She's back ~ L. Hamilton

66. | Confessions

"I played shit. I am shit at tennis. So if that's what your about to say. Please.....please don't Marco"

The Netflix crew were standing on the other side of the tunnel, all of them looking around, acting like if they don't make eye contact with us we won't know they're there.

I am standing in the tunnel about to head to the showers. My knee is screaming. I need a massage and ice.

I need a lot of things.

Charlie comes up behind me and passes by. I can feel her trying to catch my eye as she walks into the locker room, but I continue to stare at my uncle instead.

He is standing against the wall, his eyes closed.

"Delaney" he says. His voice is calm and slow. "Now is the time for perspective. We talked about this"

"Marco!" I say. "Don't pretend that what I did out there was good enough! It wasn't!"

"I understand that you didn't win the match as you'd hoped..."

"Didn't win the match as I hoped?" I yell. I can hear the other coaches and players coming down the tunnel, so I pull him into an open door, closing it behind me.

"I just blew my second chance at a a title" I say "I only have four chances!"

"I understand that"

"I think we should all be pretty fucking worried that I am not going to be able to do what I set out to do!"

"Do not swear at me. I told you yesterday I was concerned about this possibility"

"I went out there and told everyone that I am the greatest tennis player, and now I'm proving myself wrong! In front of the entire world!"

My uncle nods but says nothing.

"You're just going to stand there? Say something!" I shout "please say something"

"What do you want me to say?" he asks, throwing his hands in the air.

"Tell me that you can see the fuckup that I've just committed. That you know I'm a better player than I was today! That I am as good as I think I am! Or I'm not! If that's what you think! But say something. I've lost my shot at the goddamn French Open, and we both know Nick's gonna take it! Say something!"

He looks at me and frowns. He begins to shake his head. There's a folding chair next to a table, and just when I think he's approaching the chair to sit down, he pulls back and kicks it into the wall

"What do you want from me?" he yells "you may not be the greatest  tennis player anymore!" he says. "I don't know. We don't know! You want me to keep telling you that, but I don't know, Delaney"

"I-"

"I'm not allowed to have any doubts! I'm not allowed to see you as my niece, as a human being, I'm not allowed to say that after years of retirement there just might be beter players now, to express any uncertainty whatsoever. So I tell you what you want to hear! So that you have what you need to feel okay. So that you stay in my life. Those were the terms you set up. So I live by them! So what would you like me to say?"

"I want you to be honest!"

My uncle shakes his head. "No, you want my honest opinion to be the exact thing you need to hear"

I can feel an ache in my teeth from clenching my jaw. I try to loosen it, but it tightens right back up.

My uncle looks at me. "Delaney. I do not know how to have an honest conversation with you about your tennis game. Because as good as you are, you have never been able to make peace with failure"

My chest tightens. My eyes feel dry. "And why the fuck do you think that is?"

"I think it's because—"

"It's because of you!"

My uncle shakes his head and looks down at the floor. It's as if he's not disagreeing with me so much as he's disappointed that this was the turn the conversation took so quickly.

But I feel the exact opposite. I feel like it's taken decades to get here.

"You told me I was supposed to be the greatest player in the history of tennis. You said it since the day I was born! You told me it was all I was ever meant to be! And then one day I wasn't anymore. You weren't even sure that I could beat her!" I say

"Are we talking about Shay Holmes?" he says.

"I asked you if you thought I could get the number one ranking over her, and you said, 'I don't know"

"And you've never forgiven me for it," he says "I'm paying that price even today"

"You should pay it for the rest of your life!" I say. "For making me believe in myself like that and then pulling the rug out from under me. For giving up on me when things were at their hardest. I never gave up on this. Ever. You gave up on me when I needed you most"

"Delaney, you asked me if I thought you could take numberone from Shay. And I said I didn't know. Because I didn't. I don't kow what the future holds. And I can't promise the world is going to always turn out the way you want it to. I owed you that honesty, I thought. So you could assess better-how to grow, how to widen your perspective. It felt like it was time for that. But you didn't want to do that then, and you don't want to do that now"

"I've messed up a lot as your uncle, and I take responsibility for that. But this one, I'm sorry, only you can solve it. You have to make peace with not being a perfect player," he said.

"That is giving up. I won't do it, I refuse to give up" I said

My uncle shakes his head. "You have to find a way to be okay with who you actually are, to face what life is really like. I expected you to figure that out by now. But you haven't. And if you don't, I can't see how you ever get past this... this moment. You have accomplished so much, but you are instead so focused on keeping it, rather than going out and finding something else in the world. You've spent your entire life obsessing over this, haven't you ever stopped to think that there's more to life than holding onto something like this?"

He walks toward the door. "Everything we achieve is momentary. We have it, and then the next second it's gone. You had that record, and you may lose that record. Or you may defend it now and lose it in two years all over again. I wish you'd accept that."

I shake my head and try to look at him. "I - I just can't"

"Well," he says. "It kills me that I cannot fix that for you, Del. But I can't. Nobody else can do it for you"

And then, as if the door were the lightest thing in the world, he opens it and walks right through, leaving me there alone.