Scene 26

Dillon flinched as a vacuum toppled onto the living room floor from the overstuffed entryway closet. She watched Kam shove the Dyson back onto the shelf, cursing under her breath. It was clear she was embarrassed by the casual disorder of her apartment. She'd made a brisk sweep of her couch and dining room table, gathering discarded articles of clothing and a half-eaten bowl of cereal, dropping the latter on the kitchen counter and the clothes onto the closet floor.

"I wasn't—I mean, I don't usually—I'm not an untidy person. I just hadn't..." She forced the closet door shut with her shoulder. "I wasn't expecting company."

"I'm sorry, Kam," Dillon kept to the safety of the threshold, "I should have asked you if it was all right if I came over."

Kam had already moved on to her coffee table, where she was stacking what looked to be a scattered screenplay. Her entire body was radiating with tension. "Will you close the door?" She busied herself slipping the pages into a manilla envelope, not looking at Dillon. "I've had… there's been… just close it, please."

Dillon pulled it shut and flipped the oxidized lock. Based on Kam's outburst on the doorstep, she imagined she wasn't the first to show up uninvited. She knew that look. She'd watched Kelsey suffer the same anxiety.

Turning to toss the envelope onto her table, Kam bumped a classical guitar resting against the wall, tipping it over, where it emitted an angry chord. "God damn it!" For a second Dillon thought she was going to boot the offending instrument, but with a groan of exasperation, she changed her mind and sank onto the arm of her couch instead.

"Why are you here, Dillon?"

She had spent the past twelve hours going over the question, ever since stepping onto the last-minute flight from Heathrow.

Just be honest , Seren advised her. Just tell her the truth .

"May I?" she motioned at a dining room chair. It felt too presumptuous to sit beside Kam on the two-seater couch.

"Might as well, you're already here."

If she had to guess, Kam was clinging to her bitterness as a form of self-preservation. Her body language didn't match her tone. Beneath her anger, she looked like she was going to cry.

"I can come back tomorrow, Kam, if you'd rather. Or not at all. I promise I came here with no expectations."

"Oh no?" Kam crossed her arms, defensive. "Didn't just swing by for a midnight booty call before hopping another flight back home?"

Leaning against the edge of the table, Dillon released a slow exhale. She deserved Kam's resentment, but it didn't make it easier to face.

"I know I handled things poorly. It was unfair for me to leave the way I did."

"Unfair?" Kam's laugh was derisive. "You said less than a dozen words to me on a six-hour drive home. You got out of my car, grabbed your stuff, and told me ‘I'm sorry, I'll call you this week. I have to go.' And left ." She tapped the envelope with her script in it against her calf, before tossing it back to the coffee table. "I think the worst part is, I don't even know why I cared so much. We spent a fun night together—so what? You don't owe me an explanation—"

"I do owe you an explanation, and I hope you'll hear me out."

She took Kam's silence as permission to proceed.

Lacing her hands behind her head, she stared up at the ceiling. "I panicked when your movie was announced. I know I should have been happy for you—it's amazing, you're amazing—but I…" She trailed off. She wasn't certain where to start. The hardest part, she decided. Just once more, she could do this. And then Seren was right—it was time to let it go.

"I told you my dad passed away when I was nineteen. That he'd been sick. What I didn't say is that he died by suicide… because of me."

Her mouth felt chalky. It didn't matter what Seren said. They all knew the truth.

None of them more so than Dillon.

She continued. "When I was fourteen, I began training with a man named Henrik. Up to that point, my dad had been coaching me, but he'd heard a rumor that Henrik Fischer—a two-time Olympic gold medalist—was beginning to accept students for his new training program. We met with him. Henrik didn't have a facility yet, but said—since he was currently living in London, and I was still in school—he could come to Swansea and coach me on the weekends.

"It cost my parents a fortune, but my dad was elated. Henrik was world-class. I immediately hated him—he was very strict and very demanding—but my dad was so certain he was the answer to achieving my dreams, I stuck it out. I didn't want to fail my dad or the faith he had in me. And there was no denying the results.

"Within the first six months, I was placing higher on the podium, breaking all my personal bests. But the more success I had, the more dependent I became on Henrik. I no longer felt I could compete without his guidance. I grew terrified of disappointing him. Terrified he would quit coaching me. I was certain the only way I'd ever become a world champion—the only way I'd ever make the Olympic team—was with his help. So I did anything to please him." Dillon shifted against the edge of the table, dropping her gaze from the ceiling, but instead of looking at Kam, refocused on the ticking clock on the mantel. "Which, um," she swallowed, forcing herself to continue, "meant that by the time he wanted more from me—I didn't know how to say no."

