9
Two Years Prior
“Jeremiah Evans and Luna Aldridge Become Tennis Royalty—All the Details of Their Unexpected Elopement”
—London Today
I MET JEREMIAH when I was twenty-three. His soft Northern English accent was an invigorating surprise when he approached me at Wimbledon three years ago.
It was like a lemon custard hidden in a donut’s center, or finding a plastic figurine buried at the bottom of a cereal box: both sweet and satisfying.
I could’ve listened to him talk all day.
When he congratulated me after my Wimbledon win, I was stunned.
He walked to the front of the room, moving through all the photographers and journalists before the press conference, and said, “That was a hell of a match. I’ve never seen a comeback quite like that before.
I can’t wait to see you play again.” He left me with a charming smile and a handshake.
He didn’t need to introduce himself. Anyone who knew tennis knew Jeremiah Evans.
The journalists’ and photographers’ attention silently followed him all the way to my table, and out the front door in shock.
They erupted with questions the moment he was gone.
A massive bouquet sat outside my London rental when I finished with press.
Can’t wait to see you at the next match, the note read.
The Jeremiah Evans, ranked number one in the world, sat in on one of my matches at the US Open six weeks later and congratulated me again on my semifinal win.
Sweat sparkled on the top of his clean-cut hair, the color of the mahogany chairs in my childhood home.
He had just finished his match and came over to watch me play.
I was so astonished to find him in the crowd.
He hadn’t even taken his terry cloth wristbands off.
After matches like this, press was mandatory.
Usually you wanted to be clean and hydrated.
But there he was. Sitting. Watching me. It was the biggest compliment.
He invited me out to lunch when the tournament had finished. I said yes. We got bagels and ate them in Central Park, watching dogs walk by with their owners and people reading the morning paper on benches.
A few people recognized us and asked for photos. There were even a few tabloids the next day that speculated whether we were dating. It made me blush. All we had done was talk, though.
I learned that his brothers back in England had taught him tennis.
They played in college, so they were always practicing during holidays and school breaks, walking down to the courts in the neighboring town.
When he asked to join, they hadn’t expected him to be better than they were.
Not even he had. They were strict and cold.
His career had become a sore spot in their family.
Every feature, headline, and win would start an argument, so it was easier if he simply cut them out.
He wore the headline callouts with pride now. Trophies for his achievements. Signs that he mattered. I understood, because he did matter.
I told him about the trips to the beach with my family and the iced tea my mother would make for my practices.
How she’d laugh if I missed the ball or when she’d pick up a racket and position herself on the other side of the court.
Sometimes I could still hear her voice celebrating my shots, hollering, “Brilliant, Luna!”
We had so much to talk about. So much we wanted to learn about each other. Quirks. Habits. Food preferences. Post-tournament rituals. It had been so long since I had shared so many personal memories, let alone with someone who actually wanted to hear them.
He had a flight to Heathrow that night, so we hugged, said our goodbyes, and I didn’t see him again until the China Open in October. Seeing him in Shanghai signing autographs made my heart plummet. His smile melted the muscles in my legs and stopped me in my stride.
I had a crush.
When he turned and noticed me, he raised his hand and waved. I had to stifle the urge to jump in the air with a smile.
After watching each other play matches throughout the week, we went out for a celebratory drink, and I kissed him—just leaned forward and kissed him. It felt like tasting strawberry icing for the first time.
He must have felt the same, since he kissed me back.
I fell in love with him on Christmas Eve. I became his girlfriend on Christmas.
I wanted us to travel together to every tournament where both the ATP and WTA were playing, but he told me he didn’t want to be distracted. I understood.
In July, after Wimbledon, we danced in the streets between crowded pubs and bright theaters. People patted us on the back, congratulating us on our wins like they knew us. Like we were family. Everyone loved Jeremiah; they couldn’t help but approach him. He was tennis’s prince.
A woman serving us a drink in a dense, warm pub told us how beautiful a couple we were. She said she met the love of her life when she was young too. Jeremiah twisted his gaze to mine and smiled warmly. I could feel his admiration in that gaze.
“Are you in love?” she asked.
