Page 79 of The Rebel
And Valencia wasn’t here.
She’d always been with me, my whole life, but now she wasn’t here.
“Paris!” Mom said loudly. “Adductors!”
I lifted myself up, my eyes misting over. Plain and simple, I missed my sister. Pathetic as it seemed, it was the truth.
The line between Mom’s eyes deepened. “What’s wrong?” she barked.
“Vali,” I rasped, sounding like a dehydrated man in the middle of the Sahara Desert. “I need Vali.”
Mom moved my leg for me. “What about Vali?”
“Everything’s wrong without her,” I said, shaking her hand off of my knee—I was capable of shifting my own legs into position. “You guys don’t do things right. You don’t cut the bananas like she does. I’m eating plain bread because you didn’t get me peanut butter. Vali knows what I like.” I could barely believe my own admission. “She takes care of everything for me. But now I’m stressing over the flavor of drinks and the yuck bananas and you forgot the cranberries and...I miss her.”
“Look, you’re just down because you lost,” Mom said, tapping my knee. “You’ll be okay. We’ll go over the stats and talk to Claude later.”
“No,” I said, my heart racing like I’d just hit a twenty four shot rally, “I’m serious, Mom. I really miss having her around.”
“I miss her too,” Dad chimed in, closing up the laptop and placing it on the table. His downturned eyes resembled a puppy dog pleading for some attention. “Kris?”
Mom blinked as if she’d been blindsided. “She’s in the middle of her semester. We can’t just take her out of school.”
“Sure we can,” Dad said at the same time that I said, “Why not?”
“It’ll only be two or three weeks now,” Dad said.
“Yeah, I might be able to salvage the rest of the tour if she’s here.” What I was saying sounded outrageous—that the presence of one person might affect my play so much—but I honestly believed that she was the key. Vali was my security blanket, she’d been with me on this journey from the start and now at the crucial time, when I needed her the most, she wasn’t here.
I don’t think Vali ever liked playing tennis competitively. In the beginning, she took coaching lessons and trained with me, but she’d get moody on court. She’d get upset if she missed shots into the net, squeal if she hit a ball too long, pouted if she double-faulted. If she was losing, she never tried to fight back. She’d get into a slump, get angry and lose the game. I couldn’t understand that.
Finding a way to win, working out solutions on court was what I lived for. Like a chess game, it was about outsmarting your opponent, and I thrived on that.
But not now. Now my head was empty, I lacked clarity, my whole essence disrupted because Valencia wasn’t with me. It was a startling discovery to realize that my little sister was also my best friend.
When I started online schooling, my program stepped up a notch and I was traveling to Falls Creeks every day to see my coach, and every weekend I was away at a tournament. I lost contact with my friends, there was just no time to hang out.
But Vali, she was always there for me, my constant. Tennis might be a solitary sport— out on court you were on your own, but behind me I needed a team of support, coaches, trainers, physical therapists, psychologists, agents, family. And only now I was learning that I needed all those components, and when one was missing, I struggled. Valencia’s contribution to the team was as vital as the coach and fitness trainer. She covered all my food and court requirements which meant all I had to do was concentrate on playing. She separated each banana and I’d lay them out flat in a row so they looked like smiles. Mom and Dad just threw a bunch in my bag, all joined and bruised.
I needed my sister with me because without her I was miserable.
“Mom?”
“Look, I miss her too,” Mom said with a sniff, “but Clint? I don’t know. Can we arrange for Vali to fly out?”
“I think I can get my Poppet out here,” Dad said with a grin before opening up the laptop with a look of determination.
“Adductors,” Mom prompted me stonily, like she hadn’t just wiped her teary eyes.
I resumed my stretches, but it was like a weight had been lifted, the light a little brighter, the way a little clearer.
With Valencia by my side, my belief returned.
And I could be the player I knew I was destined to be.
Chapter 21
JADE
