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They were answers that died with her in the wild seas of the Gower.
When I finally returned to the studio to finish pick-ups forSand Seekers, everyone gave me a wide berth. I looked like hell; my skin was ashen, I’d chopped my hair above my shoulders with a pair of kitchen scissors, and all my costumes were too big. Hair and makeup had their work cut out for them, but I didn’t care.
No one mentioned Dillon. The rumors circulated—I wasn’t unaware—but the subject remained taboo. I wanted desperately to publicly grieve my loss, but under the advice of my PR team, and gentle, yet insistent persuasion from Elliott, I remained slammed in a closet I had never wanted to be in.It was for the best, everyone kept telling me.For who, they never said.
Somehow, by the grace of the Gods of Entertainment—along with a healthy dose ofget-your-shit-togetherfrom L.R. and MacArthur—I got through the final photography and completed the film.
It should have felt monumental—the closure of an era in my life I would never experience again. The trilogy was finished; my journey as Addison Riley complete. Tears should have flowed freely at the wrap party, with hugs and toasts for the cast and crew who I’d learned to love like family.
Instead, I spent the night nodding through an unconvincing smile beside one of the soaring atrium windows of the Ritz-Carlton, silently contemplating how long it would take to get home through traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway.
I ended up leaving in the middle of a blooper reel documenting hilarious moments of the three-year odyssey. I couldn’t stand the footage of me laughing, reminders of how happy I’d once been. On the way home, I got a phone call from Dani. I canceled it to voicemail. We hadn’t spoken since my party. But as the car turned onto PCH, I was overtaken by an abrupt explosion of fury. I asked my driver to stop, and stepped into a sea of taillights, crossing the highway to the beach. And there, amongst the littered wash of Venice sand, I hit redial, and proceeded to tell my once-best friend exactly how I felt about her. When I hung up, I knew we’d never speak again. It was cathartic, I guess, cutting out a cancer in my life. But as I cried myself to sleep that night, it still didn’t return Dillon to my side.
Later in the summer, when the Olympics came to town, I tried desperately to hide in a fog of oblivion. But all the whiskey in the world, the shuttered blinds, the hum of self-guided meditation, the glow of Netflix, and the mind-numbing sting of scorching showers failed to permit me to escape the sight of those five interlocking rings. The city pulsed in blue, black, red, yellow, and green.
Seren called the Thursday before the start of the equestrian competition. We’d spoken little since Dillon’s passing, neither of us having much to say. We were both wading through our own personal hells—ironically less than a hundred miles apart. I knew she and Épée had arrived in Los Angeles. I’d seen a headline:Seren Sinclair elects to remain on Team GB after the death of famed Olympic sister.
She asked if I would come to watch her. If I would sit with her mam.
I don’t know why it felt so important. Dillon wasn’t there. And I wasn’t a Sinclair.
I wanted to say no. If I’m honest, after attending Dillon’s private funeral, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Seren or Jacqueline again. A shamefaced, self-condemning side of me worried they might blame me for the loss of Dillon. I was the one, after all, who had found Dr. Monaghan. The one who had supported her in her quest to qualify, and encouraged her to compete again. I was the last person she texted. The one who hadn’t read the signs. If I hadn’t been so blind, perhaps Dillon would be alive.
But neither woman had ever given any indication that was true. It was just my guilty conscience talking, playing tricks on my mind.
So I told her yes.
I had no excuse to say no. I wasn’t working. I’d had to buy my way out of my contract forAnna Karenina. The Tolstoy film felt too dark, too painful in my present emotional deterioration.I wouldn’t begin filming theMia Hammproject until winter. Until then, outside my obligation for the press tour forSand Seekers, I was taking time off, trying to pull myself together. Trying to find a way to feel whole—no, not whole. I didn’t imaginewholewas in my future. That would be like trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Operational, maybe. Functional, at best.
But I owed it to Dillon to be there for her sister. Despite my professional stance that she and I had never engaged in a romantic relationship, I’d never denied we were friends. Going in support of the Sinclair family felt like a satisfyingfuck youto my publicist, my agent, my manager. Every person who continued to pressure me to live in hiding.
So I went to the competition.
I was glad to be a hundred miles away from LA at the equestrian grounds when Elyna Laurent won the women’s triathlon. The bike leg of the race had taken a course down PCH, traveling through Santa Monica. It would have dismantled me to stand on my balcony watching the triathletes cycle past without Dillon.
Still, sitting in the crowded stands awaiting Seren’s dressage test, I’d been unable to scroll past Elyna’s photo on the podium. I stared at her stiff smile, Dillon’s gold medal around her neck, Henrik’s ever-present shadow blurred in the background.
I wanted to excuse myself, to go puke in the VIP bathrooms.
Instead, I forced my thumb to clickunfollowonWorld Triathlonand turned my focus back to Seren.
Baby steps. I could practically hear my therapist applauding.
My mom flew down to stay for the weekend, joining me to sit with Jacqueline. While the two of them made polite small talk, I daydreamed of an alternate reality, and stared at the leaderboard.
Sinclair: #1
On the third day, going into stadium jumping, Seren was sitting in a position to win the individual gold.
But it was the wrong Sinclair. Another should have been there in her stead.
Seren must have felt the same. Because when she did win—when the President of theFEIplaced the medal around her neck—she sank to her knees and covered her face with her white-gloved hands. Cameras panned-in, international footage rolling as an instrumental ofGod Save the Kingplayed in the background, Seren Sinclair sat on the podium and sobbed.
I had to leave. I didn’t wait for my mom, or say goodbye to Jacqueline, or alert the team of security surrounding me. I simply got up, shoved my way to the aisle, and ran down the stairs. I didn’t care if the press caught my hasty exit—if they photographed the mascara running down my cheeks. I only wanted to escape. Back to the prison of my apartment. Back to the comfort of Dillon’s bike and analgesic influence of the whiskey. Back to the seclusion of my misery.
A few weeks later, Sam called. We’d kept up a tentative friendship, the two of us needing one another, both hurting in equal, horrible, dissimilar ways. She told me she’d talked to Seren. After the Olympics, Seren had gone home and left the medal on Dillon’s grave.
Sam said the next day when Seren went to the cemetery, the medal was gone. She hadn’t cared. She said it never belonged to her in the first place.
