CHAPTER 1
ALEXANDRA
There’s something grounding about being alone, especially here, tucked away in the quiet magic of El Nido. The islands feel like a kind of pause, not just from the world, but from the whirlwind that’s been my life this season. The air smells of salt and mango, the waves break softly against the shore, and for once, no one expects anything from me.
“Look who’s having a great time!” Dad says as he sits down beside me. He hands me a fresh coconut, already cracked open.
“Is watching the ocean out here in the sun instead of swimming or kayaking your definition of a good time?” I tease, taking the coconut from him.
He chuckles, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Kid, when you hit my age, you’ll understand that sitting still is a sport in itself. Besides, someone’s gotta make sure you’re not running yourself into another injury.”
I roll my eyes but smile anyway. “You just don’t want to admit you’re scared of the kayak tipping over again.”
“That was one time,” he says, mock offended. “And the current was ridiculous.”
I laugh, letting the sound fade into the hush of the sea. I should be in London right now, training with my twin brother, chasing a run at Wimbledon. Instead, I’m here, nursing a shoulder that refuses to cooperate.
The injury didn’t announce itself with drama. Just a quiet warning at first, a twinge that sharpened day by day until I couldn’t pretend it was nothing anymore. The timing couldn’t have been crueler. I’d finally found my rhythm. My hardcourt game was peaking, and the momentum from my first Grand Slam final at the Australian Open still buzzed through me, even if I’d finished runner-up.
Pulling out felt like slamming the brakes just as the road opened up. Worse, it felt like I’d let everyone down, the sponsors who’d taken a chance on me, the fans already whispering my name. Disappointment sat heavier than the pain itself, and the guilt of not living up to all that expectation burned in a way my shoulder never could.
“You know,” Dad says after a while. “This... this is the good part. The in-between. Don’t rush it.” A small smile tugged at his mouth. “You’re already at the end of your recovery, love. The hardest part’s behind you. Just a little more patience, and you’ll be back where you belong.”
I sigh. “Easy for you to say, Dad. You're not the one getting picked apart online. Everyone keeps saying that I’m just riding on my twin brother’s coattails.”
He turns to me then, and the softness in his eyes sharpens into something steadier.
“They don’t know you,” He says, his voice steady but kind. “And they don’t get to decide who you are. You reached the Australian Open final because of your own work. And even before tennis, you built a name for yourself in triathlon.”
“I’m impressed your dad still has wisdom left in him,” Mom teased as she stepped onto the sand, handing me a bowl of mango slices in hand and sitting beside Dad with a sigh.
“You act like I’ve been quiet all these years,” Dad muttered, and Mom ignored him.
Her eyes landed on me, “You know what’s funny? You always forget where you started. You were thirteen when you picked up a racket seriously. Thirteen. That’s retirement age in tennis years,” she said, eyes on me.
I smiled faintly, remembering those early years. The awkward grip, the blisters and the endless frustration.
“You weren’t like Archie,” Dad chimed in. “He had a racket in his hand before he could spell his own name. But you? You were swimming laps before you could even tie your shoes.”
“Yeah, but tennis and triathlon aren’t the same. Tennis… I had to fight for every inch of it.”
Mom chuckled, shaking her head. “Well, if there’s one thing that runs in this family, it’s competitiveness. It’s in your blood, all of you.”
It was true. I grew up in a house where sweat on the floor was normal and competition was a kind of love language.
Dad, a Filipino triathlon legend and two-time Olympic gold medalist, had me in the pool before kindergarten and on running trails before I even knew what pace meant. Mom, an eleven-time Grand Slam champion from Australia, brought the precision, the endless drills, the quiet belief that repetition was its own kind of prayer.
Tennis was supposed to be Archie’s thing. My twin brother, the natural, Mom’s prodigy, and I were Dad’s. Until one summer in Brisbane, tennis became mine too.
“You didn’t get lucky,” Mom said firmly. “You worked. You caught up. You blew past girls who started ten years before you. That wasn’t luck, Alex. That was a choice.”
That made me pause. My parents weren’t the type to sugarcoat. I looked between them, then the mango bowl heavy in my lap, the waves breaking steadily in the distance.
For a long moment, I just sat there, letting the rhythm of the sea do what words couldn’t. Maybe they were right, maybe it hadn’t all been luck.
The sun had already begun to dip below the palm trees by the time I left the beach. I showered quickly, then slipped onto the bed. I reached for my phone on the nightstand and opened any social media.
The first thing on my feed was a clip from Archie’s latest press interview at Wimbledon.
