Chapter 15 #2
Before I know it, I’ve given into temptation, and I comb my fingers through her hair once, then twice.
Then Missy hums out a contented sigh, so I do it again, finding joy in the way her features relax with every brush.
And for a moment, I think I might be happy doing this all night long if it means seeing her so at ease.
“So you went to the 1992 Olympics in Spain? Wow. What was it like?” I hear Joseph ask Bill, pulling me back to reality.
Bill smirks. “It was pretty spectacular. I’ve never seen so many people come to watch a tennis match. But unlike Maria, I only went to one Olympic Games.”
“Only one Olympics. You say that as if it’s not one of the highest athletic feats,” I say.
“No, it is. And it was an honor to be there. But to my coach, one time was not enough. He’d wanted me to keep going,” Bill says.
“Why didn’t you?” I ask.
Bill lets out a long breath. “A week after I’d arrived home from the Olympics, my best friend, Randy Martinez, got into a car crash and passed away.
” Bill swallows hard. “Randy would always say he wasn’t anything special.
He had a minimum-wage job and struggled with several mental health issues.
Yet, every day he lived his life to its fullest. He made everyone around him laugh, and he often forced his baked treats on me even though they went against my diet. ”
Bill chuckles. “He’d always tell me‘You get one life, so make it your best.’ His words stuck in my mind for months after his passing.
They really made me think how, even with the notability of the Olympics, I wasn’t happy with my one life.
Every day I would wake up, force myself to choke down a disgusting green smoothie that was part of my rigid diet, and I’d go to practice for hours.
Then once I was exhausted from that, I’d go to my side job at a local pizza joint, only to go to bed and do it all over again.
“Then to top it all off, after Maria and I met and started dating at the 1992 Olympics, Maria retired and moved to Dallas to be near me, yet I rarely ever saw her or any of my friends. I was miserable.” Bill’s face saddens with the memory.
My fingers freeze in Missy’s hair. “What did you do?” I lean in for his response, needing to know the rest of his story, feeling that, in some ways, this part of Bill’s life is a mirror of my own.
Bill picks up a small stick at his feet and rubs it between his fingers, a smile lighting his face.
“I quit, and I’ve never looked back.” He tosses his stick in the fire, watching the flames latch onto it.
“It took me a while to piece my life together after that, but with some hard work and Maria’s help, I started living the way I really wanted to.
I got a job that I enjoyed, I married the love of my life, and now we have a beautiful daughter.
Maybe I could have gone further in my tennis career, but I’ve never regretted my decision.
I’m happy with the person I am and the life I’m living today.
And that’s something I couldn’t always say before. ”
My heart pounds as I transpose Bill’s story onto my life.
Am I proud of who I am? I feel a tug, urging me to answer this question, as painful as it might be.
Like Bill, I wonder if I’m truly living my one life to its fullest potential—not the life that is expected of me by others, but the life I expect of myself.
All too soon, I find myself alone at the firepit with a sleeping Missy on my lap.
One by one, everyone had disappeared into their various places, some taking a nighttime swim and others going for a walk.
But I can’t bring myself to move, not when I feel the questions press down on me with unnerving weight.
Just when I feel miles deep in my own head, the whirs of a nearby drone swoop down on me, snapping me from my mental spiral.
Once more, Missy shifts in my lap, resettling into a new position. My focus turns to her. Aside from her snores that mimic the roar of a souped-up Chevy, she seems at peace. However, as soft as she might find my legs at the moment, I know she’d be far more comfortable in her bed.
“Missy,” I say, leaning closer to her.
She doesn’t so much as stir.
“Missy,” I say again, this time louder.
Suddenly, Missy wakes, her bleary eyes blinking before she rolls off of me like a boneless sack of jelly.
“What in the Sam Hill? Why is your lap … Why was I …” She can’t finish a sentence, and what words she does string together are filled with practiced contempt. She’s half delusional and not in the right mindset to remember that we’re supposed to be falling for each other.
I smile softly at her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she says, wiping drool off her face.
“Nothing, you’re just cute, is all.”
“Cute?” Her eyes narrow into slits.
I reach for her hand and squeeze, and in that moment, I can practically see her brain waking up.
“Oh, yes, you’re also very cute. So cute. And your scruff—”
“My scruff?”
“Yes, it’s so … scruffy.” She smiles and slaps my cheek two times, then grabs her bandana and backpack from the sand at my feet. “Good night, Colton.”
I laugh to myself as I watch her walk drunkenly back to the plane, thinking how adorable she is. Since when have I ever thought Missy adorable?
But then she trips on the sand at her feet and stumbles forward, nearly face-planting.
On instinct, a tease comes to my lips.
“Not a word, Colton Downing. Not a word,” she yells with her back to me.
I chuckle. Yes, as adorable as a vicious chihuahua.