Chapter 38 Wimbledon #2
I want to see Mom. My mind tells me to run back to the hotel and pretend this never happened. Brush this off as another day in the office, but I can’t look the other way. Not anymore. My heart is telling me otherwise.
“Can you guys wait for me out here?” I say. “I’d like to talk to her in private.”
Henry nods and squeezes my arm.
“Take your time,” Dad says, plopping back on a sofa and running a shaky hand through his hair.
Robbie sits next to him.
I walk off and head for the corridor, still sweaty and flushed post-match, counting the numbers on the doors as I pass them. Anything to avoid mentally rehearsing shit I won’t say anyway.
501.
502.
503.
504.
505.
506.
I knock twice and let myself in.
Mom’s straightening up in the hospital bed, fluffing her hair.
It stops me.
She looks fine. Pale, but fine.
And for a second, I wonder if this was all an act that got out of hand.
I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss it.
“Belén,” she says my name like she wasn’t expecting me to be the first to walk through that door. “Come.” She waves me over, visibly frantic, like she’s afraid I’ll bolt if she doesn’t act fast.
I just might.
My body carries me closer to her, but I say nothing. I’m always the first to speak out and fight for the last word. I’ll let her do the talking this time and see what she has to say for herself.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this.” She looks flustered.
Embarrassed.
“Then you should’ve stayed in New York.”
So much for keeping my mouth shut.
I give myself some grace and reset my internal word counter.
She sniffs and looks around the room like she’s lost something.
It might be her words.
“I was dehydrated and fainted.” She tilts her chin up proudly and blinks, her body language doing her no favors. “I’m … sorry.”
I regard her in silence and let her sit with her performative apology.
“This room is freezing!” she blurts, rubbing her thin arms under the flimsy hospital gown.
She’s not wrong. It is cold. Thankfully, I threw on a hoodie before coming. But we’re going in circles. She’s deflecting, like always, veering away from calling things by their name.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” She sighs, frustrated at my lack of engagement.
“I was told you wanted to see me,” I say with a shrug. “Here I am.”
She stares at me like it’s the first time she’s looked at me in years.
“I tried. I—” Her voice cracks, and her shaky fingers press on her mouth as if wanting to take back the words. She clears her throat, still fighting to preserve the flawless composure she wears like armor. “You have no idea what it’s like inside my head.”
I wasn’t aware that was my responsibility.
“I don’t,” I agree, shaking my head. “All I know is you promised to be at my match. And you couldn’t make it past the media tent.”
Mom’s lips shake, but her eyes burn.
“You don’t know what it’s like to lose everything you’ve worked for!” she cries, tears streaming down her beautiful face. It makes her look younger. More relatable. “To have sacrificed so much, only to have life rub it in your face!”
There you go.
“What about the things you got in return for what you lost?” I snap, pushing my sleeves up to my elbows. “Like our family.”
I’m so done with listening to how she’d choose tennis over me any day of the week.
Poor Addison, America’s sweetheart, still drew the short end of the stick with a husband and two healthy kids who love her to death, despite everything.
“How do you think it makes me feel to have my own mother resent me for my talent and accomplishments? To be made to feel like no matter how fucking hard I try to earn a sliver of your respect, it’s useless because I’ll never measure up to your greatness and be worthy of your love and attention.”
Mom chokes on a sob.
“I didn’t mean—” She reaches out for me, but her IV tugs at her hand and she flinches, pulling back with a wince.
“I can’t look at you wasting away on my behalf,” I spit out the words, and they land. I know they’re blunt and raw, but that doesn’t make them any less true. She knows this. I know this. We all know this. But I can’t watch her prolong the agony any longer. We’ve reached the bottom of the well.
She throws her head back against the propped-up hospital bed and stares at the ceiling, but God can’t come down and save her if she doesn’t want to save herself first.
I watch her, trying my fucking best to be patient, but I’m hanging by a thread here.
“You didn’t do this to me,” she finally declares, her voice small, barely a whisper, but the words hit like thunder. “I’m doing this to myself.”
“Then say it.”
“I thought I had it under control,” she continues, taking a deep, panting breath and wiping the tears off her face with a tissue, the mask of poised perfection she’d been clinging to for years finally coming off. “The drinking. It just … dulled the edge enough to make the pain go away”
My knees feel weak at her admission.
I reach for the chair beside her bed but think twice before sitting.
I hold off but keep it close in case I plummet. My heart aches as her words scrape the surface of confession and my mind reels to catch up. Over the years, I made peace with her drinking problem only ending in death.
But here I am, hearing her say it.
She’s finally saying it.
Loud and clear.
“I drink too much. I …” She trails off, a quivering sob choking her mid-sentence. “I kept telling myself I could fix it before anyone noticed.”
“We all noticed.” A lump grows in my throat, but I swallow down the feeling threatening to put me in a chokehold.