No hesitation. “Unbelievably in love,” Jeremiah had said.
“What are you waiting for, then?”
It was one of those magical nights where the air was the perfect skinny-dipping temperature. Warm but refreshing. When smiling didn’t feel forced. When everything in the world simply made sense and all I could forecast was happiness. Stress no longer existed.
He had given me this look of wistful hope as if he were actually thinking about it. I was in awe.
“Am I crazy for thinking about it?” he asked, a silent plea in his eyes.
“Yes!” I shouted.
“You don’t want to marry me?” he asked, genuinely curious.
I was at a loss for words because… I did.
So I did.
After sleeping on it, we eloped the next day, and I couldn’t have been happier. I couldn’t stop kissing him, and he couldn’t stop reaching for me, constantly needing to hold some part of my frame.
Twenty-four was young to be married. Younger than I ever envisioned. But my parents had done it, and they were more in love than the stories written for movies.
I moved into his London flat, and we ate breakfast together every morning.
We’d take our separate flights to different tournaments and call each other after practices.
If we had blank spaces in our schedules—which was rare—we’d fly to see each other play.
Jeremiah would try to see all of my matches.
He’d kiss me as he left the court, and my heart would explode along with the excitement of the crowd.
Then his brother died in December, and this small wall formed between the two of us, brick by brick.
When my mother died, I sobbed and grieved because I’d never get to see her or hear her voice or hold her again. I was trapped in a garden navigating the beauty of her life without her.
If my grieving was a garden, then Jeremiah’s was a forest of winding traps and walls.
He was stoic. A fortress of no emotion. He told me there was no reason for him to cry because he wasn’t losing anything. But I watched that eat away at him—the relationship he could have had with his brother but never did. And now, never would.
“You’re allowed to grieve. It’s okay to feel angry and upset and sad and everything in between—” I had said before he cut me off.
“There’s no reason for that,” he simply replied. “Your heart is too big. Always was. It’s making you weak.”
He stopped speaking with his family altogether after deciding not to attend the funeral. I attended to pay my respects, holding his mother’s hand.
He went straight back to tennis like nothing happened. He never slept. He practiced all day. He didn’t speak unless it was about tennis. I wouldn’t hear from him for days when I left for tournaments, but I’d see photos of him in the paper out celebrating.
He’d return to our flat and kiss me and take me to our bed, but he wouldn’t answer me when I asked how he was doing. I could see he was running himself into the ground. The bruises on his legs from practice were constantly replenishing themselves. I never knew where he was.
“Stop badgering me. Why don’t you focus on winning a match before telling me how to practice?”
So I stopped asking.
I was being too overbearing. I was nitpicking his schedule.
I wasn’t letting him grieve the way he wanted.
I stepped back and tried to enjoy what our marriage was becoming.
I’d fly to more of his matches by skipping my own, cheer him on and talk to the press about his hard work and wait for him after his post-tournament rituals.
That summer, one month after our first wedding anniversary, I ended up missing the US Open because I injured my ankle during practice.
My excitement for Jeremiah couldn’t be contained, though.
The US matches were always his favorite, so it brought me relief to see him pack with a smile on his face rather than a stress wrinkle between his brows.
I didn’t plan on going—eight-hour flights weren’t something I looked forward to.
But a week into the tournament—me in London, him in New York—I was struck with the urge to see him.
To be there when he won another US Open.
My flight landed in New York at ten P.M. I got to his hotel at eleven P.M. I opened his hotel door and found him in bed with another woman at 11:05 P.M. With Ava Williams, the newest American tennis player. She was younger and newer and shinier. It made it so much worse.
I ran out the door to search for the elevator through my blurry vision clouded with tears.
“Luna! Luna!” Jeremiah shouted, trying to catch up with me. His grown-out hair was disheveled, and his shirt—a shirt I had bought him for his thirtieth birthday—was wrinkled.
“Leave me alone!” I pleaded, hitting the elevator button repetitively, wanting it to take me away.
He grasped my arms, forcing me to face him. “Luna, please, please just listen. It was nothing, she’s nothing. I was stressed, I had a drink, she kissed me.”