Scene 53 Take 2

I couldn't sleep.

In less than twelve hours, I'd be arriving on the red carpet, attending the Oscars for the first time as a nominee. That alone would have been anxiety-inducing, but tonight, Dillon was coming as my date.

I'm not really sure what we were thinking. Our first official public outing as a couple probably would have been better served a little more low-key. For instance, we could have had a quiet dinner at Nobu Malibu or maybe attended a soccer match to watch Angel City . But no, straight to the Academy Awards. Go big or go home, right? Or, as Elliott liked to say: lights, camera, action—or cut!

Despite it being her decision to come, I was concerned about how she would handle the press and the massive amount of publicity we would receive. But my sympathy was quickly abated when I glanced over from my midnight turmoil and found her peacefully asleep. I considered bumping her, or tugging off the duvet, ‘accidentally' forcing her awake to join me in my worry, but begrudgingly, took the high road, and chose to leave her to her halcyon dreams. It did little good for both of us to lie here, staring at the ceiling.

Instead, sacrificing what little time was left in the small hours of the morning, my thoughts wandered, replaying the journey of the last two years, and what had led us here.

Three weeks after walking away from Leeds—after officially announcing her retirement as a professional triathlete—she returned to LA.

We needed to talk, she told me.

My heart sank. I thought she was coming to end things.

So needless to say, I was stunned when we walked down to the Santa Monica pier in the quiet hours of early morning, and she told me she didn't want to hide anymore. That she was ready for us to live openly, if that was still what I wanted.

I told her I needed a couple of days to think about it—I didn't—but I wanted to give her a chance to change her mind. I didn't want her to feel pressured into believing the only way we'd have a future together was if she stepped outside her comfort zone. But this time, she was adamant.

What had changed, I wanted to know?

She wasn't able to give me a pinpoint answer. In some ways, nothing . In other ways, everything .

Part of it, I think, was that she'd been seeing a new therapist. Someone different than the sports psychologist she'd relied on throughout her career. And though she didn't talk to me about everything she was going through, I understood a lot of her healing centered on building a new sense of self and finding ways to address her fears.

The media was going to be relentless, I warned her.

I was worth it, she assured me.

So it was settled.

The next big question was how we were going to handle it. Did I want to wait until we'd wrapped on Sand Seekers ? Did I need to warn the studio? Did I want my PR team to curate an announcement?

No. And no. And no.

I didn't want to ask permission. I didn't want to be managed. I didn't want a ‘coming out statement' handcrafted to mitigate backlash and keep my image ‘on brand.' I just wanted to be able to post the occasional stupid selfie with my girlfriend—to end the speculation on what guy Entertainment Weekly currently thought I was blowing.

So, we came up with a plan, and a week later, to the horror of my unprepared manager, and utter delight of the media frenzy, we posted a photo on my Instagram.

Amusing myself, and tolerated—with numerous good-natured eye-rolls—by Dillon, I restaged the viral photo the Uber driver had taken off her dashcam: Dillon—her hair askew, cheeks flushed, and clothing disheveled—and me—wearing her jacket, my lips swollen, the top button of my pants unfastened, looking exactly as if I'd just been freshly fucked in a castle cathedral on a whim. I completed the image with lipstick on Dillon's collar and a hickey—no makeup required—below my ear.

I captioned it: OK, fine: I lied. More than ‘just friends.' She's my person. And then posted it to my 150 million followers on Instagram.

And you know what? The world didn't implode (the same could probably not be said of my manager's head). The studio didn't fire me (fat chance of that, anyway—no offense, but I was Kameryn Kingsbury). I wasn't even struck down by a bolt of lightning from the heavens.

I got some hate mail—but honestly, what celebrity didn't?—a few hundred marriage proposals, and an invite to speak at GLAAD. And that was pretty much that. I received over a hundred thousand likes when I changed my Facebook status from it's complicated to in a relationship , which I still find kind of wild .

Dillon had long since deleted all her social media, so other than having to put up with me posting the occasional TikTok video of her cooking French toast in my kitchen, her life as the now-acknowledged love of my life, didn't change. We dealt a little with the paparazzi—it was just a part of life for me—but for the little time we were seen in public together, it didn't bother her the way I think either of us had been afraid it might.

Life simply went on.

Three weeks later, I shot my final pick-up for Sand Seekers . It was an emotional, fulfilling moment for me. Two and a half years, tens of thousands of miles traveled, over a thousand hours of raw footage, and my journey as Addison Riley in Margaret Gilles' beloved trilogy was complete.

