Page 32 of Game Point (Game, Set, and Match #2)

Dylan

Already Over – Sabrina Carpenter

The drive home was very quiet. The rest of the afternoon had been full of music and laughter, my family never letting me have a moment off.

Seeing my sisters, playing with my nieces, it was the kind of fun I’d known I’d treasure because I’d waited for them, for the moment when I could enjoy their time without the weight of a competition hanging on my shoulders.

But at the exact same time, their words wouldn’t stop playing over and over, their mark left. The fear of regret battling with my new-found freedom.

Could I really balance it all?

‘Hey, I’ve been thinking …’ I trailed off, his attention turning from the window. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. ‘How did you know you wanted to call it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘How did you know you wouldn’t regret it? Giving up competing?’ My fingers tightened on the wheel, re-adjusting, my palms sweaty. ‘That moment when you watch someone else hold up a trophy, after a match you know you would’ve won.’

I wondered how many other players had thought that about the matches I’d lost, with all my obvious screw-ups, every misstep, the wrong plays. How many had sat in the stands asking themselves, what the fuck is she doing? I could’ve finished this already.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I mean, I’m sure there will be a part of me that will always miss the direct competition.

But it’s tempered by the fact I know I’m not playing like I used to, like I was …

hungry. And I’d rather get off the court while I’m full and satisfied than regret running my joints into the ground chasing something I’m not sure I care about. ’

I took a second to process his honesty, how clearly he could communicate how he felt to me, and to himself. Meanwhile, my own feelings towards my career paled in comparison, an internal battle that had been reignited.

Humming in agreement, I tried to compare how I felt to him. It had been a quick decision to retire, but the relief was immediate, knowing the stress and strain were over. It didn’t matter anymore, it was done.

But as I recovered from my injury, I’d struggled to sit still, missing the movement of training, thinking more and more about that tennis court in the neighbourhood, wondering how many boxes of rackets and balls I had stored in the spare bedroom.

‘What?’ Oliver asked, pulling my attention from the road, the red of the traffic light ahead glowing against his skin, the stubble that had grown from days of not shaving.

Did he know how good he looked with a little stubble?

I shook my head, ‘It’s nothing. I’m just thinking.’

A careful smile grew across his lips. ‘Thinking that you might not be full and satisfied and you might still want a trophy of your own instead of stealing mine?’ Apparently, I took a moment too long to reply, and he read apprehension in my face. ‘You are!’

He wriggled in his seat, doing some sort of happy dance. I rolled my eyes as, thankfully, the traffic light turned green again and I accelerated ahead.

‘What did it?’ he asked, entirely too full of hope for a decision I wasn’t sure I had actually made.

‘Okay, first I haven’t changed my mind,’ I started, waiting a moment before I continued. ‘Second – Mum, she …’ I trailed off. How did I describe what Mum had said to me other than that she’d given me a talking to? ‘She said something.’

‘I should’ve known it,’ he said. ‘You are a mummy’s girl.’

I scowled at him. ‘I am not.’

‘One day at your parents and they immediately set you right.’

‘They have not.’ I let out a heavy breath, getting a little irritated at his pure sunshine joy. ‘I haven’t changed my mind.’

‘Then what is it?’ he asked, the light in his voice dimming. I hated that I had caused that.

My eyes searched the road ahead as if it was supposed to give me the answer to his question. When it didn’t, I was forced to come up with my own.

‘I don’t want to have regrets,’ I admitted. It felt like an alarm you’ve snoozed in the morning when you already didn’t get any sleep. You know if you don’t drag your ass out of bed, no matter how reluctant, you’ll be sorry, you’ll miss your day, your shot.

I’d pressed snooze a thousand times. But I couldn’t drown out the alarm anymore, the ring blaring in my ear.

‘And I don’t think I can sit there and watch somebody else take a trophy that could’ve been mine,’ I continued, trying to keep my nerve, taking out the anxiety with my grip on the steering wheel. ‘But I don’t think I can handle losing again.’

‘It’s that mindset that’s going to see you lose again,’ Oliver replied, ‘You walk on to that court like you’ve already lost.’

‘Because I have.’

‘Because you allow yourself to feel the enormous pressure,’ he said.

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye: could he read my mind now, too?

‘You don’t sleep. You lie awake and torture yourself over something that hasn’t even happened yet.

You walk onto that court in such a negative space because you feel like you’ve already lost, because you are convinced that you will but are still desperate to win. ’

I blinked away a tear, that feeling of vulnerability like a knife cutting though my heart.