“I’m fooling myself. I can see that now,” she continues, the words coming out fast and desperate. But then she pauses, slows down. “Sometimes I wake up and realize it’s easier to pick up a drink than facing the day ahead. Or all of you.”
A long moment of silence stretches between us as I let the words sink in.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says. The words ring true, but I’m still wary. “For all the drinking, for missing the match today, for all the times I made you feel like you weren’t enough. For everything.”
She sucks in a panting breath through the sobs.
“You were always enough, Belén. I just … wasn’t.”
Hot tears prickle my eyes and burn down my face.
“Please believe me.”
“Then why wasn’t I reason enough to stop?” My voice cracks on the last word but I clear my throat.
“You were. You are. I promise you,” she says, the words so believable that they give me pause. “But I am drowning. You don’t understand—”
“Try me,” I cut in, already softening on the inside but not letting it show. “I’m smarter than you think.”
I’m tired of her taking the easy way out. Right now I want her to be honest. I can’t let her off that easily. Not until I know for a fact this isn’t one of her desperate attempts to fix the facade. I wouldn’t survive it.
She shakes her head; her face contorted with pain. Emotional. Visceral. Unavoidable.
“It’s jealousy,” she concedes, her features drenched in shame. “You have everything I ever wanted. And you are already on your way to surpassing me in every way.”
“But you had already achieved so much at my age,” I say in a feeble attempt to make her remember how great she was, and how her impact is still felt to this day. It matters. It transcends. “I’m just getting started. There’s so much I still need to learn.”
“Exactly. And you’re already better than me. You always have been. I knew it from the moment you held a racket in your hand for the first time and saw how it lit up your eyes.”
Her gaze softens as if she were watching the memory replay in front of her like a movie.
She’s looking at me now the way I wish she had while I was growing up.
And maybe she did, for a while, when I was still a cute toddler holding a racket with chubby little fingers.
But she stopped the day that looking at me became harder and a constant reminder of what she lost. And I don’t think either of us remembers exactly when that happened.
Or she does, but I can live without knowing.
“I’ll get help,” she says. “I’ll get better. I’ll come to your matches.”
I shut my eyes and let my head hang for a beat.
I can’t get my hopes up. She has barely admitted to her drinking problem. That doesn’t mean she’s cured. She might still mess up here and there, and I’d rather she take it day by day before she starts making promises she might be able to keep in the future, but not yet.
“I’ve seen them all, you know?” she says at my evident skepticism.
“There’s not a single match I’ve missed.
Even before they were televised. I’ve watched your tapes.
All of them. I just wasn’t strong enough to be there and support you like you deserved.
Your dad has been pulling the weight for both of us all these years.
That’s one of the reasons I want to get better.
I want to be there for you and show you how much I love you.
I always have and never stopped. I just hated myself so much that it paralyzed me. ”
I love you, too.
I forgive you.
I know you’ve been struggling.
We’ll get you the help you need to get better.
And you will.
I’d hold off on beating your US Open personal record if you asked me to, if it would help you heal.
But I don’t say any of those things.
I’m too heartbroken for it. I adore her, fucking look up to her and will forever desperately seek out her love and approval, no matter what.
But I need to feel it. Saying she loves me is not enough.
It’s not doing the trick. It’s not helping me heal the part of me that wasted away all these years, believing it was a one-sided thing.
“You should rest.” I swallow back the second round of tears pooling in my eyes. And after a pause, I add, “It would be best if we all fly back home tomorrow. Together.”
“But the semis,” she says quickly, like it still matters.
I shake my head and press my lips together to stop them from shaking.
“I’m sorry,” she says between shuddering pants, pressing a hand to her mouth to choke out a sob.
I’ve spent my whole life proving I’m strong enough.
Maybe now’s the time to prove I know when not to be.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I ball my hand into a fist beside me and approach her. I kiss the top of her head and walk out of her room before it becomes more painful to do so.
“I’m not giving up on you,” Mom calls out.
I come undone the moment the door clicks shut behind me. All the pent-up emotions crash down on me at once, and the only thing propelling my legs forward, dragging me through that long corridor, is the promise of Henry’s comforting embrace.
My phone pings in my hand mid-hallway, yanking me out of my thoughts, reminding me the world’s still twirling, and there’s a tournament going on whether I decide to continue or not.
I glance at the screen and see a text notification from Tim.
It’s one word.
One name.
My opponent for tomorrow’s match. A match that I decided to withdraw from the moment I saw Mom in that hospital bed, and nothing and no one will change my mind.
I could play. But I won’t.
Not like this.
Not when I’m unraveling at the seams.
Tim: Zoya.
Tim: How’s your mom doing?
I read the name and snort out a sad, ironic laugh.
Not today, Satan.
Let Zoya run her mouth. She’ll enjoy spinning my absence into something it’s not. I’ve got nothing to prove to her. Or anyone.
I know why I’m stepping back and walking away.