Scene 52 Take 1

The tide was rising.

Dillon pulled herself out of the waist-deep water onto the moss-covered landing. The first step of the steep stone staircase was already submerged beneath the rolling sea swell lapping against the island. Two hundred feet above her, the Mumbles Lighthouse flashed its brilliance, the lantern abrasive against the midday sun.

She didn't linger. For the first time since stepping onto the train in Leeds, she was confronted with an unsettling clarity. Like the mantle enveloping her for the past few days had finally lifted, revealing the world in the vivid starkness of her new reality.

It was over.

She'd destroyed everything. Everything she'd worked for, everything she'd fought to achieve. Thrown it all away. In one stupid, blinding moment of weakness, she'd shattered her career. Her life. Her dreams.

And now—she was nothing.

Behind her, the advancing tide flooded the foreshore, cutting the two tidal islets off from the headland, leaving no navigable return. She didn't care. She didn't look back.

One foot in front of the other, she worked her way up the winding staircase. She didn't count each weatherworn step as she'd once done as a child, her dad whistling behind her with an armload of fishing gear and lunch packed for two. Nor did she stop to peek into the long-abandoned keeper's cottage, or admire the cormorants and razorbills nesting on the cliffside.

Her mind was back in Leeds, in Roundhay Park. Back on the race, which would have been over for hours. Back on the people she'd let down.

Her teammates. Her country. Kyle. Alistair. Her sponsors. Her fans.

Sam. Who'd been through so much worse, yet was still stronger, braver, more deserving than she had ever been.

Seren. Who had begged her to bow out while she could still take the high road. Who had understood her better than she'd understood herself. Who had been right. Who had known.

And Kam. How did she explain it to Kam? The one person who had believed in her when everyone else told her to quit. After all the money she had spent… the boundless encouragement… the unwavering support she had shown her… Dillon owed her so much more. Had failed her so gravely.

Cresting the isolated summit, she allowed her pace to slow as she navigated the eroding pathway paralleling the shadow of the lighthouse. To her left, the Mumbles Pier stretched into the distance, the jetty quiet, save for a pair of silhouettes fishing near the lifeboat station.

How often had she and her dad watched a boat launch down the slipway to save a wayward seafarer or retrieve an unsuspecting tourist stranded at high tide on the island? It wasn't swimmable, the narrow channel back to the mainland. The current was too strong, and any person fool enough to enter the water at flood tide would be swept out to sea.

"Even you, Ddraig Fach," her dad had razzed when her swimming prowess had gotten too big for her boots. "Get caught in that, and I'd be scooping you up in England." Dillon had rolled her eyes, her twelve-year-old ego blustering that she could swim anything.

Turning her attention to the south, where the horizon disappeared across the Bristol Channel, Dillon ventured off the pathway onto the jagged cliff edge. It was her favorite part of the island, the steep rockface giving way to the gaping mouth of a colossal cave stretching deep beneath the ocean's surface.

The Dragon's Lair , her father pointed out on her first trek to the lighthouse. He'd spent the afternoon spinning a tale of a fierce sea dragon—the protector of Wales—who preyed on poaching fishermen sailing too close to the Gower.

"What's his name?" Dillon had worried a loose tooth with one hand while clutching the safety of her father's arm in the other. Anxious to catch a glimpse of translucent scales, she'd risked a glance over the edge to stare into the black opening of the cavern.

She could still feel the warmth of her father's strong forearm. See the way he had smiled. "Who said it was a he?" He ruffled her hair. "It's well known the bravest hunters are female."

Banishing the memory, Dillon picked her way onto a rocky crag jutting over the water. The wind had risen, stirring the ocean into a canvas of white caps, the spindrift misting her sea-soaked trainers.

Uncomfortable with the height, she dropped to sit amongst the pink blossoms of long-stemmed Sea Thrift and yellow clusters of Bird's-foot trefoil sprouting from the sparse soil. In a nearby thicket, a joyful birdsong chafed against her unraveling nerves.

