Chapter 25 Jaden
Jaden
Taking classes online definitely opens up my schedule.
I don’t exactly love watching videos of my professor’s finance lectures, though.
Somehow, hearing him through my EarPods makes the already dry subject matter that much more nap inducing.
But playing the videos at one-and-a-half times the speed helps, plus it’s freed up more time for practice on my own.
Unfortunately, it seems as if there aren’t enough extra hours to get back to where I was.
I’m always a beat behind, and that’s hitting returns off the machine.
I don’t know what I’m missing, but I’m hoping Aaron can help.
The training room is rarely empty, but with football out of town and basketball preseason not yet underway, I’ve found the small window of time when I can slip in without a million eyes watching me.
I’ve been back on campus for a little over a week, and despite not posting anything with Bryson for the app since my episode, the clamor for content from us—me—hasn’t slowed down.
If anything, it feels like the demand has only grown.
I don’t know what to say to people, though.
It’s not about the app anymore, or even me and Bryson.
It’s about me and the salacious details of where I’ve been. My privacy.
My epilepsy.
“Hey, how’s my favorite Storm athlete?” Aaron sets a box of KT Tape down on the counter and opens his arms for me. His hug is welcomed. It feels familiar, and I try to hang on to how my body reacts. Maybe that’s all I need, routine. Aaron has always been part of my routine.
“You got a few minutes?”
His brow pinches as he slides onto one of the tables and nods for me to do the same. Our legs dangle in the space between us, and I pick at my fingers while kicking my feet nervously like a toddler learning to swim.
“It’s not like you to be bashful, Jaden. Spit it out.”
I cross my ankles to hold my feet still and lift my chin.
“I think I’m broken.” It’s the only way I can phrase it that makes sense. Aaron shakes with a quiet laugh.
“You’re not broken. Trust me, I’ve seen broken. Hell, I’ve fixed you up more than once. No, what you are is scared.”
My breath stops at his blunt response, and the words sit heavy in my tummy.
“I’m not scared, Aaron. I’m out here, every day, trying. And nothing is working. Hell, I can’t even get a serve up over eighty. I may as well hit the senior circuit with that velocity.”
Aaron lets out a belly laugh this time, and I smirk at my joke but quickly slump into my all-too-familiar defeated posture. Truth is, I haven’t broken seventy with my serve. I just didn’t want to say it.
He slides from his table and moves to sit next to me, leaning his bicep into mine, and I shake with a silent sob.
“Sorry, I’m just frustrated,” I say, running my sweatshirt sleeve under my eyes.
“I know you are. You should be. You’re a competitor, and you feel like all the tools you’re used to using are suddenly running out of batteries.”
I glance at him with a tinge of relief that he seems to understand me.
“Exactly.” I exhale. “So what do I do?”
He holds my stare for a beat, his lips in a straight line, until he eventually says, “You find new tools.”
I blink twice before blurting out a hard laugh.
“New tools. Yeah, okay. I’ll just throw away a dozen years of training and start back at zero. Thanks, Aaron.” I slide from the table, but he snags the sleeve of my sweatshirt before I storm away.
“Hey, don’t do that. You’re not hearing me.”
I spin to face him, but his sympathetic expression does a number on my obstinate response. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s just, I don’t know how to get back to where I was. I know one way. And that way has worked out for me. Really well! What if—”
“What if you’re not as good as you were?
” He purses his lips and shrugs, as if being less than is okay.
Maybe for him it is, but for me, being second best is the same as being first loser.
I don’t want that. If I can’t reach my dream, I need to find new goals.
And that thought? It’s fucking devastating.
“I can’t do this for the fun of it. It’s never been about that for me.
My parents are losing their business because of how much they’ve leveraged things to send me here, to Cordon.
Not for school, Aaron. For tennis! To play on this court, and to get the attention that comes with it.
I’ve barely got a partial scholarship as it is.
I doubt Cordon is going to let me keep that if all I’m doing is going to practice and riding the bench. ”
Aaron sinks back on his palms and tucks his chin, his brow puzzling with thought.
“I thought you had a pretty good deal going with that dating app? I see your face everywhere, and—”
“I don’t know if I can keep that up either.
If I’m not a top tennis player, then what good is my face on a dating app?
I’m sure Bryson’s sister will want to keep paying me, but only because I’m actually dating her brother now.
And how fair is that? I’m a charity case then, and fuck, is that embarrassing. ”
Aaron kicks off from the table and clears his throat before resting his palms on my shoulders.
“I know you’re fiercely independent, Jaden.
But someday you’re going to need to learn to let the people who love you help you out a bit.
And that boy, who you were hell bent on destroying three years ago, seems to believe in you.
You know, you asked me once why I took it easy on him when he went through his injury and was still making some poor choices . . .”
Now that I know Bryson better and understand the difficult relationship he has with his father, I’m a lot more sympathetic. Even with my family history with pill abuse. Bryson and my dad weren’t so different—they were both simply trying to keep going.
I hold Aaron’s gaze and nod.
“I knew he wanted to be here more than anything in the world. I had a feeling deep down it was about a lot more than football for him, so I trusted my gut and did what I thought was right. For him. And look how that turned out.”
He covered for him, and I’ve always held resentment over that.
Resentment toward Bryson, and toward Aaron, if I’m being honest. But taking a step back and hearing the reasons, considering the full picture, I’m starting to realize that not everything is so black and white.
There’s a whole lot of gray in the margins.
Aaron reaches for the box of KT Tape and tosses me a roll.
“I say this with love, as your biggest hashtag fan. There is nothing wrong with your arms and legs, Jaden Johnson. Once you figure out your head, you’re going to be lighting opponents up again.
