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But I stayed quiet. I’d long since learned that trying to get the public to view you as a person—flesh and blood, thoughts and feelings—was impossible.
The pilot came over the loudspeaker, announcing that it was a balmy 6°C in the Welsh capital and reminding everyone to remain seated and keep their seatbelts on.
I checked my belt twice. Ten more minutes and we’d be on the ground.
Well, unless the engines suddenly cut out.
Or a wing fell off.
Or the wind blew us out of the sky.
Then the landing would come a bit faster.
I closed my eyes, uncertain which was worse: reflecting over the events of the last two months or worrying about cataclysmic engine failure. My mind chose to focus on the former, though it would have been more tolerable to dwell on the latter.
Dillon had been through three surgeries since her accident in Hamburg. The most heralded surgeons in Europe had examined her case, each offering a glimmer of hope, before reaching the same conclusion: in time, she’d heal. Probably even be able to bike and swim. But she wouldn’t run again. Her days as a professional triathlete were over. No amount of patching, of trimming, of reconstructing would get her back to an elite level of competition.
I’d stayed with her at her mom’s the first week after she’d been discharged from the hospital. My emergency hiatus forced the studio to reschedule more than a dozen interviews in three countries.
Did I know how that looked? I could hear Waylon MacArthur’s muffled shouting when my unexplained absence had been upgraded to a call from his personal assistant.
I didn’t care.So fire meI snapped into the line as the producer’s rants turned to threats of recasting the final film if I wasn’t back in Los Angeles, prepared for wheels-up by the following weekend.
Ten minutes later, I received a backpedaling text from the same assistant, assuring me everything was fine. To take as much personal time as I needed.
I didn’t bother to reply. I had far too many other things on my mind.
Like how to deal with Dillon.
I would have known how to handle it better if she’d cried. If she’d cussed and punched walls. If she’d pointed accusatory fingers, turning her anger toward God, toward Elyna, hell, even toward me. I could have been the reassuring voice, the steady hand she could hold. I could have googled articles onhow to soothe someone who is mad at the world.
But she did none of that. Instead, she just receded, shutting everybody out. She sat for endless hours in her upstairs bedroom, saying nothing, staring out the window. When she did talk to me, it was trivial. A turn in the weather. What book I was reading. What her mom would burn for dinner.
I sat helpless on the end of her bed, listening when the final specialist called, informing her he did not feel she was a candidate for further treatment.
I was sitting in the same place the following day whenBritish Triathlonphoned to say they were withdrawing her qualification, replacing her with the next highest-ranked athlete.
We’re sorry, Miss Sinclair—the formal voice droned—it’s an unfortunate situation. Our best wishes for the future.
When Dillon hung up, I waited, willing her to say something—anything. Include me in her hurt. Let me bear some of the load she was carrying. But she didn’t. And I didn’t know the right words to say. I didn’t know how to ease her pain.
At the end of the week, when I kissed her goodbye, forced to return to the life I’d put on hold, she no longer bore that subtle scent of chlorine. Her lips were soft, unmarred by the sun and the sea. The freckles on her cheeks had faded into pallor.
I crossed the Atlantic feeling more despondent than I had ever felt. And terribly, achingly alone.
I had no one I could talk to. No one with whom I could share my grief. Because there was something different about saying, “Oh, my good friend just had a serious accident,” and “The person I love most in all the world has just lost everything that matters to her.” They are not the same thing.
So when I landed at LAX, I texted my manager, Charlie—a new acquisition to my team—and told her I’d had a change of plans. I didn’t care if I drove her nuts trying to rearrange my schedule. Waylon MacArthur could wait. I hopped on the first departing flight to San Jose. I couldn’t bear the idea of waking another morning under the guise I’d been living. I’d had enough of the Carter charade. I didn’t need to dangle my personal life out for all to see—but I needed those closest to me to know. To understand the real me.
I walked into my parents’ home unannounced at six AM. The Uber driver had been too consumed with rocking out toPink Pony Clubto ever take a glance in his rearview mirror. And even if he had, what would he have seen? A red-eyed, depressed, exhausted girl who hadn’t brushed her teeth in twenty-four hours.
Before my mom had the chance to set her half-sipped coffee and riding crop on the counter, or my dad fully registered my presence over the top of theSan Francisco Chronicle, I stood inthe kitchen and said “I’m in love with a woman. I have been since the day I met her. The one you met at Darlene’s. And if you don’t like it, I don’t care.”
And then promptly burst into tears.
Had I approached the topic with more finesse, maybe their response would have been different. Maybe they would have had time to be surprised. To dwell on the information, to suggest to me that I was just confused—after all, I’d had plenty of boyfriends.
But instead, in the ambush of information, and my immediate meltdown following, they were left with no choice other than to be consoling as I sobbed out my heartache over Dillon’s accident and the devastating end of her career.
