And then even though I wrote back, he said nothing more.
PART FOUR
PARIS MASTERS
CHENGDU - BEIJING - SHANGHAI PARIS
Twenty-Five
THE TWO WEEKS I spent at home after the US Open were awful. It had been my most successful North American swing – quarter-finals in Washington, third round in Cincinnati, fourth in Canada and at the US Open. I’d proven to myself that my game was back, had picked up enough prize money to keep me going for a while, and the addition of Tomas and Macca had been great. Yet those wins felt empty while Miles was silent.
I ought to have been throwing myself into training to keep building momentum, yet it was as much to stop myself thinking that I went to the courts every day. Tomas and Macca put me through my paces and I pushed myself hard, preferring exhaustion to lying awake at night wondering if today would be the day.
Finally, on the eleventh day of doing nothing but sleeping, training, and sitting around my parent’s house like a blob, he messaged. I’d been asleep, the notification three hours old when I saw it, and though Miles knew the time difference, I still felt like a failure for keeping him waiting.
hey, i’m not going to shanghai. thought i should let you know before you see a headline about it
The four weeks until our next tournament together had just gotten longer. I stared at the message and had to swallow the urge to ask if I should stay home instead if he just didn’t want to see me, or even more pathetically to ask if he still loved me. The question burned in my chest all the same.
Are you injured?I asked instead.
no, i’m working with a new team and the interruption isn’t worth it when i don’t have many points to defend. citing fatigue though, which isn’t entirely a lie
Isn’t worth it.I tried not to read that as seeing me not being worth it and failed.
New team are good?
yeah, so far so good
Tell me about them sometime?
sure. i’ll introduce you. in paris, i guess
The Paris Masters was a whole month again after Shanghai, the big tournaments stretching out toward the end of the season. It would be two months since our match by then, and the thought of waiting that long to see him again made me want to curl up and cry. But it was his choice. It had to be. He would either forgive me or he wouldn’t.
Look forward to it, I said, and then because I couldn’t let the conversation go without letting him know, I added,I miss you.
The other answers had come so quickly that for each second he didn’t reply, panic swelled that I’d just fucked things up. Until finally,i miss you too.
Miles Callahan
you’ve got a good draw for chengdu. although henrik has been having almost as good a season as you
Thankfully only meet him if I make the quarters
oh you will
Your faith in me may be misplaced this time
I have to get through Mandel first. Look up my head-to-head against him and see if you’re still sure
i don’t need to. you’ve got this
Miles Callahan
i told you so
Is that our new congratufuckinglations?
