Page 28 of Try Hard

Fia

I was wrapped in a blanket, curled up on the couch with tea and a hot water bottle pressed tightly against my lower abdomen when Mum and Dad appeared.

Dad took one look at me, smiled, and said, “Chocolate chip waffles?”

I breathed a laugh. “You don’t need to do that. You’ve got to get to work.”

He shot me a look. “Got to eat breakfast first.”

Mum came over to press the back of her hand against my forehead as if I’d caught the flu. “Nothing like a family waffle breakfast to kickstart hump day.” She whooshed her hand through the air like a roller coaster. “Straight on into the weekend from here.”

She’d done that a lot when I was a kid. It was comforting to see it again.

The period cramps weren’t actually all that bad.

Uncomfortable, sure, but not the thing that caused me the most frustration and pain each month.

It was the reminder of the years of torment my body went through, how I should still have been able to go swimming but couldn’t because my whole body froze and set off burning, aching pain if I tried to use a tampon.

I shook my head, unwilling to go there, even mentally, no matter how much the throbbing cramps called my attention. I’d never talked to my parents about it and I had no interest in doing so now.

I plastered on a smile—one that could be forgiven for looking odd in the presence of period cramps. “Sounds good. Thanks, both.”

My mum caressed my hair gently and leaned over to look into my mug. “Nearly done with that? I’ll get another pot on the go. And maybe some peppermint for the cramps and bloating?”

I nodded, trying not to be emotional at being looked after.

Ordinarily, I functioned just fine, but I couldn’t deny it was nice being cared for.

Plus, I was a bit of a wreck at the minute with everything going on—meeting Eve again and having the best time just talking to her, being around her, all the wedding stuff, the work stuff… Everything.

I stood up, following them into the kitchen, and my mind wandered all too readily back to last night.

I’d watched Eve play before, at school, on the TV, that one time in the US when she was at the real height of her career and I’d been surrounded by fans screaming her name.

But none of it felt the same as watching her when she’d invited me, when we were at the match together.

Nor did anything compare to the feeling of her running straight to me after winning the game.

Since she’d been an Olympian, I’d taken to watching more of the Olympics every time they happened—not just because she was brought in to do some of the rugby coverage, but that didn’t hurt—and I’d seen all of those viral moments where an athlete won something and darted straight to their partner in the crowd.

Those moments went viral for a reason, and, last night, I’d gotten my own version of it.

Except, it felt like it came with caveats.

I still hadn’t told her about my condition.

I didn’t know how she’d react. Ordinarily, I’d think it was too early to even think about getting into that whole thing, but she and I had been on a twenty-five year journey to get to this point.

There was nothing rushed about it, and I wanted to tell her.

That was an entirely new experience for me.

She deserved to know.

Plus, we had her fanbase to deal with, and I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that. But, after last night, both at the game and sitting together for a couple of hours in the car, drinking soup and talking, I knew we needed to address it—that I wanted to.

Dad, as much of a whizz in the kitchen as my mum, put a plate down in front of me. The first waffle out of the machine, ample chocolate chips in the batter, chocolate drizzle, whipped cream, and hundreds and thousands on top of it.

I laughed. “You don’t think that’s a little excessive for a random Wednesday morning?”

He shook his head, pouring the next scoop of batter into the waffle maker. “It is exactly the right amount of excessive.”

“You only live once, Fia,” Mum added, bustling around the space, moving from making tea to brewing coffee. “Sometimes, you have to make even the random days special.”

“Every single day is random to someone and special to someone else,” Dad mused in his wise philosopher voice.

“Today, someone out there is having a baby, falling in love, getting married. And someone else is going about their business at work, having the same kind of Wednesday they always do, but, hopefully, something in that day will make them smile.”

I almost cried. Hormones were a pain.

I cleared my throat and nodded. He’d always enjoyed philosophising on topics from the mundane to the magnificent, but it had definitely gotten grander and more frequent the older he’d grown. Not that I could argue with his sentiments. He was exactly right.

Mum placed a mug of peppermint tea before me, taking my former mug to refill it. I thanked them both and dug into the waffle.

