Chapter 14

June 2008

Crack!

At the Miami Challenger in 2008, it's a sickening sound that I feel all the way through my body as I reach for a passing shot down the line.

I fall to the ground, clutching my side. The pain is like nothing I've ever felt before, and I know immediately what it means. No summer trying to accumulate points with the hope of turning pro early. No tournament win, my first of the year, that I'm one game away from. No career at all, maybe, depending on how bad the injury is.

No telling either whether I'll live through the day because it hurts so much to breathe that it feels like I'm having a heart attack and drowning at the same time.

On the video that exists of this moment, it looks like I've gone to sleep, my eyes closed, my hands wrapped around my midsection. But I'm not sleeping. Instead, I'm thinking of death, and my life is flashing before my eyes in snippets, a Ferris wheel of regrets.

I spend a night in the hospital in Miami, hooked up to an IV of painkillers. One of my ribs is badly fractured, and I'm given more scans than I knew were possible to determine if anything else is broken. When they decide nothing is, I'm taped up, given a prescription, and told to take it easy for six weeks, to give myself time to heal.

I feel crushed by the news. Six weeks off isn't on the schedule. I haven't had one week off since I was ten, when I decided that I was going to try to be a professional tennis player. Time off isn't how I'm going to reach the next level. But I also know that rushing healing isn't going to work either. My roommate in my sophomore year had tried that, and she wasn't playing tennis anymore.

So I call Aunt Tracy and let her know I'll be coming home for the summer instead of shifting from city to city as planned, and she helps make the arrangements to get me there. A week later, I'm on the train to the Hamptons.

As I watch Long Island scroll by through the grimy train window, I try to take this setback in stride. Finishing college isn't a bad thing. I like my coach and my classes. I'm glad I picked education as my major, with a minor in music. When the time comes to retire from tennis, I'll enjoy teaching. I have a good set of friends, and while I haven't had a long-term steady relationship, there's a guy I'm casual with, and my life is all rolling along basically according to plan. And now I can enjoy the summer and go back in the fall and finish school properly before I turn pro, and my life becomes solely about tennis.

I'm trying to focus on the positive, but it's hard.

Instead, I text Ash: Coming to the Hamptons, bitch!

She answers immediately. For reals?

Yes! On the train.

Why?

You didn't see the video?

I do have my own life, you know.

Ash is at Columbia. Her current declared major is prelaw. She's been through premed, politics, psych, and a few others that I haven't absorbed.

I thought you were my #1 fan.

ROTFL.

You know I suck at text language.

The slightly creepy guy sitting next to me is trying to look at my phone, so I tip it away from him.

Okay I watched the video. Damn, girl.

I'm okay.

It says you cracked a rib?

Yeah. Six weeks of rest required.

FAN-TASTIC!

Not so much for my tennis career.

But so much for your party career.

Ha.

When do you arrive?

1.5 hours.

You want a lift?

I think Aunt Tracy is coming to get me.

I'll cancel her.

Okay!

This is going to be awesome.

I tuck my phone away with a smile.

"You get good news?" the guy says. He's missing one of his incisors, and his breath smells rancid.

"My daddy told me not to talk to strangers."

He doesn't know what to do with this, which is the whole point of the line I came up with when men decided I was old enough to chat up every time I was alone.

I pull my headphones up from my neck and over my ears and turn up the volume on Sara Bareilles. Smelly-breath weirdo gets the message and opens a book, and I rest my head against the window and try to sleep.

Home. Summer. Lazing by the pool and parties on the beach. Laughing with Ash, reading trashy books, having nothing scheduled. It does sound good, like something I need. Maybe this injury is a blessing in disguise. Yes. Summer. A real, proper one. My mind drifts to the last summer I'd spent that way, but I pull it back. No use thinking about that. About him. I never let myself think about Fred if I can help it, and if sometimes, when I'm sleeping, my dreams take me back there, that's not my fault.

I close my eyes and drift off and dream the ending I wanted for myself, that last game in the tournament. I let the passing shot go, then regroup and win the next three points, and now I'm the champion and I'm hoisting a trophy over my head, and then I'm on to the next tournament, and I'm turning pro early. And there's someone there to greet me after my victory, to hold me close and rub my sore feet, who looks a lot like Fred, and that's when I tell myself it's a dream and I should wake up.

I open my eyes. We're at the Southampton station. The guy next to me is smiling at me like he was watching me sleep. Gross. I turn away and make sure I have everything, stuffing my headphone and phone into a large, soft bag. I've got one suitcase with me; the rest is following in a few days. The smelly-breathed man takes my bag out of the bin above us, and I thank him, wishing I was well enough to do it myself.

The train stops and I walk to the exit, avoiding eye contact with this creeper so he doesn't ask for my number. I struggle to get my roller bag down the stairs and after it thunks to the platform, I look around for Ash, knowing she's always late. I decide to give her five minutes before I text her as the other passengers shuffle off the platform.

And then I'm alone, except for a man walking toward me, a tentative smile on his face.

Fred.