“Jeu, set, match, mademoiselle Larsson,” came the announcement. The crowd were whipped up for the award ceremony to follow, but when I looked for Toni and my mother in the box, I found only their concern radiating back at me. Nobody else seemed to have noticed, and I went through the ritual of shaking hands and briefly commiserating with Celeste as we waited for the presentation. She went first as runner-up, and after what seemed to be a small eternity, I got to walk up over and receive my trophy. Holding it up for the crowd gave me fresh jolts down my side. It wasn’t light, and the width of its base meant the damn thing took two hands.
The moment I could tuck it down at my hip, I did, and I had the chance to address the crowd. Asked how it felt to win again, to equal the record, I just babbled a little in French about how happy and proud I was. It seemed to be what everyone was expecting.
I counted the minutes until I could get away from all the attention, even though I’d spent the day trying to drink in every second of it. The pain had abated as I held the Suzanne-Lengler cup down low, but once the interviewers let me go, I had another round of lifting it and smiling for the press to do.
By the time I escaped, I was fighting back tears. Celeste walked me back and neither of us said a word, I knew enough to give her space after a loss, and she clearly didn’t want to crowd me either. Once I’d handed the trophy back and slipped into my private dressing room, I finally sat down and tried an experimental stretch of my left side. The tears fell then, and they brought the cursing with them.
That was when my mother and Toni came spilling in, with Parisa and Ezi hot on their heels.
“Tell me where it hurts,” Ezi teased gently, stepping in to investigate. “Yeah, that’s gonna take a scan, Elin. I think you’ve really torn it this time.”
“Son of a bitch.” I dropped my head in my hands. Had I really managed to wreck my body right when I pulled level on the record?
“Hey, hey.” Toni came to sit beside me on the bench, laying her arm over my back where I’d hunched forward. “Babe, it’s okay. You’ve hurt it before and bounced right back. I know you’re on a roll here, but another season to nail it… You could do it in Australia if you can’t play any sooner.”
My heart sank at the thought. I’d been holding on so tightly to this being my last season that the thought of going on felt like breaking a promise to myself, one that really counted. All my new dreams about kids, about doing work that wasn’t just hitting balls around all week, they seemed as far away as they had ever been.
“It’s fine, I’ll be fine,” I said, wiping the tears and pulling myself together. My mother was watching me with her arms crossed, a little apart from the fuss around me. “Can I get something to get me through all the handshakes and hugs? Then I’ll need to get to hospital, but somewhere discreet, okay? No kidding, I don’t want everyone to know. Not this time.”
They all nodded in agreement, Parisa stepping out to start making calls. Ezi started rooting through her bag, pulling out a bottle of something promising and some sprays.
“I’m going to blast you like I’m tranquillising a horse, okay?” Ezi’s hands were steady and gentle, and I trusted her completely. “Then we’ll get someone with an MD to really show you a good time.”
“I’d kill any of you right now for some Percocet,” I confessed. “But give me what you’ve got. Toni, you okay to hold me up if it gets too much?”
She flexed to make me laugh, and it worked. Her arms looked as great as ever in the sleeveless creamy blouse she’d worn with tailored trousers. But for the definition, she didn’t look too much like an athlete, just a normal person dressed up for a day at the tennis. I liked the look on her a lot.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said, swallowing the pills and pulling my shirt back down over the ice gel pack that Ezi had taped in place, covering the cooling spray that was already starting to work. It would minimise the damage, and I could get out of there.
The rest? I’d deal with that later.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It proved to be a late night at the hospital, but they let me slip in through a side entrance and treated me in a completely private room. Toni stayed by my side apart from coffee runs and producing a haul of junk food that I couldn’t believe she’d found in France, never mind near a hospital.
“You burned up a shit ton of calories today, babe, and canapés won’t replace it. One cheeseburger won’t kill you. The milkshake? Maybe, but hey, it’s strawberry.”
“What kind of maniac brings me a meal from Death Row and chooses strawberry over chocolate?”
Toni shrugged from her seat next to my bed. I really didn’t need to be admitted, but lying propped up on a body pillow was way more comfortable than just about anything else. That and the fact that they’d given me the good stuff in an IV. I could have run through the brick wall and not felt it at that point.
“The kind of maniac you’re dating.” Toni looked up as my mother re-joined our little party, busy with her phone. I expected her to at least try to hide our unhealthy feast, but to my shock Toni offered a bag to my mother and she accepted it without complaint.
“Mamma, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat fries,” I said, as she picked a few from the bag
