.
I just didn’t want it to be a thing. I didn’t want any of this to be a thing.
I don’t see a way around it now. I am who I am. ”
I stop myself as I start to stand. As much as I don’t want to say his name, I should be a gracious loser.
“I want to congratulate Diego. I’d like to think I was coming back and could have won the match, but”—I shake my head—“I’m trying to be honest here, and we all know that beating him isn’t easy. ”
I nod. That’s all I have to say. I don’t know if I feel better, but at least I said it. All my secrets are out in the open. All but one, and I’ll take that one to my grave.
—
In a fog, I open the door to leave the press room, and down the hall, he’s running. Diego is running toward me. He must have been watching. He slows to a stop when he reaches me. “Hey,” he says, out of breath. “Are you—are you okay?”
I’ve been better.
And he reaches to hug me. I barely move as he wraps his arms around me. I just stand there with my arms down. I don’t know how to react.
“You’re okay, right? You’re okay?” he holds my shoulders, searching my eyes.
“I’m okay,” I tell him.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that happened to you, Austin. That was so scary.” He hugs me again. Does he feel guilty? I don’t care. I want this to be over.
“Can I ride back with you, to the hotel?” he asks.
I can’t believe he’s asking that after all this. “I’m going back with them.” Rob, Char, and Mom stand behind me, giving Diego and me a little privacy.
“Right, yeah. Okay.” He leans in closer. “I’m sorry about what I said. I hope that it didn’t—I hope that…” He trails off.
I can’t process an apology right now. I don’t even want one. It’s selfish of him to try to give me one.
“You got everything you wanted, Diego. You won.”
His face changes, a sadness finding his eyes, and I think he finally realizes what this is: a goodbye. But he tries to fight it.
“You’ll be in China next, right?” he asks.
I’m playing qualifiers for the Chengdu Open in two weeks, kicking off the Asian swing of the tour. “Yeah,” I reply, looking over to Robbie. He hangs his head.
“Then I’ll see you there,” Diego says.
“Yeah,” I repeat.
Charlotte finally steps in. She links her arm with mine, shoots Diego a glare, and takes me down the hallway.
“We’re getting the fuck out of here,” she says.
“Yeah.” That’s all I’ve got.