Page 17 of Let the Games Begin
“Aditi, I think we need to talk about your deep-stalking skills,” Olivia said.
“You can’t distract me with an intervention. What happened last night?” Aditi single-mindedly focused on a Summer Olivia resurgence. So, Olivia told her about the after-party and the interaction she’d had with Zeke.
“I can’t decide whether you hate him or kind of fancy him,” Aditi said wistfully.
“Aditi? I told you he spilled juice all over me, told me to benice, and then insinuated that I was a bad singer. What is there to like?” Olivia said.
“Your voice,” Aditi said, as if she could see right through her.“Your voice does the same thing when you’re talking about someone you hate as it does when you’re talking about someone you like.”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Olivia, stabbing her fruit salad and eating a whole forkful in one go.
“Oh yeah, it definitely does. There’s always a thin line between you hating a guy and really just fancying them. When we were kids, you used to be mean to boys you liked in the playground and find something to dislike about them so you could—” Aditi began, but Olivia was not going to have that conversation.
“I don’t like him. And if everything goes according to plan, I’m never going to see him again unless it’s on the TV,” she said decisively.
“Whatever you say,” Aditi replied in a singsong voice.
“And even if I did like him, or anybody I met in the Village, nothing would happen. I don’t do summer flings—”
“Except that one time,” Aditi said.
“Which isnevergoing to happen again,” Olivia said. “Summer is dangerous. So, the only guy I’m going to think about for the next two weeks is Noah in HR, because I still need to find a way to get a real job at the Olympics.” Aditi couldn’t argue with that.
“Wait, I haven’t even told you the most devastating thing that happened yesterday—I went to lost property but still couldn’t find my notebook!” Olivia said, disappointed. The iridescentCool Runnings–inspiredI AM FEELING VERY OLYMPIC TODAYnotebook had been a congratulations gift from Aditi. Her best friend knew how much she loved the movie and how much she liked organizing her life out into lists, so she’d given her the specialpersonalized notebook in a ribbon-tied box as soon as they’d arrived in Athens. Olivia loved it on sight and had laughed out loud when she saw the note Aditi had written her on the first page. But when she’d gone to repack her work bag, she’d realized it was missing. She’d searched the whole apartment to try and find it, to no avail.
“I remember holding it before I went to Olympic prison, but I can’t remember opening it again,” she said with a sigh, trying to retrace her steps across the Village to narrow her search. But before she could whittle it down, her phone started ringing. She glanced down at the caller ID and then immediately looked away.
“Aren’t you going to answer?” Aditi asked as they both looked at the phone. The caller ID was Olivia’s mum.
“No,” Olivia said, taking another bite of her koulouri. Aditi gave her a quizzical look.
“You haven’t told them yet? Liv!” said Aditi, but instead of answering, Olivia declined the call and quickly typed out a text telling her mum that she was so busy getting ready for the third day of her internship, that she would have to call her back later on that night.
No, Olivia hadn’t told her parents that she wasn’t doing the internship she’d flown to Athens for. And she had absolutely no intention of telling them until she fixed it. Her parents wanted her to do well, but they weren’t the overbearing type. Still, she’d aced school, got a first-class degree, and stacked up her CV with the kinds of things that made them proud.
Olivia knew they wouldn’t be disappointed in her if she told them the truth. But she knew they would be disappointedfor her, which was somehow worse. She was the one who was supposed to overcome and achieve everything their generation hadn’t been able to. So, she told them a white lie to protect their feelings, promised Aditi that she’d keep saying yes to everything that sounded like fun, and then she hopped on the shuttle to the other side of Athens to begin her third day in the Village. And track down her iridescent notebook.
17Zeke
DAY ONE OF THE 2024 OLYMPICS
Zeke felt like he’d been dragged through the streets of Athens, beaten up, and then tossed around by a mechanical bull. His head was pounding, his eyes were burning, and his stomach was threatening to spill itself out onto the ground.
“Here we go. Look who didn’t take my advice,” said Coach Adam, shaking his head as Zeke and his teammates walked into the gym the next morning.
“I told you, party or no party, training starts at six a.m.,” Coach said as Zeke, who was wearing sunglasses to shield himself from the gym lights, slowly walked toward a treadmill. Things had taken a left turn after karaoke. And despite his better judgment, he’d allowed himself to get swept up in the recklessness of the party. But hangover or no hangover, he and the rest of the team had a competition to train for.
There were fifteen other runners on the men’s team, and each of them was on their own specific training regimen. But they always worked out together at the beginning of the Games. So thatmorning, they spread out across the gym on treadmills, skipping ropes, and ellipticals. They lifted weights and stretched themselves out, did leg curls and hundreds of push-ups.
The workout was soundtracked to Coach Adam’s favorite playlist of ’70s funk music. At first, it was grating: the music was too bright and cheerful for a team fighting their worst hangovers of the year. But a few liters of water and a two-hour workout later, Zeke started to feel more human. Once they’d finished, half of the team went to breakfast and the other half split off to sit in different parts of the gym so they could have one-on-one sessions with their respective coaches. Coach Adam had been working with Zeke ever since he’d joined Team GB, so they sat down and went over their strategy to get Zeke to the other side of the finish line in record time.
“It’s just about improving your technique. Your stamina is great, your speed is better than ever, but you need to make your strides more precise,” said Coach Adam. He replayed the last five seconds of a video he’d filmed of Zeke’s last practice run, and Zeke leaned over to watch. Zeke loved second-by-second analysis. He combed through each frame to dissect his every move and watched it back by the millisecond to see it from different perspectives. That was the only way he could be sure that he’d truly done everything in his power to be his very best. So, they sat and analyzed his run, made a list of things he needed to work on before their next one-on-one training session, and then Zeke got ready to leave.
“Team Jamaica has the track booked for the rest of the morning, so we’ll practice at twelve okay?”
“Nothing like watching the competition go first to motivateme, right?” said Zeke. The race to get the 100m gold was always a fierce battle between the athletes in Team Jamaica and Team USA. So, everyone had been surprised when he’d won silver at the last Olympics.
“Exactly, a healthy amount of fear always makes you run faster,” joked Coach Adam, “and don’t forget the BBC shoot.”
