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Kam shifted the weight of her head against her chest. “How old were you?” She ran her thumb over the sun-faded cursive.
“I don’t know,” Dillon lied. “Seventeen, eighteen.”
Fifteen and a half.
She remembered everything about that day. It had been the first week she’d moved to Henrik’s training center in Germany. Her first morning swimming in the Elbe. The current had been stronger than she was used to in Swansea, the swim longer. She’d been tired. Cold. Nervous about being so far away from her parents.
At the end of the swim, when she’d begun to lag, Henrik called her to the bank, where he stood with his stopwatch. He asked her if she could swim it again—faster.
Her German at that point had been limited, but he’d refused to speak to her in English as soon as they were out of Wales.
Nein, she shook her head.
It had been the first and only time she’d made the mistake of saying no.
He signaled her to get out of the water. He made her run sixteen miles from Reitbrook to Hamburg—to a tattoo studio in the middle of the city, where he’d had the saying inked on her forearm. On the way home, he told her if she ever quit on him again, he’d have the wordDrückeberger—quitter, coward—tattooed across her forehead.
She believed him.
And she’d stared at that unwanted tattoo, a hundred times a day, ever since.
But it served its purpose. It was those hated words that had driven her back into the race after she’d crashed her bike in Rio. It hadn’t mattered that she’d fractured her clavicle, or embedded her hipbone with gravel.
Win—or die trying.
That simple phrase had pushed her across the finish line to claim her first Olympic medal. It had been the doctrine she was taught to live by—one permanently etched upon her skin.
“Is that where you learned to speak German? Your coach?”
Dillon gave a curt affirmative. She didn’t want to talk about Henrik.
She wanted to focus on the warmth of Kam’s body draped lazily across hers. To get lost in thoughts of her clumsy hands and uncertain mouth. She wanted to drift to sleep replaying the way Kam had been willing to laugh at herself. The way she hadn’t shut up with her apologies—I swear, next time I can do this better—making Dillon laugh in return, caring nothing aboutbetterand everything aboutnext time. Because it meant Kam wanted there to be a next time. She’d not just been here to satisfy her curiosity. And Dillon knew, despite all the reasons this was unlikely to work, she wanted a next time, too.
But Kam’s attention had already drifted—along with her fingertips—to the next tattoo.
The wordsREMEMBER WHO YOU AREprinted in block font just above her left knee. Below it, the lettersDFS.
This one, at least, she could elaborate on more easily.
“After my first Olympics—after my dad had passed away—I had a rough competition year. I lost badly at a few big races and started to question whether I belonged in the sport. I’m not built for it. I’m too short for swimming. Carry too much muscle to run. Too broad-shouldered for cycling. I came home from the Commonwealth Games and told my friend, Sam, I thought I might be done. She thrashed me for wallowing in self-pity. Told me to grow up and remember who the fuck I was. Swore we wouldn’t be mates anymore if I didn’t compete the following month at the world final in Leeds.
“Long story short, I showed up, and on the last stretch to the finish, got myself into a foot race with the woman who’d won gold in London the previous year. Sounds silly, but it was Sam’s words—remember who the fuck you are—that gave me the edge I needed to best her.
“We went out drinking that night on my prize money and by the time we’d stumbled back to her flat in the morning, I had a new tattoo.” Dillon offered a subdued smile. “Can’t say I really remember getting it—but I’m glad I had enough sense to go with the PC version. Not sure my mam would have approved of the uncensored edition.”
Kam laughed. “You were so drunk you put it upside down?”
“Nah. It faces me so I can see it when I cycle.”
“Ah.” Kam lifted her head to give it a second look, before flopping back beside her. “AndDFS? Your initials?”
“Nope. My middle name starts with B.”
It took a moment before Dillon could feel her smile against her chest. “Of course, I should have known. DillonFuckingSinclair.”
“For better or for worse,” Dillon conceded wryly.
The room grew still. Kam’s head had gotten heavier, the whisper of her inhalations slower, the pre-dawn hours finally luring her questions to rest. Dillon stared at the ceiling, idly combing her fingers through the silken strands of long dark hair. The clock on the nightstand hummed in the silence, but Dillon didn’t turn to read its digital face. She knew the hour well. The hour when the night was darkest. When daybreak seemed eternities away.
