My Coach, My Stalker

Because I won gold.

Is that all he ever wanted from me?

Did he tell me he loved me because he meant it? Or because I said it first and he didn’t want to hurt my feelings before the competition?

After the medal ceremony, he’s nowhere to be found. Just poof. Gone.

My parents wait outside the locker room while I shower and get dressed, wanting to bring me out to a special dinner in Tokyo. Everett is missing. Is he finished with me? I gave him what he wanted and now he has the prestige to coach at an even higher level? If I was more important to him than the glory, wouldn’t he be here right now, accompanying us to dinner?

I do my best to maintain my smile while eating with my parents, although there is definite awkwardness between me and my father. Not to mention, they seem more apt to accept congratulations than I am, taking credit for my training. My victory. Is that all anyone in my life has ever wanted from me?

After we finish and get back to Olympic Village, another hour passes with no sign of my coach. Tears fill my vision, a weight pressing down on the center of my chest.

He’s left me.

He got what he wanted and took off without a word.

My heart wrenches painfully as I pace my small room, looking out over the bright lights of the Olympic compound. Suddenly there is nothing I want more than my own bed. At home in Austin. I have to get out of here. All of the pressure that has been weighing down on me to perform my best was manageable as long as I had Everett. But obviously I misjudged him. Where is he now? What is he doing? I’m going to go crazy with the possibilities and I can’t stand to wonder. What if he shows up later or tomorrow and I see disinterest on his face? What if he really only took me to bed so I would dive better and no other reason? I don’t want to know.

So I’m leaving.

As fast as possible, I pack my clothes, my toiletries and medal. I leave word for my parents with one of the coordinators and zip to the airport in a cab, booking a last-minute flight on the way, desperate to escape this place and the noise and reminders that everything is about winning. I’m halfway through security when I realize I left in such a hurry that I forgot my phone. It’s still charging on the floor of my room. There’s nothing I can do about it now, though. My plane is leaving in twenty minutes.

I board with tears in my eyes, throwing myself into the seat closest to the window. And I watch the lights of Tokyo grow smaller and smaller through the double-paned glass.

When I land in Austin, I’m emotionally spent, exhausted from the surges of adrenaline during competition and the jet lag isn’t helping. I melt into the back of another cab, nearly falling asleep on the way home. And when I do walk through the front door of my family’s place and the familiarity greets me, I burst into big hiccupping sobs, clutching at my broken heart as I stumble to my bed where I fall fast asleep for several hours, vowing to shower and go buy a new phone when I wake up.

My eyes pop open in the darkness.

Or near darkness, anyway. I turn my head and glance at the clock on my wall, the ticking arms filling me in that it’s five-twenty pm. Did I get home today or has another full day passed on top of that? I have no idea. There’s no sense of time and space while I shower and dress, urgency needling me to go buy a new phone. We don’t have a landline in this house and while I might have left a message for my parents, they must be worried, wondering if I got home okay.

Is Everett worried?

Maybe he hasn’t even realized I’m gone yet. That’s more likely.

With eyes still gritty from sleep and crying, I enter our cool garage through the door in the kitchen, unlocking my Jetta and sliding into the driver’s seat. I turn on the ignition, sighing over the pleasant waft of air conditioning that bathes my bare arms and legs, fluttering the hem of my loose, indigo blue dress.

I press the button to open the garage and I’m just about to pull down the driveway and onto the street when something on the passenger seat draws my eye. It’s a book about sports psychology. Staying focused. Everett gave it to me before the Games and I never had a chance to read it. Pulse speeding up, I lift the book into my lap and flip it open to the first page, surprised to find there is an inscription in Everett’s bold, all caps handwriting.