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He’d said:

Max

Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Keller.

Max

Save me a front row seat.

I should know better than to keep looking up to the stands. I can’t worry about him right now. I have a match I need to win.

I shove the disappointment aside and force my attention back to the court. Elena bounces a ball on the opposite baseline. “Time?” she calls.

“Ready,” I answer automatically, even though I’m not sure that’s true anymore.

I take the second set 6-4. We’re two hours in when we begin a brutal third set.

Each point turns into an extended rally. It’s 3-3. Then 4-4 and 5-5. Neither one of us budges. The crowd around us swells.

“Thirty-forty,” Elena calls out, her voice raspy. She tosses the ball, and I see the telltale snap of her wrist. She’s going for the kick serve to my backhand side. I anticipate it, stepping around to take it on my stronger forehand side.

I plant my right foot to pivot, but my shoe catches, and the next thing I know, my ankle buckles. I catch myself before I fall and somehow manage to still get my racquet on the ball. My desperate shot catches the center strap of the net and just barely lands on Elena’s side.

“Sorry,” I mutter. It’s traditional to apologize for a net cord, though we both know I’m not sorry at all.

It’s 6-5 now. I’m up a break in the final set. I only need one more game to put the match away. I limp back to my bench on the changeover. My chest is heaving. I try breathing in through my nose and out my mouth, controlling my heart rate.

Zoe is already halfway out of her seat, her hand on her fanny pack, but I hold up a palm in a silent message. Don’t come out here. If she touches me, I’ll lose my rhythm. I can’t let anything interfere with how I’m playing right now.

I sit down, draping a towel over my head, and shut my eyes, picturing my serve and closing out the match.

I remember asking Max on one of our drives if he still got nervous before a performance.

“Every time,” he’d admitted.

“What do you do?”

“Breathe. Then take the first step. Once you’re moving, the fear has to chase you.”

His words on my mind now, I take a slow breath and start humming “Wait for It” to myself.

I can do this.

Five minutes later, I’m on the baseline bouncing the ball. It’s 40-30. A match point for me. Across the net, Elena looks gassed. Her shoulders are slumped. Her face is a deep, mottled red, but her eyes are still sharp. She’s waiting for the one thing I’ve been fighting all day—for my body to finally give up on me.

But that’s not going to happen. Not today.

I serve. It’s not my fastest of the day, but I put every bit of wrist I have into it. It’s a nasty, sliding slice that hooks away from her, pulling her well off balance.

Elena lunges and returns a high lob to me that hangs in the air for what feels like an eternity. Against the backdrop of the blinding Florida sun, the ball is just a spinning black dot. It’s the perfect overhead. The kind of put-away shot you dream about finishing a match with.

I move into position. My eyes are locked on the target as it begins its descent. I jump, catching the ball at full extension, and slam it with a guttural, exhausted yell to her side.

It sails into the back of the court. A clean winner that doesn’t even give her a chance to move.

Victory is mine!

I pump my fist and let out another yell. I’m shaking, my vision blurred by salt and sweat, but I’ve never felt more alive.