Page 50 of Hard to Love

“You don’t think I didn’t hear you?” Another ball to the far corner of the court. “You don’t think I don’t know where you are all the time for your own safety?” One that has me running back the other way. “Maybe I let you go so I could teach you a lesson.” An ace that whooshes right past me. “Maybe I wanted to show you how being careless affects your game.”

I put my hands on my knees, my chest burning, my head pounding, and my gut churning.

“Maybe I thought—”

“God forbid I’m a normal teenager,” I scream at him, not caring who is on other courts nearby or what they hear. “God forbid I have a life outside of—”

“You don’t get to be a normal teenager when you’re one of the best goddamn tennis players in the world,” he shouts back followed by another ball that gets past me.

Tyrant.

And I’m well aware what the balls on the ground, the missed balls on the court, behind me mean—wind sprints. A sprint for each one missed. A way to drill into my head that we don’t miss.

Asshole.

“Fuck you,” I mutter under my breath, hating him with everything I am. The missed school dances and football games and trips to hang out at the mall. All the rites of passage that most other teenagers in America get that I don’t.

It’s always one more game. One more session. One more mile. One more fucking everything because it’s never good enough for him.

“What was that?” he asks, his chuckle a low hum that says he knows exactly what it was. “Athletes like you don’t get to be careless. Champions like you don’t get days off. Once-in-a-lifetime players like you need to always be at their best.”

I hate you.

Am I really his flesh and blood? Have I lived a life believing one thing and now am all but begging fate for it to be true? Because he’s all I’ve ever known, all I’ve ever loved, and I need to feel that unbroken bond right now. I need to know that my smile is in fact his, and that weird birthmark on my thigh isn’t just a coincidence because he has one there too. Had. He had one just like me.

That connection was my tether. My north star.

I hiccup back the sob that threatens from realizing that all I’ve ever thought was true, just might not be.

The sun is blazing hot and the one thing that stands out to me besides the absolute silence is the feel of a lone bead of sweat trickling down the length of my spine.

I don’t see the people packed in the grandstands.

I don’t notice the cameras or hear the click of their shutters as I walk toward the service line and take a deep, measured breath.

This is it.

This is my chance to serve and win a point.

This is when I earn my spot in history as one of the few to win a Calendar Year Grand Slam—four consecutive Grand Slams in a row.

“Game on, Stevester. Let’s go.”

I hear his voice from his place in the stands and the crowd around me chuckles. I hear it then I drown it out, but I’m more settled now. The words my father has uttered to me before every huge match point have become a thing the audience expects—and something I need to hear.

I don’t glance his way, but I adjust my visor in my unspoken way to let him know I heard him.

The chair umpire says, “Quiet, please,” in his hushed tone as I bounce the ball once, then twice.

Another deep breath as I glance up to see my opponent, Marvela, bouncing back and forth on her feet, anticipating the location of my serve.

I toss the ball up with one hand and swing my racket overhead with the other. The ball launches across the net and Marvela is caught flatfooted, thinking I was going to serve the opposite way. Ace.

The crowd explodes in a cacophony of sound that I can’t so much as hear as I can feel in the rumbling in my chest.

It’s over.

It’s done.