A tiny voice in the back of my head prodded painfully that I shouldn’t be eating so much sweet, fatty food at breakfast, especially if I couldn’t swim today, but I pushed back, forcing it from my mind.

It was only coming up because I was feeling emotionally fragile.

For everything I hadn’t figured out, my relationship with food was generally doing well and I wasn’t allowing that to be dragged down.

After a brief swirl of energy around the kitchen, Mum and Dad joined me and it was exactly what I needed.

The three of us chatted about our days and, with the exception of happy, knowing smiles when they asked if I was seeing Eve, they mostly avoided questions about me and my life.

I enjoyed not being the centre of attention.

As the two of them refused to let me clean up and went off to deal with that and get ready for work, a message arrived from Eve and my heart jumped erratically in my chest.

Greetings from another morning workout, she said, attaching a picture of her smiling. At least it’s not raining!

I didn’t fight the smile as I replied, but my stomach dropped when she immediately sent another message back.

How’s swimming?

I sighed. None today.

Is everything okay??? She was so quick to reply and I could practically hear the concern, see the look on her face, that furrow between her brows. Just like last night when she’d talked about how she couldn’t promise a life out of the public eye around her.

Period , I sent back. I would tell her but not over text. In some ways, that might be easier, but it was also a cop out, and she deserved better than that. She was already sharing so much of herself and her life with me.

Screw the gym! Need me to run over there with pain killers, chocolate, your favourite foods?

I smiled again, even as I felt the tears threatening to fall. Dad already fed me chocolate chip waffles and I’m working my way through the multiple types of tea Mum made. Go to the gym, Archer.

If you’re sure? But I can bring you stuff once I’m done, if you’d like?

I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me, and I made a decision.

I’ll be fine. Enjoy your workout, I sent back, draining one of the two mugs in front of me while picking the other up to take with me as I got ready to face the day.

◆◆◆

Dad dropped me off outside Eve’s gym on his way to work, and I was grateful he didn’t ask too many questions. Instead, he filled the time talking about Saturday morning and how excited he already was to see the rest of the group again this week.

I sent Eve a selfie when I was outside—grateful that it wasn’t raining—but I didn’t expect her to look at it during her workout.

Twenty minutes later, when I was perched awkwardly on a bollard, she appeared from inside the gym.

“Are you okay?” she asked, approaching me, her hands out, hovering in the air as she looked me over.

I nodded. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“That’s not important.” She scanned my face. “You’re really okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Totally fine. Sorry.”

“Couldn’t stay away from working out? I’m sure you’ll be back in the pool tomorrow.”

I laughed, the sound brittle. That was one way to dive into the subject. “I won’t, actually. Not until my period is done.”

She frowned and glanced around. “Do you want to go somewhere a little more… private? Nicer?”

“Let’s walk,” I said, nodding. “If that’s okay?”

“Of course.”

And so, we walked. It took until we were off the main roads and wandering something that looked like a country lane.

I wasn’t actually certain where it led out to, but that didn’t really matter.

Eve was unbelievably patient, walking along beside me, waiting until I was ready, and her ability to be unafraid of silence, how comfortable she was not talking with me, only served to reinforce my decision to tell her.

Still, that didn’t make it easy. I hadn’t said the word in years, and, even then, only to my therapist.

I glanced at Eve. She really was so beautiful, and, impossibly, she was more so on the inside—which was really saying something.

“I have vaginismus,” I said, trying for confidence and just sounding lost. “There are a couple of other names for it too these days, but that’s the one people tend to know, I think."

“Oh,” she said, and I looked at her to see the recognition on her face, the tightening of her brow that meant she knew what it was. At least I didn’t have to explain.

I sucked in a breath. “So, yeah, I can’t swim on my period. Can’t use tampons.”

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

I waved her off. “It was a fair assumption, and you were just trying to make me feel better.”

“Still.” She paused, reaching out to gently hold my arm and stop me too. “Thank you for telling me.”

I nodded, my eyes bouncing from hers and away again in rapid succession. “It is what it is. I just… haven’t really talked about it in a long time. I don’t really talk about it.”