Page 99 of Best Year Ever
“You’re right,” I say. “No one did. Hopefully Julie will feel validated enough after talking with Nina to stay on as your coach.”
There’s a pause while Rori takes some deep breaths. Her eyes, when she turns back to me, look different. A little closed off?
“After Julie left my room, Dad and I had a long talk on the phone, Landon. He finally admitted that he’s dating Julie, and told me more about how they got together. It’s actually quite a sweet story. Nothing like in the article. And then, I told him…I finally told him about us.”
“Oh?” I’m not sure where this will head. Her face seems a little frozen, like she’s locking up her emotions tight, trying to reclaim control.
“I think…well, we both think that you and I should hold off on going public after your training camp, for certain.” Her voice is more rigid than I ever remember hearing. “I won’t be able to come with you to the gala. There’s been so much media heat on all of us. And the last thing I want is for anyone to be more focused on who I’m dating than my tennis achievements. Who my boyfriend is.”
“Anyone? Or you?” I ask, worried about what she really means.
My question triggers some emotion back into her expression, but not in the way I wanted. Her eyes look a little angry, defensive.
“Me too. Me too, Landon,” she says, her tone matching thelook in her eyes. “If we make things official, the media attention could drown out anything happening with my tennis, your season. The thought of thatismessing with my head. My sole focus right now should be winning the U.S. Open. I’ll only have so many chances.”
“I hear you, Rori,” I say, sighing again. “I guess, I mean…what does this mean for us? These stories have been tough, but we are stronger than them. We have something more, even if it needs to stay the way it has been, and private, a bit longer.”
“Uh huh,” Rori says, distance back in her voice, eyes looking away from the camera. “Look, I’m a total mess. I’m going to get off and regroup before my match tomorrow. I need to win so I can get to play Tessa.”
What am I supposed to say to that?
“Okay, but call me later if you need to.”
“Okay. Bye.”
She abruptly hangs up, disappearing from my screen. It doesn’t escape me that she didn’t answer my question about where we stand.
This doesn’t feel good.
It’s only a quarter past seven. I flip on the TV and zone out, not processing what I’m watching. Lost in my thoughts. Lost in the sinking feeling in my chest.
Even though we normally keep texting after our early evening FaceTimes, I don’t feel comfortable reaching out to Rori again right now. Not with how she ended the call.
I have to wait for her to reach out first. Roughly two hours later, she does send a short text.
RORI: Going to have to play without Julie tomorrow. She’s on a plane back now.
Shit. I text her back some words of encouragement, hoping it may trigger more of a conversation. But other than a “thank you,” I get nothing.
Rori’s shut me out, it seems. Whatever she’s going through, she doesn’t want me to be a part of it.
I wake up the next morning with a heavy weight on my chest.
After I get ready in my hotel room, I sit back down on my bed for a minute, about to head to breakfast to fuel up for a full day of team activities. I decide to send one more text, if only because it feels like the right thing to do.
LANDON: Good luck today, beautiful. You got this.
Rori puts a heart emoji on it but doesn’t reply otherwise.
At lunch, I try to follow the score of her match on my phone, but before it’s too deep in the first set, I’m getting pulled in different directions by teammates.
By the time my afternoon duties are over, her match is done. My phone has managed to die too, after I kept it by me instead of charging it last night. I head to my hotel room as quickly as I can to get it charged so I can check in on Rori.
As I wait for my phone to power up, I click on my laptop, realizing I can at least check the score there.
I hit the tennis subheader on espn.com and scroll down to find Rori’s score.
My head droops. She lost 6-2, 7-5. Damn.