I went to the wrap party solo—Dillon was back in Wales, helping Seren prepare to fly épée to Los Angeles—and at the end of the night, after endless hugs, probably one too many martinis, and a hitch in my side from laughing too hard at the blooper reel, I was surprised when Elliott strolled up to the podium and said he had an announcement.

The ballroom at the Ritz quieted, five hundred sets of eyes turning toward where he'd tapped the microphone. He wasn't drunk, I noted, and he wasn't quite smiling.

He told the room he'd be brief, promising this wasn't just another longwinded goodbye, see you later speech.

And then, without fanfare, without a joke or drumroll, he proceeded to announce that he was gay. He said he was tired of living a lie and that his press agent would be making an official statement the following afternoon. But he wanted us to hear it from him first.

My heart sped up when I found him looking directly at me.

Leaning over the mic, his brow glistening in a nervousness uncommon of him, he credited me for my bravery. He told me I was his best friend—not only the most beautiful woman he knew—inside and out—but also one of the most talented actors he'd ever had the pleasure to work with. He called me authentic, brilliant, and obstinately hardheaded. And said he wouldn't want me any other way. And then he stepped off the platform stage, kissed me on the cheek, and walked out of the room.

The next day, Time Magazine ran a story with him on the cover. The title— Elliott Fleming: #loveislove .

I texted him and gave him shit for upstaging me. He texted back that it was payback for landing top billing on the third movie. And we promised to catch up—a double date—soon.

Two weeks later, I flew to Venice to begin principal photography on the contemporary retelling of Anna Karenina . My only regret filming the tragic Tolstoy prose in the historically enchanting Floating City , was that I would miss the Olympics. I'd wanted to be there for Seren. And even more importantly—for Dillon.

My consolation, however, was that her mam and Sam were there for Dillon, and Dillon was there for Seren.

Over the three days that Seren competed, I would sprint to my trailer after being released from set. There, I would plant myself—still in full makeup and costume—in front of my iPad and watch the equestrian rounds.

épée was on fire. Seren was crushing it.

When the president of the FEI finally placed the gold medal around her neck, I found myself unable to breathe as she stepped off the podium and went directly to Dillon. There had been a lot of media coverage over Dillon's retirement, with sympathized viewership lamenting her unfortunate end to her quest for gold. It was safe to say the sporting world had been rooting for Sinclair Squared , which meant a lot of heartstrings were given a firm tug as the two sisters embraced over the railing. With Dillon's lips pressed against Seren's ear, I couldn't tell what was said between them, but it was Seren who was crying. I watched through blurry vision as Dillon leaned back and shook her head, tapping first the medal, and then Seren's heart. This is yours , she seemed to be saying. And then, more clearly: I'm okay . It was she who reached up to wipe the tears off her sister's cheeks.

The following weekend I sat on break in the glorious mezzanine of Teatro La Fenice and watched Elyna Laurent decimate her competition. Superhuman , the commentators raged as the Frenchwoman sprinted to a blazing finish. Unstoppable , they called her. The next great generation .

My heart thrummed when I answered Dillon's call that night. I wasn't sure how the day would affect her. How she would handle Elyna's unquestionable dominance. Her shattering of the Olympic course record.

It hurt, she admitted over the long-distance line. I could hear the melancholiness in her voice, and my soul ached to hold her. She told me Elyna would have beaten her anyway, even if she had never been injured. That she was, without question, the superior athlete.

I didn't argue. She wasn't looking for sympathy or wanting me to dispute her. She just wanted to talk. And so we did, well into the hours of the Italian morning. I didn't care that I had an early call time. We spoke until sunrise, and when I hung up, I sent her a photo of the mist rising over the canals.

A month or so earlier, not long after Leeds, she'd reached out to Elyna. I'm not sure if it was on the advice of her therapist, or if it was just something she felt compelled to do, but I know the topic of conversation revolved around Henrik. Dillon never told me what the two of them talked about. Even on the long, heartfelt chat we'd had the night Elyna won the gold medal, she kept the dialogue between them private. What I did know was, three weeks prior to the Summer Games, Elyna terminated Henrik and attended the Los Angeles Olympics as a self-coached competitor.

