2. Chris
Chris
September, Cardiff
Chris was wasting away in the downstairs bedroom he’d shared with his twin brother for most of his life.
He’d never thought he’d be back here, in his parents’ house on the outskirts of Cardiff.
He hadn’t spoken to anyone but his mum and dad since the Olympic disaster last month, not even his brother, not even Coach Anders.
He knew he should ring his coach but he couldn’t bring himself to make the call, couldn’t bring himself to face the man’s ire.
Better to languish here, letting life go on around him until he was forgotten.
Not even twenty-one and he was washed up. Finished. A has-been. Fuck. Not even that, more of a cautionary tale. Just because he hadn’t taken that final leap didn’t mean his life wasn’t over all the same.
A few short months ago, he’d been having the time of his life, the youngest member of the British Olympic team. Sponsors had been clamouring for him, the Welsh boy with the miraculous marathon time. But it had all fallen apart, and now he had nothing. Less than nothing.
Every time he went to pick up the phone, the notifications sent him spiralling. People who didn’t know him, all around the world, judging him.
He probably deserved it.
Stretched out on his bed, he made the mistake of opening his social media. It was filled with hate for who he was, for what he’d done, for him.
Some running influencer had kicked it off with a talking head video, a greenscreen image of Chris screaming at Carl in the cafe behind him. “All these fucking ‘pros’ are on something,” he snarked. “I could break 2:05 too with a little chemical help. Doesn’t make you special.”
Chris wasn’t even surprised. He’d seen club runners lose it on people over technicalities before, but this wasn’t that. It was like they wanted to prove they could be professionals too, like they had any idea of the level of pressure that came with the job.
He scrolled away, to his own profile. “This is why we can’t have nice things,” Bella from Wrexham had commented beneath his most recent photo.
And then a bloody Olympic triathlete decided to weigh in, because why the fuck not.
“People like you make it harder for those of us who are actually clean. Fucking disgrace.” It was bold and stupid, but it still smarted.
He knew not to expect anything from fellow elite runners—they’d stay quiet, not supporting or condemning.
It was best for them to keep their own heads down to avoid getting entangled in the drama.
Chris’s positive test may not have been an administrative error, but they did happen and accidental ingestion wasn’t unheard of.
Nobody wanted to be the next big hypocrite as well as the newest scandal.
He closed the app as quickly as he could, but the comments had already lodged themselves permanently in his brain.
He navigated over to the sports news like a fucking masochist, where his own breakdown was still one of the top headlines, below his former teammates, Jackson and Elliot’s epic finish-line kiss, but above the medal counts.
He couldn’t read the articles; the headlines alone made him want to be back on that fucking bridge, or at least hide himself away forever.
Shame of a nation: Welsh Wunderkind’s Olympic dream in ruins
Not even the usually less hyperbolic sporting press had spared him.
A Star Extinguished: Doping Ruling Ends Green’s Olympic Run
He made the mistake of opening the comment section and it made the social media hate he’d seen seem like his own personal hype squad.
This was what everyone thought of him now. How the world saw him. Even if he pulled off a comeback, nobody would ever believe he was clean.
The panic and shame took over. He tossed the phone to the side, still failing to make the call he needed to, and buried himself under the duvet. But his mind wouldn’t relax.
He couldn’t do this. How the fuck was he meant to make it through a day, much less four fucking years?
He grabbed his tablet and scrolled through Netflix for a while, but nothing caught his eye, nothing was intense enough to distract from the roiling fire inside him that wanted to burn everything down.
Eventually, he pulled open the camming site his new friend Stefan, a triathlete he’d met in the Olympic Village, had told him about.
That day felt like a lifetime ago. Stefan had been kind of down over an embarrassing confrontation with Jackson, and Chris had been trying to cheer him up, so he’d dragged him off to watch some events and chatted with him a bit.
Told him not to worry, he was sure he could find plenty of videos online of hot ginger men to get him through the week since Jackson wasn’t available.
That was when Stefan had mentioned the site, an amateur camming page that he insisted was better than any big-budget porn.
Chris had been kind of uncomfortable with the conversation.
They didn’t talk about those kinds of things in his family.
