no congratufuckinglations is still our congratufuckinglations
this is stop-doubting-yourself-you-idiot-lations
Miles Callahan
see now that is congratufuckinglations! your first ATP final!
wish i was there
Thanks
I wish you were too
I miss you. Would you call me sometime?
You missed a call from Miles Callahan
seriously?
Fuck! Sorry, I was in the shower. I didn’t think you were going to call me right away!
Call again?
idiot
MILES CALLED AND this time I answered, a lump swelling in my throat at the sound of his soft, “hey, you” spoken from a world away. We didn’t talk about anything momentous, just the small tournament I was playing, a new plant he’d picked up and a new book I’d read and how Katie was doing in Seoul, but somehow the fact that it wasn’t momentous was the most important thing about it. We were just talking to hear each other’s voices, to reconnect our lives, an hour passing wholly unnoticed. And at the end, I dared a desperate, “I love you,” because I couldn’t let him go without saying it, even if he didn’t say it back.
But after a small pause, Miles said, “I love you too.” And then, “Now go out there and win. You’ve got this.”
For once, he was wrong. I’d made the final of one of the tour’s smaller tournaments, and although that felt like an important milestone, I didn’t win. But my ranking crept up to forty-nine, that four at the beginning far too horribly familiar. Still eight places from where I’d been when that car swerved out of the rain-slicked night, but they were eight places I suddenly needed to push past as fast aspossible like a pothole to be sped over. Perhaps once I was on the other side, the number wouldn’t look so frightening.
Unfortunately, the larger tournament in Beijing the next week didn’t go as well, and the Shanghai Masters even worse. I’d hoped to make another deep run without the worry of meeting Miles, but a niggling discomfort in my shoulder flared up during the first match. I pushed through to win, but the recovery day wasn’t enough, and though I played the second round covered in strapping and full of pain killers, I lost.
Miles Callahan
you’re injured
Says who?
says me who just watched you play
what is it? elbow? shoulder? your serve was off
Shoulder
damn, what does macca say?
He says if I curse him out that bad while he’s working on it again he’ll have to wash my mouth out with soap
fuck, on the scale of australian cursing that’s a lot of pain
you had it scanned?
Not yet
go get it scanned!
i’m not replying again until you send proof you’ve done it