She risked a glance at Kam, making certain she'd understood, and then quickly continued. "Bear with me, I promise, there's a reason I'm telling you this, and I will come full circle to your question."

Outside, a shadow moved across the drawn window blinds as a group of laughing revelers passed along the sidewalk.

"Eventually, Henrik announced his retirement as a competitor and turned his full focus to coaching. He'd taken on several students at the time, and was opening a training center in his hometown of Hamburg. The only way I could stay in his program was if I moved to Germany.

"My mam didn't like it. She'd begun to feel I was under too much pressure. She wanted me to finish school, insisting there were other coaches—and if none of them were good enough, Henrik's training center would still be there when I turned eighteen.

"I freaked out. I had to stay in training. So I enlisted my dad's help to convince her. I'd just won the super sprint at Sunderland, which qualified me to compete at the junior world championships in six months when I turned sixteen. I knew I couldn't do it without Henrik. I begged my dad and he helped persuade her. Neither he nor my mam, of course, realized at the time just how much trouble I'd gotten myself in…"

Dillon paused as the red and blue lights of a cop car filtered through the blinds, sirens blaring off into the distance.

"It was finally my sister who became suspicious. For months after I'd moved to Germany, she and my dad made the fourteen-hour train ride every weekend to see me. But eventually, Henrik monopolized my time, and made their visits impossible. I'm sure he knew Seren was on to him. And when she finally called me out, I didn't do a very good job of lying. She immediately went to our parents. And things…" Dillon pressed her lips together, "fell apart quickly.

"They immediately demanded I come home, confronting Henrik and threatening to press charges. But I'd just turned sixteen. A week earlier I'd won the championship in Japan. There was nothing that was going to convince me to leave him. I, of course, denied it all—as did Henrik. My mam's a solicitor—she knew they were fighting a losing battle. The age of consent in the UK is sixteen. Fourteen in Germany. I'd already sat for my GCSEs and was of a legal age to leave school. There was nothing they could do."

Dillon grew quiet, her thoughts drifting to the last time she'd seen her dad—the last conversation they'd ever had.

He turned up in Hamburg in the middle of the night, pounding on Henrik's door. Outraged at the disturbance and fearful of the potential for scandal, Henrik told her she had to choose between them. If her father showed up again, he was going to cut her from his program.

She led her dad away from the house, down to the river. It was the first time she'd ever seen him unshaven. The first time she'd smelled whisky through his pores.

"I'm struggling to understand, Dillon!" he'd yelled on the bank of the Elbe, his composure collapsing. "This isn't what you want! I know you're not in love with—with…" he gestured toward the house, "with that man!" His anger turned to pleading. "This isn't who you are!"

Love ? The word blindsided her. Did he really think love had anything to do with it?

"You have no idea who I am," she spat, her mind stuck on Henrik's threat to drop her as a student.

How did her father not realize there was nothing she wouldn't do to keep him as her coach? Whatever the cost, she was willing to pay the price. She'd already paid it, and she'd continue to pay it—whatever it took to win.

"You're my daughter! And I know this person he's turned you into—this person isn't you! That man's a monster—"

"Don't pretend like you're not the one who pushed me to train with him!" Her voice was hoarse with tears as she flung away the hand he reached to set on her shoulder, aware of Henrik watching from the window of his second-story bedroom.

"Dillon!" The despair in his voice crippled her. "I didn't know!"

She kept her eyes on the river, on the freezing water she swam in every morning. Tomorrow, Henrik would make her life miserable. Swim to the light tower , he'd tell her. Again. Again .

But she couldn't leave him. In her sixteen-year-old mind, she was certain she couldn't do this without him. And her dad's midnight intrusion was going to ruin everything.

"You're just afraid I'll achieve more with him than I ever did with you," she snapped, whirling to shove past him. It was the cruelest thing she could think to say. The only thing she could think of to make him leave. "Stay away from me. I don't ever want to see you again."

And it was the last thing she ever said to him.

The minute hand on the vintage clock ticked forward and Dillon realized she'd been silent too long. Kam had slid from the arm of the couch to settle on the cushions, waiting for her to go on.

"To make a long story short, I cut off my family and stayed in Hamburg for three more years. For a while, my father wrote to me, but I never answered. I was afraid Henrik would find out. Then, when I made the Olympic team, he wrote to me again—telling me how proud he was, asking if he could meet me at the finish line. I told Henrik. Some idiotic part of me thought I could gain his approval. I wanted to see my dad, but I knew I couldn't do it without Henrik's blessing. I don't know why I ever thought things would change. Henrik told me to write back to him—to reiterate that I didn't want him in my life. And so I did."