His parents knew he was bi, but it wasn’t something they discussed.
It was just a fact, same as the fact that his brother only dated blondes with -y names.
And it wasn’t like he dated enough for it to even matter.
The front page of the site loaded, and Chris entered his details, creating an account.
Panic filled his mind for a moment; he knew at least one other athlete used this site, what if he saw his username, what if people could tell…
He dismissed the thought as nonsense as images filled the screen—men, women, couples.
It was almost overwhelming. A few thumbnails had blinking red dots in the corners, showing they were live now.
Following a compulsion he couldn’t quite pinpoint the origin of, Chris clicked on one with a flashing “New” banner splashed across it.
That seemed appropriate for his first time on the site.
At least he could give someone some views to get them started, and at worst he’d get to see someone embarrass themselves, and honestly, right now that might be even better than getting off.
The screen buffered and a masked man with baby blue hair falling over his forehead in soft wisps filled the screen, a sultry smirk on his face as he ghosted a finger over his pink nipples. “Welcome, Flash23,” he said.
The posh English accent breaking through his husky rasp as he said Chris’s screen name out loud sent an involuntary tremor through his body. This was exactly the kind of distraction he needed.
A prickle of shame broke out on his skin.
Here he was, about to turn twenty-one, alone.
A pathetic, lonely man throwing all his youth away on gaming and porn in the house he’d grown up in.
Happy fucking birthday to him, indeed. The running world’s biggest disgrace.
Living really wasn’t looking all that compelling from here.
He didn’t exit the stream, though; it drew him in.
The easy confidence of the man on the screen made him burn with both jealousy and desire.
He let himself fall back on the bed, propping his tablet up next to him, and bookmarked the page, then clicked the tip button before he allowed himself to get lost in the distraction.
After a post-nut nap, Chris felt better. Not good, never good, but close enough that he figured he could have lunch with his parents without his dad ringing the crisis line. He trudged upstairs to the kitchen, where the smell of potato and leek soup greeted him.
“Have you spoken to Anders?” his dad asked as he sat down at the oak table.
Chris shook his head. “What are you doing?” He looked at his dad in alarm as he placed an already ringing phone in front of him on speaker.
His dad stared him down. “We’re ringing your coach. You can’t go on like this, Chris. Sooner or later, you’ll need to make a statement. We need to see if you can fight this at all, and the only way to know that is to actually speak to someone.”
Chris knew there was no fighting it, though. What could he say? That he was sure he’d got it all out of his system by the Olympics?
The phone rang again.
“Hello, Chris?” Anders had answered.
Chris swallowed. “Hi.” Anders didn’t sound angry. Somehow, that made it all worse.
“Hi, Chris,” he said again, more carefully this time, as though Chris were a skittish horse he was afraid would bolt. “I was beginning to think you’d disappeared.”
Anders paused. Chris could hear papers shuffling and a low hum of voices and traffic in the background.
Anders was probably at the track; he always was.
It struck Chris like a blow to the chest to think of him carrying on as normal, living his life as though nothing was different, while Chris’s world collapsed around him.
“I’m sorry it took so long for me to ring,” Chris said. He looked at his dad, who nodded. Chris took the phone off speaker and carried it into the sitting room, collapsing into his parents’ old green sofa.
He heard Anders breathe in, deep and steadying. Chris waited for the lecture, waited for the explosion, but it didn’t come. Instead, Anders said. “I assume you’ve seen the coverage.”
Chris laughed, humourless. “Hard to miss. I…I haven’t read the articles, though, I just…couldn’t.”
“Good. That’s good. Then we don’t need to dance around it.
This has… It’s blown up bigger than usual, between Jackson and Elliot’s spectacle and, well, yours.
It’s everywhere. You need to stay informed, but don’t read into the gossip, stay off social media, and remember, Olympians don’t sulk, they adapt. ”
His stomach clenched. Chris stared down at the wood floor, eyes tracing the patterns in the grain. “I swear to you, I was clean. It was the Olympics. I was careful, I—”
“Chris,” Anders said, “the result that triggered the sanction didn’t come from your Olympic in-competition test.”
Chris blinked. The wood grain swam in his vision, and he blinked again, hard. “What?”