Chapter 24
twenty-four
Istare after my coach for what feels like minutes before I shut my laptop and climb into bed. Tossing and turning does nothing to help me fall asleep, and when it’s clear there’s too much fire in my veins to rest, I open my messages with Aleks.
Scrolling through our last few, I bite back frustration at what I’ve allowed us to become.
Aleks
Come to mine tonight
Is that a question or a statement? I’m not a fan of being told what to do, especially outside of training.
Aleks
Right, as if you like being told what to do DURING training.
Excuse the missed punctuation. Come to mine tonight?
What if I entice you with more baklava?
Or you could bring the baklava here, since you’ve now left three of your shirts with me. I assume you need those back.
Aleks
No, those were all purposeful. Wanted you to wear them.
Maybe use them to cover your scream when you’re touching yourself alone tonight.
Plus I know you like me in my slutty short shirts more than those long ones.
You don’t know anything about me.
Aleks
I know you’re going to end up in my room tonight.
And I fucking did. That night, I slept in his bed, in his shirt, in his arms.
Seeing the messages fuels my anger, and I tap out Are you awake? before hitting send.
Aleks
Yes.
Making a point not to throw on any of his shirts that I have, in fact, been using as sleep shirts, I grab my phone and wallet and head to his room.
When he opens the door, his hair is a mess, like he was tossing and turning as much as I was. He didn’t care to throw on a shirt, his entire upper body on display, and his sweatpants hang low, well past the trail of hair that leads into the waistband.
“I’m not sure I’m in the mood for this tonight,” Aleks says.
I hold up a hand. “I didn’t come here to fuck you.”
Aleks laughs, a hint sardonically. “I know, Nic. I meant I don’t want to fight with you. Let’s talk tomorrow.”
“You went behind my back, Aleks. I have no interest in waiting until tomorrow to learn why.”
He props the door open with a sigh. The room that felt lived in the last twelve days has been completely packed, all but one small suitcase lined up by the door. The door shuts, and he stands before me, eyes sad.
“I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to go behind your back. I just can’t watch you destroy your life the way I did. I loved this sport so much. I loved the tour so much. And by the end, I hated it more than anything.”
“What will it take to show you we aren’t the same? You left on a high with the world’s respect. You won a major the day before you retired. I’m still clawing for respect, and until I get it—”
“Until you get it, what? When you get your first major, will this be done? You’ll stop overtraining and killing yourself?”
“I—”
He interrupts me again. “Why do you think you lost those finals this year, Nic?”
“Excuse me?”
“Australian Open, Doha, Indian Wells. Why do you think you lost? It’s not because you’re not good enough. On your best day, we both know you can beat Emilia and Anya and Valentina on their best days. So why do you think you lost?”
I grind my teeth, crossing my arms. I’m sure he doesn’t need me to answer. It seems he’s been itching to say this.
“Fatigue. You’re working yourself into the ground, and I hate it. If you were to continue the way you have the last month and take an easy 500 tournament you don’t need to play off your schedule, you’d have so much more in the tank for Paris.”
“That’s not your call to make!”
“I don’t know how many ways I can tell you that I see the path before you—I walked the path before you—and it doesn’t end well. You don’t have to break yourself to be loved. Plenty of people love you for who you are right now, regardless of your titles. Do you not recognize that?”
“That has nothing to do with anything.”
This time, his laugh is definitely sarcastic, tinged with anger or exasperation. “Of course it doesn’t. Look, I want you to win a ton of majors as much as you do.”
“Not as much.”
“Just as much,” he reiterates. “But I want you to do it over the next few years. I want you to be happy while you do it, and I do not want you to burn out and call it quits sooner than you want to.”
I throw my arms up. We’re going in circles at this point. “None of that gives you the right to go behind my back and try to make the decision for me. It doesn’t matter how worried you are about me burning out or how kind you believe you’re being—”
“It’s not about me—”
“You’re trying to undermine my choices because of your own issues.
I think you care about me”—he turns away, as if my questioning the fact is unfathomable—“but I also think the experiences you had on tour and the guilt you feel about your siblings is bleeding into our professional relationship. Like since you can’t control what’s happening with Natasha, you’re squeezing the reins with me.
If you can’t resolve that, this isn’t going to work. ”
Aleks turns back toward me, searching my face. He looks flabbergasted, like I’ve gone too far or pointed to something he didn’t even realize he’d been doing. Am I being unreasonable? Am I right for once? I can’t figure it out before he glances down.
Either way, nothing he’s said makes me believe he understands where I’m coming from, or that he feels bad. I think I’ve said all I needed to until I remember the text messages and the inexplicable emotions that have been bubbling over the last few weeks.
I’d be a liar if I said I haven’t allowed the idea of us becoming more to drift through my head languidly as we fell asleep tucked together.
I’d be a liar if I said that all I feel for him is casual, that it’s simply because he’s hot and I appreciate what he and his body do for me.
I’d be a liar if I said I’d be entirely okay if I did this right now.
But it will be so much worse if I let it drag on.
Having something like this, raw and unwavering and hot and comforting in equal measure…I don’t know if I would be alright if I let this go further only to lose it. Lose him.
And therein lies one of our many dilemmas. I can’t hand him every piece of me because he’ll take those pieces with him when he leaves. And he will, even if he claims he won’t. I’m certain it would break me. It would hurt far more than the fissure growing in my chest now.
That kind of heartbreak—of believing I’ve finally been bestowed the thing I’ve secretly wanted my whole life only to have it ripped away when his sister needs him or when he sees some side of me he hasn’t yet—it’s the last thing I need right now, when I’m so close and yet so far from all of my dreams being realized.
“I think we need to end this,” I say with more conviction than I feel.
Stop, my heart begs.
“What?”
“I’m so indescribably angry at you, Aleks. So we’ll keep training, but right now, I think we need to…cut the other stuff off. I need uncomplicated, and that’s not what this is.”
“I know you,” he whispers. “Even if you don’t want me to.
Even if you hate it; I know you. I know you’re doing this not because you’re angry, but because you’re terrified.
But you don’t need to be. I know you want to belong, probably more than anything else in the world.
And nothing in this world belongs more with me than you do.
The way you feel about me? I feel it too. ”
My throat grows scratchy, my eyes warm, and I look away from him.
I need to get out of this room. It’s stifling and I can hardly breathe.
“You don’t know what I feel, Aleks. Stop pretending you do.
At the end of the day, you believe you know what I need better than I do, and I can’t have someone like that on my team.
So we’ll finish this in June like we said we would, and I’ll find someone I can trust to take over. ”
“No, no, no.” His hand reaches up, like he wants to touch me. Instead, he runs it through his hair, anguish pulling at the angles of his face. “Nic, no. Please, come on.”
I’m halfway out the door. “We travel tomorrow. You should sleep.”
And when I make it back to the lonely darkness of my room—the same lonely darkness I’ve recently found can be cut through by a former tennis player that lights up the room—I throw myself onto the bed and sob into a pillow like I haven’t allowed myself to in years.