Page 128 of The Unfinished Line

Behind them, the persistent beep of the heart rate monitor ticked upward as Dillon formed her next question.

“What exactly is the damage?”

Kam glanced toward the door. “I should get the doctor. She can explain it—”

Dillon dug her fingernails into Kam’s palm, preventing her from pulling away. “Kam!” The coil of fear was unraveling. “What is it you don’t want to tell me?” She could account for the obvious. Her elbow. Her shoulder. Something in her shinbone. The pounding in her head indicative of a concussion. She forcedherself to wiggle her toes, her fingers. All of that was working. “Is it my ACL?” she asked, suddenly nauseous. “Please say it’s not my ACL.”

She tallied the timeline. It was late September. The Olympics were in August. Was a little more than ten months enough? It had taken her the better part of a year to return to competition when she’d ruptured the ligament as a teenager.

She ran through the early season lineup. She would have to race before summer. Something to prove toBritish Triathlonthat she was still a contender.

Bermuda was in March. Andalucia in April. Weihai in May. Worst case, there was always Leeds in July.

If she finished any of those races in the top twenty, they couldn’t deny her after her auto-qualifier.

“It’s not your ACL.”

The statement derailed her premature problem-solving, temporarily swinging the pendulum of her anxiety in an arc toward relief until she glanced over and caught Kam’s expression. The monotone chirp of the monitor continued to accelerate.

“Okay.” Dillon found it difficult to produce enough air to make the word audible. She couldn’t bear the look on Kam’s face. The way she could only meet her eyes in glancing intervals. “What then?”

Again, Kam looked toward the door. Whether she was seeking an escape, or hoping for reinforcements, Dillon couldn’t decide. In either case, Kam finally took a deep breath, evidently surrendering to the awareness that she could not free herself from the situation.

“You damaged something in the cartilage, Dillon. The surgeon called it a—an osteochondral defect.” She hesitated. “She said it was like a pothole in your knee.”

“How long, then?” It was the only thing Dillon could think to say. There were just over three hundred days until the gun went off in Los Angeles. “How long, Kam?” she persisted.

“The doctor said she wouldn’t know anything for certain until she got a scope in there. You’ll be going in for surgery this evening.” Kam attempted to shift her tone, to paint the future with a coat of possibility.

But Dillon already knew. She’d known it since Kam’s first staggered breath. Perhaps she’d known it already while lying on the pavement in Hamburg.

And late that night, when the head of orthopedics came to see her after she’d woken from the attempted reconstruction surgery, she’d known before the woman ever opened her mouth what she would say:

She was very sorry.

She’d taken a career-ending fall.

She’d never race again.

Scene 43

The plane banked, circling for landing. Somewhere beneath us, Cardiff was hidden by the thick November marine layer. My thoughts had been so far away, I’d hardly noticed the miles traveled, but now, as the luggage rattled overhead, I buried my nails into the fabric of the first-class armrests.

“Not a fan,” said the woman beside me. They were the first words she’d spoken since we boarded the plane.

“Same,” I managed, trying not to jump as the landing gear lowered, the engines whining in their acceleration. “I hate the wind.”

She didn’t look up from the book she was reading. “No. Of you, I mean.”

It took me a moment to understand it wasn’t turbulence she was referring to. “Oh.” I said. Because how do you respond to that?

I’m sorry? My bad? Fuck off?

I’d have preferred the latter, but my press agent wouldn’t. Contrary to popular opinion,allpress wasnotgood press.

“You give girls unrealistic expectations of what it is to be beautiful. My daughters want to look just like you—no matter how often I tell them your look isn’t natural.”

I sat silent, stunned by her accusation. Women came in all shapes and sizes. All bodies were beautiful. Living in thefishbowl of public scrutiny left me damned if I did, and damned if I didn’t. I wanted to ask her if she had any idea what it felt like, being judged by millions of strangers based solely off appearance? If she had any other advice for me, aside from the recommendation to eat a cheeseburger?

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