She wanted to scream. To curse the boundless beauty all around her.

Angry, she plucked the tender white petal off a bindweed corolla and flicked it over the edge, watching the flower drift into the abyss of the cave's mouth.

She'd given up. When it mattered most, she'd done what she did best—she'd run away. She'd buckled.

She could blame it on her knee. She could blame it on the agonizing toll the months of recovery and return to form had taken on her body. Or point to the fatigue she'd been battling.

But it was none of that. If she had raced, she could have won. Even hurting. Even tired.

The truth was, she'd simply not been strong enough to handle the pressure.

If the mind is willing, the body will follow . Had that not been the mantra she'd risen to every morning? The proverb that filled her dreams at night? The creed she had lived by? It had gotten her through thousands and thousands of exhausting miles. Through injury. Through burnout. Through sheer moments of misery.

But this time it had failed her.

This time she'd been—she was —weak. Weak in ways that had nothing to do with her physically.

The media would be on a feeding frenzy. All the doubters, all the haters, all those who'd been waiting, willing her to fail—it was finally their moment of I told you so .

None more so than Henrik.

Drückeberger , he'd taunted. Quitter. Coward .

And all she'd done was prove him right.

Tearing another petal from the bindweed, she crumpled the delicate flower, bitter at its determination to blossom in the unforgiving terrain.

What did it matter now, any of it? She'd never race again.

For a long time, she sat looking across the channel, thinking about her mam. About the way she fought to hide her quiet disappointment. Her unspoken resentment. And Seren, who was always there to lift her up, never asking anything in return. How tired she must be of catching someone always one step away from a fall.

And then, of course, there was Kam. Kam, who had changed her life, making it all feel worthwhile. Kam, who had gifted her her generous heart, her selflessness, her unending capacity for love—receiving so little in exchange.

But also Kam, who lived in the shelter of her ivory tower, where she could hide behind her optimistic naivety, pretending there were no disparities, no adversities, no unscalable obstacles driving them apart.

Dillon pressed her palms against her temples, trying to clear her mind.

It wasn't real. A fleeting part of her—distant, stifled, smothered beneath her sinking despair—cried to be heard. These thoughts were invasive. Untrue.

Her mam didn't blame her.

Seren was strong, capable of supporting the weight of two.

And Kam?—Kam loved her. For their differences. For the circumstances that made their relationship unique. She didn't care about anything else. She just loved her—for her .

But the cry was too faint, the noise in her head too persistent. And she was so tired—tired of treading water, trying to stay afloat. All she wanted was to disappear. To hide. To sleep. To escape the perpetual cycle of pain.

Restless, she got to her feet.

The afternoon breeze had welled, driving the swift-moving current against the base of the island, slamming the waves into the rocky outcrop guarding the entrance to the cave.

A scattering of pebbles slipped beneath the shift in her weight, and her heart raced as she watched them plunge into the dizzying drop to the sea.

Her hand went to her pocket, fingers shaking. She needed to turn on her phone. She needed to call Kam.

But she didn't. She couldn't.

She knew why she was up here. She knew why, after so many years, she'd finally ascended that staircase.

How many times had she felt the pull, yearning to give in?

First, the temptation back in Hamburg, on the cold mornings waking in Henrik's bed. And then, more loudly, more frighteningly, in the days, the months, the year that followed her dad's death. And again, after Kelsey. After Yokohama. After… after…

Her heart pounded, crescendoing the rush of blood in her head.

It was a losing battle. One she could never win.

She pulled out her phone. Thumbed the power button. She could turn it on. Call Seren.

No .

A wash of uncanny stillness overcame her as she flung the last of her lifelines over the edge. She watched the phone spiral, violently dashing against the rocks, before being taken by the sea.

It was too late. There was no place to run. She'd stumbled down the wrong path one too many times.

It was no one else's burden to bail her out this time.