‘So …’ I asked, somehow pushing through everything, finding the light in this. At least this time he’d be on my side. He wanted to help, thought he had the answers, so fine. Now was the time to prove it, convince me. ‘How do we fix it?’

‘We?’ His tone was not what I’d expected. I expected the happy, perky Oliver I’d had in the passenger seat a few seconds ago. I expected the man who’d claimed he’d been watching me play for years, who apparently had an endless list of suggestions to make. Not a low, solemn, questioning, ‘ We? ’

‘Yes, we.’ The pit in my stomach was a mile wide, as I stopped outside the gates to my house, the automatic sensor swinging them into action. I looked at him, the pit increasing another mile as I took in his expression. ‘Don’t you still want to work together?’

‘Dylan.’

Before he could say anything else, I cut him off.

‘I know it’s a far push, we can work with another coach if you want help trying to find your feet but I don’t like a lot of guidance gameplay wise.

I know my body well, I’m confident in how I play but it sounds like you want to take a mentality view to –’

‘Dylan.’ His voice cut through the noise in my brain, and stopped me right in my tracks.

‘Yeah?’ I said, cutting the engine, the house to my left. It should be a comfort, to be home, but if anything, I was more afraid than ever. There was something, the look on his face I could still see and his heavy sighs that told me this was all about to be over.

And I couldn’t fucking bear it.

‘It won’t be me.’ His voice was hollowed out, cutting me right down the middle.

‘I don’t understand.’ I looked at him. Big mistake. He looked miserable, his eyes puppy-dog sad, his face paler than I’d ever seen it. ‘That’s why you’re here isn’t it?’

I watch his mouth say the words, his throat bobbing with the depth of feeling. ‘I’m going back.’

‘Back?’ I repeated. His eyes pressed close as if I was causing him more pain.

‘I’m going back to London.’ My eyes searched his face for a sign of a joke. Maybe a sign that said ‘Oliver Anderson – Part Time Comedian for hire’. ‘I booked my ticket yesterday.’

I spent a moment trying to remember what my therapist had said about keeping my anger under control.

Before, I vented my rage playing against a wall until I or the strings broke – whatever came first. The past few months, all I’d managed to do was furiously sob in toilet stalls, all my fight extinguished.

Now, however, I found myself wanting to put my fist through the dashboard.

‘When do you leave?’ I asked, somehow keeping my voice level and free of the torment that was tearing me apart.

He’s only a friend. He’s only a friend . Nothing more.

I’d known I couldn’t keep him here in Australia. He wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place. He’d grown bored of me, of waiting. I was too late.

This is fine. It’s fine. It’s not the end of the fucking world because he’s just a friend.

‘Tomorrow,’ Oliver answered, my heart stopping in my chest.

‘What? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘It didn’t seem like a good time.’ he replied, and I couldn’t stop the gasp of annoyance that left me, the roll of my eyes.

‘When was going to be a good time?’ I snapped, a sour taste lacing my words. ‘Were you even going to tell me? Or leave a note and disappear.’

‘Of course I was going to tell you.’

‘When?’ I could feel the tears stinging as they reached my burning cheeks. I wiped them away, not wanting to acknowledge how badly this hurt. ‘When were you going to tell me I had less than a day left with you.’

‘I wanted to get home first.’

Home. The word itself stung.

‘Why? Why even come here at all if you’re going to leave when –’

‘When what?’ He cut me off, shaking his head, while I looked at him as if he’d lost his goddamn mind. ‘You still can’t come out and tell me that you want to play, Dylan. You’ve been talking in circles. If you want to go back, have the courage to admit it.’

‘Of course I want to fucking play.’ I turned to him, hands splayed out wide. ‘And I wanted to do it with you. I thought you wanted that too.’ My voice broke at the end of the sentence, my throat closing up. ‘I didn’t realize I took too long.’

‘It’s not you.’

All I could do was let out a sad laugh. ‘Bullshit.’

A single raindrop hit the windshield, my eyes tracking it as it rolled down the glass, watching as another splattered beside it, a light drizzle starting.

‘I can’t stay,’ he said, his mind made up. I wondered if his bags were already packed.

‘Why not?’ I pinched my arm, concentrating on the sharp pain rather than the desperation in my voice. ‘ It’s not you, it’s me? Are we really trying that shit? I thought we were friends.’

‘We are.’ His words left me unconvinced, a hesitation I couldn’t quite put my finger on.