False Start with a Masked Rival

Prologue

August, Final day of the Olympic Games

Chris Green’s entire world imploded on a sunny Saturday in August. Athletes from all around the world celebrated wins and mourned losses with their friends, families, and countrymen, but for Chris, it was over.

Not just the race.

Everything.

Without running, there was nothing left that made sense. No version of his life that he could recognise, let alone live in. He was finished.

He stared at the river below. Wind whipped around him as he climbed slowly. Then he perched on the railing like a cautious baby bird, uncertain if it would take flight or cling to the safety of the nest. The height didn’t quite register properly. None of it did, not in a way that felt real.

He hadn’t come up here to jump.

He hadn’t. Not really.

Even if it did feel, in some distant, disconnected way, like the only logical next step now that everything else had been stripped away.

It was too dramatic though, wasn’t it? Too public.

Too much of a spectacle. Did he even deserve an end like that?

He could picture the headlines, could imagine how they’d talk about the tragedy overshadowing the joy of the Games, but he wasn’t sure if that was worse than the ones he was certain awaited him now.

Only the grip of his right hand and his well-developed core kept the choice from being taken from him when the wind picked up.

His body held steady on instinct, even as his thoughts drifted somewhere else entirely.

He briefly toyed with the idea of loosening that grip, just a little, and letting the world make the decision for him.

“Chris!” A voice cut through the howling wind. “Chris!” It sounded broken.

His dad.

For half a second, the shock made him loosen his grip completely.

Chris felt himself slip, the world tilting in a way that suddenly was real, but then a strong arm was wrapping around his torso and pulling him backwards off the railing, away from the river.

Away from the choice. Away from the release.

Dimly, Chris felt the cool concrete scrape against his legs as he hit the ground. He sat there, almost numb, as his enormous, steady, rugby-player dad let out gasping, uneven sobs, pulling him tight against his chest like he could still lose him if he let go.

Guilt crawled up Chris’s throat, thick and immediate. He’d done this. He’d reduced this man, this solid, dependable man, to this. It was his fault. All of it.

“You weren’t going to… Were you, Son?”

Chris swallowed. “Of course not.” He almost let himself believe it.

Neither of them spoke after that. But as he walked silently beside his dad to the hotel his parents had booked to watch him compete, he knew he didn’t have a way out. He’d have to live with this.

The lift pinged.

“I won’t tell your mum,” his dad said, voice almost back to its usual gruff tone, though there was still something unsteady underneath it if you knew to listen.

Chris nodded. There was nothing to tell.

He wasn’t going to do anything.

He’d just…needed to see.

The hotel was nice. Of course it was; his mum and dad had sprung for something special to watch their son run the Olympic marathon. The thought landed dully now.

At least Nick hadn’t come. He’d been gutted when his twin had said he couldn’t make it, but now it was a relief. He didn’t want his brother seeing this.

They stepped into the room.

His mum was on her feet immediately, crossing the space and pulling him into a tight hug. “Where were you?” she asked, pulling back just enough to look at him.

Chris didn’t reply.

“Found him wandering the streets,” his dad said, a little too quickly, catching Chris’s eye. “Lucky we figured out that location app or I’d have been out for hours.”

Chris nodded.

His mum’s eyes were shining. His dad’s voice still hadn’t quite settled.

“I need a shower,” Chris said.

He retreated to the en suite, avoiding his reflection as he turned the water as hot as he could stand.

The scalding cascade hit his back, grounding in a way nothing else was.

He stood there, staring at the floor, letting time stretch out into nothing.

Through the noise of the water and the fan, he could still hear his parents talking.

“Surely he didn’t do it though. It must be a mistake. An administrative error, or…” His mum trailed off. “You think he did,” she said after a moment, quieter.

“It doesn’t matter if he did it or not,” his dad said. There was still a faint wobble there.

Chris tried to focus on the water instead.

On the steam building in the room. He let his gaze drift, trying to think of anything but the voices outside the door dissecting whether he really had cheated or not in the fucking Olympic marathon.

His gaze caught on the counter, where his dad’s painkillers sat.

There was nothing unusual about them. They were part of managing the fallout from years of rugby: knees, shoulders, everything that had taken a beating. Ordinary.

Chris found himself looking at them, and they didn’t look ordinary anymore. They looked to him like maybe he still had a way out. He hated the way the idea made him pause. He wouldn’t do it, couldn’t. He knew that, but…

He dragged his focus back to the water, but his mind kept circling around to pills again, whether he wanted it to or not. The ones sitting right there, but also the ones he’d taken months ago. The ones that he’d thrown away. The ones that had turned everything into this.

The water was starting to turn cold.

Chris didn’t care. He didn’t care about much of anything, because the Olympic marathon had finished hours ago, and he hadn’t been part of it.

He was meant to be the prodigy. The good little Welsh boy everyone was cheering for.

He wasn’t supposed to be the one who fucked it all up. Except he had, and now everyone knew.

“Chris?” His mum’s voice cut through the haze. “We’re going to order some food. You should eat.”

Eat?

“They’ve got lovely pizzas,” she added.

His life was over, and she wanted him to eat pizza.

“Christopher,” his dad said. “Turn off the water and get out here. You’re scaring us.”

Chris let out a breath and turned the shower off.

He stepped out gingerly, strangely careful with his body now despite nearly letting himself fall into a river just an hour earlier.

He wrapped himself in the fluffy robe hanging on the door before roughly drying his hair.

Everything about him felt like a reminder—his body, his routine, the way he moved.

It was all built to run, built for something he didn’t have anymore.

His mum pulled him into another hug as he came out. “What do you need, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know,” Chris said. Over her shoulder, he spotted his phone charging on the nightstand. His dad must have put it there. The dark screen of the small, innocuous device felt like the only thing holding the rest of the world back. He didn’t want to know what people were saying.

He’d seen it before, whispers, opinions from people who had never even watched a marathon, let alone run one would flood social media. It was all noise, but now it would be noise about him.

His mum rubbed his back gently. Pizza arrived. That was when the tears came.

They hadn’t come when he’d been told about the adverse finding.

Not when he’d sat with his coach and agent while they talked through options with the officials.

Not when he’d been told he’d be replaced by Elliot Owens—his agent’s son, which was its own kind of sick joke.

Not even when he’d lost it in front of the press after the race, burning any chance that this might have stayed quiet.

He hadn’t cried on the bridge either. But he was crying now.

His mum guided him over to the bed, sitting him down and staying close as he tried to breathe through it. His dad hovered nearby, like he was still watching for something.

Time blurred. At some point, Chris realised he was starving. The pizza had gone cold. He ate it anyway.

Later, when the worst of it had ebbed into something duller, he spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“We came to support you, Son,” his dad replied. “The fact that that looks a little bit different than we expected just makes it more important.”

“I don’t understand how this happened,” Chris said quietly. It wasn’t untrue. He’d been careful. So careful. He’d thrown everything out months ago. It should have been out of his system. It should have been fine.

“Your coach rang,” his mum said. “And your agent. They want to speak to you when you’re up to it.”

“Carl isn’t my agent anymore,” Chris said. “I fired him.”

His dad sighed. “Chris.”

“I don’t want to speak to Carl,” he said, more firmly than he felt. Then, quieter: “I’ll ring Coach Anders. I owe him that much.”

Silence settled over the room again. And as Chris sat there between his parents, full for the first time all day and yet completely hollow at the same time, one fact sat heavy and unavoidable beneath everything else: He was still here.

And he was going to have to live with it.