Chapter Text
The heat shimmered above the hardcourt, thick waves of it rising like mirages that blurred the edges of everything—lines, ball, even her opponent’s outline. Carina blinked hard, adjusted her visor, and tried to focus on the next point. Forty–thirty. Her serve. She bounced the bright yellow ball against the painted blue surface with practiced rhythm, the sound crisp against the low murmur of the small afternoon crowd.
This wasn’t the center court at Roland Garros. Not even close. This was Court 4 at the San Diego Challenger, a mid-tier stop on the calendar that many players skipped. The bleachers were half-filled, mostly with local tennis kids, sunburnt retirees, and a few scattered reporters. Carina used to sneer at tournaments like this when she’d been top ten, flying private from Paris to London to New York, her name printed in bold on giant posters outside stadiums. Now, she was here because she had to be.
The toss left her fingertips. She bent her knees, coiled her body, and drove up into the serve. Pain flared sharp and electric through her right shoulder, but she gritted her teeth and pushed it aside. The ball smacked the tape, dropped back onto her side. Double fault.
Game. Set. Match.
The umpire’s voice was clinical. Her opponent, a wiry nineteen-year-old from Florida with a ponytail too tight for her skull, let out a triumphant yell. She had barely cracked the top 200, but she was the one who’d just taken out Carina DeLuca, former Italian prodigy, ex–Grand Slam semifinalist.
Carina walked to the net, plastered on a sportsmanlike smile and shook hands. She didn’t look at the girl, didn’t even look at the crowd. Her hands were trembling, though from fury or fatigue, she wasn’t sure.
She packed her bag in silence, towel, racquets, water bottles, tossing them inside with jerky movements. Her shoulder throbbed as if mocking her with every bend. Somewhere, someone snapped photos. Vic Hughes, the podcaster-journalist, she realized absently. Of course Vic was here. She was always there, sniffing for stories about washed-up stars.
By the time Carina ducked through the players’ exit, she could already feel tears burning the edges of her eyes. She pressed her lips together until they whitened.
—
Her coach, Elena Rossi, was waiting in the shade of the locker room corridor. The woman looked impossibly polished, not a hair out of place, arms crossed against her crisp white blouse. Once, Elena had been the steadying force behind Carina’s rise, the one who smoothed her edges, guided her brilliance into discipline. But today her eyes were cool, assessing.
“You lasted longer than I thought,” Elena said in Italian, voice low but not soft.
Carina froze with her bag still slung over one shoulder. “Excuse me?”
“That shoulder. You can’t hit the wide serve anymore. Your backhand floats. You are chasing ghosts, Carina.” Elena’s expression didn’t waver. “It is time to accept reality.”
Carina’s stomach turned. “It was one match.”
“One match? Or the last twelve? You haven’t made it past a second round in over a year.” Elena’s words were precise knives. “You are not coming back. Not to top twenty, not even top fifty.”
The silence between them buzzed louder than the cicadas outside.
Carina clenched her fists. “So what, you’re quitting? Walking away because I’m not winning fast enough?”
Elena inhaled, straightened. “I am walking away because I will not waste my time feeding delusion. You are thirty years old, with surgeries behind you and no major titles to show for your talent. Players younger, stronger, hungrier are overtaking you. I will not watch you destroy yourself piece by piece chasing something gone.”
It was as though the air had been punched from Carina’s lungs. “After everything,” she whispered.
Elena’s mouth softened for a fraction of a second, then firmed again. “I loved coaching you once. But this is mercy.”
And then she was gone. Just like that. Picking up her handbag, her expensive sunglasses, her air of superiority—and walking out of Carina’s career as if it were nothing more than a job she’d outgrown.
—
The locker room was empty when Carina collapsed onto the wooden bench. Her chest was heaving though she wasn’t out of breath, not from running. She pulled her visor off, pressed it against her face. Tears broke free anyway, hot and humiliating.
Her mind replayed the match—every weak serve, every late step, every blistering forehand she used to punish but now watched sail past. Her body betrayed her in tiny increments. The shoulder surgery had promised recovery. The knee surgery after that had promised another. None of the promises held.
She’d given her whole life to tennis. Since she was six, hitting balls against cracked walls in Verona until her knuckles bled. Since junior tournaments where she beat girls twice her size with nothing but angles and cunning. Since her WTA debut at seventeen, the Italian flag has been stitched onto her shirt. It had been her identity, her pride, her heartbeat. And now—
Now it was slipping through her fingers.
A knock startled her.
“Carina?”
It was Jack Gibson, her physio, tall frame filling the doorway, his brow furrowed with worry. “Hey. You okay?”
She scrubbed at her eyes quickly, not wanting him to see. “Perfectly fine.”
“Sure.” He sat on the bench opposite her, elbows on knees. “That shoulder held up better than I expected, honestly. You got through three matches this week. That’s progress.”
Carina let out a short, bitter laugh. “Progress?”
“Yeah.” Jack’s voice was calm, even. “Progress is progress. But I also know Elena. She didn’t take it well.”
“She quit.” The words were sharp, like broken glass in her throat.
He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry.”
Carina pressed her palms together until they hurt. “Everyone leaves eventually. Coaches, sponsors, fans. They see weakness, and they disappear.”
“Not everyone.”
She looked up at him, surprised. His expression was earnest, solid.
Jack shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere. Neither’s Travis, or Andy. And maybe…maybe you’ll find someone who actually believes in your comeback. Someone who’ll fight for it as hard as you do.”
Carina wanted to believe him. But belief had been beaten out of her, point by point, loss by loss.
—
She stayed in the locker room until the crowd noise faded, until Vic’s voice outside moved on to interviewing the teenage winner. Eventually, she gathered her things and walked out into the cooling dusk. The parking lot buzzed with fluorescent lights. She slid into her rental car, dropped her head against the steering wheel, and sat there, motionless.
Her phone buzzed with messages—her brother Andrea, asking for updates; a sponsor representative, curtly inquiring about her next tournament; her mother, sending a string of hopeful prayers. Carina ignored them all.
She whispered to herself in Italian, a prayer or a curse, she wasn’t sure: Non finisce così. Non può finire così. It doesn’t end like this. It can’t.
—
Back in her hotel room, she showered and dressed in loose sweats, and opened her laptop. The glow of the screen lit her tired face. She scrolled through rankings, through tournament entries, through coaching announcements.
And then she saw it.
A headline on a tennis blog:
“Bishop Available: Elite Coach Parts Ways with Emma Leigh.”
Maya Bishop. The name was electric in the tennis world. Former Olympian, sprinter turned coach, notorious for her brutal training regimens and volcanic temper. Players either swore by her or swore they’d never go near her. She had a reputation: cold, egotistical, impossible. But she also had results. Every player she’d coached had risen, sharpened, hardened into contenders.
Carina leaned back in her chair. Her gut twisted. She could still hear Elena’s voice: You are chasing ghosts.
Maybe she was.
But if she was going to chase them, she’d need someone who didn’t flinch.
She stared at Maya Bishop’s name for a long time. And somewhere, beneath the weight of loss and betrayal, a flicker of defiance lit again.