The more shocking news hit the triathlon community a week after Elyna returned to France a national hero. World Triathlon announced that Henrik Fischer was permanently suspended from the organization. The German, French, and British Federations followed suit with lifetime bans on coaching. Multiple charges had been brought against him in a joint indictment on the allegations of abuse of position of trust, sexual coercion, and child exploitation—a case framed by Elyna, Dillon, and seven other female athletes.

I'd known it was coming—Dillon hadn't left me in the dark—but I was still awestruck by the sheer volume of women affected and the heinousness of offenses. I was proud of her. Proud of Elyna, who I didn't even know. It was going to be a long legal battle—years, likely—and would drudge into the spotlight things I was certain none of the victims wished to face in public. But it would stop the cycle of abuse—and that was what Dillon told me finally forced her to action.

In late fall after the Olympics, when I met Dillon in Tetiaroa after completing Anna Karenina , Dillon asked what I thought about her selling her flat in London.

We'd been lying on the private beach looking out over the turquoise lagoon. I asked about her mam—about Seren?

She told me Seren had sprung the news on them that the American rider she'd been dating, Jeremy Hartman, had asked her to marry him. And that she said yes. She would be moving her training business and horses to his facility in Woodside—ironically, less than half an hour from my parents.

I, too, was stunned. And selfishly thrilled. Because I knew it meant Dillon was serious about moving here. About living permanently in the US.

I was still polite and—despite the awkwardness of the conversation while wearing as little clothing as we were—worried about her mother.

Dillon laughed and assured me she was ready to live her life sans the meddling headache of her adult children. And so it was decided—after three years of struggling to keep our long-distance relationship afloat—we finally shared the same bed. The same closet. The same kettle every morning. Her presence in the ridiculousness of that overblown, grossly grandiose apartment finally made the place feel like a home.

The following spring, Dillon took the first steps toward a new career. She'd continued her long-term sponsorship with Nike and joined the company in an ad-based campaign promoting athlete mental health, but she wanted more than that when it came to an enduring shift in vocation.

Around the same time, photography had started on my next movie— The Perfect Strike —based on Mia Hamm. We needed to hire a sports consultant for the film, and I mentioned it to Dillon. A week later, her profession as a freelance athletic advisor for film and television was born. And aside from her telling me I was hopeless when it came to perfecting my form on sprinting, and quipping that I'd have been better cast as the clumsy extra who broke her ankle tripping over the ball, I loved having her connected to my world of Hollywood.

Looking back, there's no question it's been a long transition. The journey has had its shares of ups and downs. I still worry about her when she is late to call. I don't think I'll ever get over the anxiety of how I felt those sickening hours when she walked away from Leeds—when I hadn't known if I'd ever see her again. But she's more open now about her feelings. She tells me when she's low. She usually lets me in. And she's yet to break a promise to me—and I keep that, for comfort, in my back pocket. I give her space knowing parts of her are—and maybe always will be—healing.

We are sometimes like ships in the night, passing reluctantly, both of us ferried along by our careers. But so far, we've made time for the important things—just the way she had, by flying in on a redeye to make it to the Academy Awards.

So I guess I couldn't begrudge her the few hours of sleep she'd gained over me while I lay there, rehashing the last two years.

My thoughts gradually shifted to the day ahead—the cameras, the press, the interviews that cared less about the work I'd come to represent and more about what I was wearing.

But, what did it matter?

I already knew I wasn't going to win. I was up against Cate Blanchett, who was nominated for playing the role of some English billionaire businesswoman. How was I supposed to compete with that? It annoyed me that I'd even taken the time to jot down keynotes on a longshot acceptance speech, knowing it would never come to pass.

The truth was, however, it really didn't matter. Because I didn't care about the awards. I only cared that the person I loved was going to be by my side—that we'd managed to navigate a path allowing us to share our lives together. And that she loved me enough to sit beside me, even when I knew the glam and glitz of Tinseltown really wasn't her thing.

As I stood in my ensuite, having forgone the Hollywood norm of a fashion crew, and opted instead to dress myself, Dillon sat on the edge of our infinity tub overlooking PCH. She watched me apply my makeup in the vanity mirror, far calmer than I was.

"Nervous?" she asked, languidly rising to her feet.

I found her eyes in the mirror, deja vu of another time and place.

"Have you seen the woman I'm arriving with?" I fed back the words she'd once handed me, smiling as she reached to straighten the lovespoon pendant hanging at the hollow of my throat. "I have nothing to be nervous over—I've already won."

She bent to kiss my shoulder. "You're daft, Kam-Kameryn."

And that's how our scene should have been written.