Dillon forced herself to go on. "A week later, my dad hung himself in his study. On his desk they found my letter. He didn't leave a note. Seren called me that evening. I quit Henrik and finally went home."

Pulling out the dining room chair, she finally sat, looking over at Kam. "As I mentioned before, I still competed that summer. I didn't know what else to do. My dad was dead. I no longer had a coach. My entire life was upside down. All I had was that race. Somehow, I felt like I owed it to my dad to run. My mam and Seren supported my decision. I'd gotten a lot of press because of my age and the qualification, but we'd managed to keep my dad's death quiet. It wasn't something I felt like I could deal with publicly at the time.

"So of course, a few days before my start, Henrik posted a notice on his training page, claiming it was his decision to part ways with me as an athlete. He stated that while he sympathized with my family for our heartache after my father's suicide, he felt it best to end our partnership due to my ‘blurred conception of understanding between professional and personal boundaries.' He went on to say that he wished me well in my future endeavors, and hoped I would take some time off to get the mental health help I needed."

Dillon laughed, the sound strangled in her throat. "I didn't even know about the post at the time. I was already in the seclusion of the Athletes' Village and had kept myself sheltered from everything circulating online. It wasn't until after the race, when a reporter in the media tent extended her condolences about the loss of my dad, that I knew his death had been made public."

Taking another breath, Dillon continued. "I was actually relieved, despite the hurtfulness of his comments. I was just glad it was over. He'd gotten the last punch, I'd managed to finish my race, and I just wanted to go home and hide until it all blew over. But the hopes of that ended quickly. A few days after the Closing Ceremonies, a sports reporter asked Henrik if he regretted his decision to part professional ways with me after I'd put out such a solid performance in my Olympic debut. Surely, she said, I was a loss as his star student. Henrik didn't miss a beat. He said," Dillon paused, still able to hear his voice verbatim. "He said: If I had to deal with Dillon Sinclair for one more minute, I'd have killed myself, also . And for the second time in as many months, my life crumbled. The soundbite went viral—well beyond the sports community. Most people were outraged by his comment, but it didn't stop the dialogue, or the fingers pointed in my direction. I was criticized for competing so shortly after my dad's death. I was called a narcissist. A head case. I was accused of being a Lolita . I felt like I was living in a glass house. I was already overwhelmed with guilt. Overwhelmed with grief. Overwhelmed with what I'd put my family through. I didn't handle it well, being in the center of the media scrutiny—my life being dissected online by total strangers. I…" Again, she hesitated. It felt impossible to explain how her life felt like it was over at just nineteen years old. "It was a rough couple of years after he died. Seren, and my best mate, Sam, got me through it. And by the time Rio rolled around, things were better. I'd rebuilt a relationship with my mam and sister. I'd established myself under a new coach and won my first professional World Triathlon Championship as an adult. For the first time in my life, I was head-over-heels in love, happy in a stable partnership. Everything finally seemed to be coming together.

"And then Kelsey and her team won the Euros. She'd always been a national team favorite, but suddenly she was a star—a household name throughout the country. People became interested in everything about her—on and off the pitch. And therefore, started taking interest in me. They created fan accounts, YouTube compilations, wrote fan fiction—publishing it all on the football forums with the tag #eclair. I was suddenly, very reluctantly, back in the spotlight—worse than ever before. And it scared me. I didn't want to go through that again. By the time England blazed into the World Cup semifinals, I couldn't take it anymore. I called it off in the middle of her tournament. I hurt her—very unfairly."

Releasing a long exhale, she looked away from Kameryn. "I'm only telling you all this because I didn't know any other way to explain my reaction to your casting. I'm not making an excuse. I should have found a way to talk to you without leaving. And I know it doesn't make things right—but it was worth it to me to fly here to apologize to you in person—even if you decide you'd rather not see me again."

Kameryn was quiet. After a moment she stood and went to her window, peeking through the blinds. It was almost eleven. Cars were driving by blasting music and in the distance there were muffled explosions of fireworks.

"And if I do want to see you again?" Kam turned.

"I'd like that," Dillon said simply.

"What happens if it gets as bad as it was with you and Kelsey?"

"This could be much worse than it ever was with Kelsey. I already know that."

Kam leaned against the wall. "Then why come back?"

Dillon finally felt the glimmer of a smile. "Because I really like you, Kam-Kameryn. And I'd like to earn a second chance."