Trust.” He gives me a wink before heading back out to the weight room, and I linger for a moment, wondering if he’s right .
. . or if what’s wrong with my head is too big for me to fix.
One Week Later
Adrianne has been avoiding me ever since I started showing up for team workouts again. I’ve had my suspicions as to why. I haven’t broached the subject of the gurney photo with her yet, much to Taryn’s chagrin. My roommate really loves to instigate.
Now I need Adrianne, though, so we’re going to have to have it out. I can’t beat her if I’m never playing her, and since she’s still in the locker room just like I am, alone, what better time than the present?
I push my locker shut and kick one leg over the bench so I’m straddling it and staring at her as she works her fingers through her long, brown hair.
“What?” she finally snaps, her hands dropping to her sides as she glares at me.
I stare at her, partially frozen for a moment, then burst into laughter.
I wouldn’t classify our relationship as friendly, but I also wouldn’t have considered it hostile.
Sure, I was pretty bitter when she bumped me from number one, but she would have felt the same way if the roles were reversed.
I’m sure of it. Just like I’m sure she posted that photo of me being wheeled out to an ambulance.
“Gah! Whatever. I’m not doing this with you,” she grumbles, turning her attention back to her hair as she twists it back into a bun.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
She doesn’t react, but I can tell she heard me by the way her lips pucker and her cheeks blush. She’s caught. I’m surprised by the sting that paralyzes my chest.
“Why? What do you gain out of putting a photo of me at my lowest out there for everyone? It’s kind of cruel, Adrianne. You were already number one.”
She slams her locker shut and huffs before facing me.
“I didn’t take the photo! But I knew you would think I did, because that’s how it is with you .
. . with us. You get to be the one everyone roots for, and I’m the bad guy.
I stole your number one spot. I took advantage of your illness.
I’m not good enough to earn the top seed on my own.
I had to wait for you to fail to take it.
But damn it! Maybe I am good enough. Do I need to sell out my face for some fucking dating app just to get the credit? ”
I blink my eyes wide and lean back, my jaw going slack as I try to process everything my teammate just unleashed on me. I had no idea she was harboring so much . . . rage.
“Ahhh!” She presses her palms to her cheeks and paces in a circle before straddling the bench to face me. Her eyes glisten with tears when her gaze hits mine, and suddenly, I feel like an asshole.
“I don’t know who took that photo, Jaden.
I talked to Coach about it the moment I saw it, and we think maybe it was someone in the student media box.
The angle seemed right, and they clearly zoomed in.
I might want to beat you, but I would never do something like that.
When you fell down, the way your body just .
. . froze. Jaden, I’ll never get that out of my head. I was so scared.”
My chest squeezes, and I fight to keep my own tears down.
My parents and Bryson said the same thing about that day, and more than the way I feel about my diagnosis, I’m so sick about how much I terrified those around me.
I don’t want people to be afraid for me.
It’s not so different from being afraid of me.
I reach forward and take Adrianne’s hands, a gesture that’s awkward for me and something I don’t even do with Taryn. It just seems right, though. And if I took anything away from my chat with Aaron last week, it’s that I need to let people in.
“I’m sorry I accused you.”
Adrianne sniffles as she nods.
“I guess I can kind of understand why you would,” she says, squinting one eye. “We’ve always been adversaries. Not really friends.”
“We should at least be teammates,” I admit. I’m so good at seeing everyone as an enemy.
She shakes our tethered hands and breathes out a soft laugh.
“So as a teammate . . . what would you say to one quick set, just so I can see how far I’ve got to go?
” It’s a big ask, especially because Coach put limits on my match play until I pass three months without a seizure.
It’s an arbitrary time frame, but I guess it’s better than the year I was fearing.
That would have effectively ended my season and made all of this pointless.
Adrianne’s lips curl, and she drops my hands from hers before standing. She smirks.
“I’d say that I’m not going to take it easy on you.”
I smile back.
“Good.”
I’ve been playing against Adrianne on the down-low for a week, and I have yet to take a single game.
She said she wouldn’t take it easy on me, but I can tell she is.
While I don’t think my ego can handle her returning my weak-ass serve at 100 percent, maybe that’s the final nail I need to put this fantasy to bed.
My arm feels like a wet log as I hoist it over my head and swing through the ball for my final serve of the set. I manage to stretch our volley into a dozen cross-court shots before I hit the ball into the net.
“Fuck!” I throw my racket at the empty umpire’s chair, and some of the hot-pink paint on the head chips off.
“It’s just stamina. You’ll get there,” Adrianne says. She picks up my racket and hands it to me on our way to the bench.
I guzzle down the rest of my water, then shake my head.
If anything, I feel like I’m backsliding.
I can’t seem to get past the fatigue. I haven’t said the words out loud yet, because once I do, I’m going to have to really accept it—but I think I might be done.
And if I’m done with tennis, what the hell am I going to do with my life?
“Again?” I sniffle as I stand, shrugging off the exhaustion that’s begging me to just stop.
Adrianne tilts her head and stares at me the way my mother would if she were here.
“I know. I should rest.” I plop back onto the bench, kicking my gear bag. A loose ball slips out of the open zipper and rolls toward the net. “That’s probably where I would have hit it anyway.”
Adrianne doesn’t laugh, and I’m glad she knows I’m not being funny. Nothing about me is fun lately. I don’t know why Bryson hasn’t bailed on me by now. I can’t imagine I’m easy to be around. Taryn has said so, multiple times. I can feel myself giving up, and it’s getting harder to fight the urge.