“Oh, I, uh, don’t really remember.” I shoot Drew a look, begging him to let it go. But everyone at the table heard, and everyone’s looking at us now. My mother looks a little embarrassed, but my dad just looks defensive.
“Ally didn’t go to university,” my father says.
“She went to college, though,” Drew points out.
“Community college,” Dad says. “But before that, we spent so much money on her tennis?—”
“That’s right,” Drew interrupts. “You must have been incredibly proud of her.”
“Well, of course,” my mother says.
“It takes incredible guts to go all in on a dream,” Drew continues. “It’s so much easier to hedge your bets. A lot of people would have gone to college and played NCAA tennis, so they’d have a backup.”
“Certainly nothing wrong with that,” my father says.
“Of course not,” Drew says. “It’s a big risk to go all in. I mean, if you keep a backup plan, you can pretend you don’t really want it that badly. You can even lie to yourself. But if you go all in on something, you have to admit how badly you want it, andlet yourself believe it’s possible. And you set yourself up for a crushing disappointment if it doesn’t work out.”
Drew pauses to take a sip of his water before he faces my parents again. “You must have been really proud of Ally.”
The table falls silent. My mother looks ashamed, my father looks defiant, and Hayley looks sulky. Poor Justin just looks confused; I bet this is the first he’s heard about my tennis career.
And I feel overwhelmed. For years, I’ve seen my decision to skip college for the pro tour as my biggest mistake, but Drew’s reframed it as something gutsy. Something admirable.
Something that wasn’t a mistake.
Justin’s the one who finally breaks the silence. “You were a tennis player, Ally?”
“I was, yes.”
Justin pulls out his phone, presumably to Google me.
Drew catches my eye, wordlessly asking if I’m ready to leave. I nod, and he sets his napkin on top of his half-eaten chocolate torte. “Ally and I have to go. It was a pleasure meeting you all.” He nods at my parents, who still haven’t spoken, and leads me away from the table.
We track down our waiter by the kitchen, and Drew asks to pay our part of the check. I half expect Paolo to say he can’t split the bill—it’s that kind of restaurant—but he doesn’t argue with Drew.
“What the fuck was that?” Drew asks when we get to the car. Now that we’re alone, his calm facade has slipped. “I’m sorry, Ally, but—are your parents always like that?”
“Well, it was Hayley’s graduation,” I say slowly.
“I got that much, yeah,” he replies, jabbing at the ignition button to start the car. “But they didn’t get you anything when you graduated from college, did they?”
“Well, no,” I admit. “But they did spend a lot of money on my tennis. And they let me live with them rent-free for the year I was going to community college. A lot of people don’t get nearly that much support from their parents?—”
“It’s not just about the money, Ally.”
I know what he means. It’s not the fancy watch, or even the fact that they bought Hayley a stake in Justin’s physio practice. It’s the unspoken but constant message that I’m inferior.
“I said some pretty miserable things to my father when I quit tennis,” I explain, in an effort to be fair. “I said I would have made it if he’d been more supportive. That it was his failure as much as mine.” I’d been so desperate to blame someone other than myself. “So if you look at it from his perspective?—”
“Fuck, Ally, I don’t want to look at it from his perspective,” Drew exclaims. “I’m on your side.”
I’m silent for a beat, letting his words to sink in. Drew doesn’t care about the reason for my dad’s attitude, or if I’m partly to blame for it. Even if I’m entirely to blame for it. Regardless of whether my position is rational, he’s on my side.
It’s something a husband would say, or a serious boyfriend. Not someone in a fake relationship, or even a casual one.
I want to ask him what this is, but I’m not sure exactly how to phrase it.
Can we define this relationship again?
