Page 21 of A Summer of Stars

I had acrush.

When he turned and noticed me, he raised his hand and waved. I had to stifle the urge to jump in the air with a smile.

After watching each other play matches throughout the week, we went out for a celebratory drink, and I kissed him—just leaned forward and kissed him. It felt like tasting strawberry icing for the first time.

He must have felt the same, since he kissed me back.

I fell in love with him on Christmas Eve. I became his girlfriend on Christmas.

I wanted us to travel together to every tournament where both the ATP and WTA were playing, but he told me he didn’t want to be distracted. I understood.

In July, after Wimbledon, we danced in the streets between crowded pubs and bright theaters. People patted us on the back, congratulating us on our wins like they knew us. Like we were family. Everyone loved Jeremiah; they couldn’t help but approach him. He was tennis’s prince.

A woman serving us a drink in a dense, warm pub told us how beautiful a couple we were. She said she met the love of her life when she was young too. Jeremiah twisted his gaze to mine and smiled warmly. I couldfeelhis admiration in that gaze.

“Are you in love?” she asked.

No hesitation. “Unbelievably in love,” Jeremiah had said.

“What are you waiting for, then?”

It was one of those magical nights where the air was the perfect skinny-dipping temperature. Warm but refreshing. When smiling didn’t feel forced. When everything in the world simply made sense and all I could forecast was happiness. Stress no longer existed.

He had given me this look of wistful hope as if he were actually thinking about it. I was in awe.

“Am I crazy for thinking about it?” he asked, a silent plea in his eyes.

“Yes!” I shouted.

“You don’t want to marry me?” he asked, genuinely curious.

I was at a loss for words because… I did.

So I did.

After sleeping on it, we eloped the next day, and I couldn’t have been happier. I couldn’t stop kissing him, and he couldn’t stop reaching for me, constantly needing to hold some part of my frame.

Twenty-four was young to be married. Younger than I ever envisioned. But my parents had done it, and they were more in love than the stories written for movies.

I moved into his London flat, and we ate breakfast together every morning. We’d take our separate flights to different tournaments and call each other after practices. If we had blank spaces in our schedules—which was rare—we’d fly to see each other play. Jeremiah would try to see all of my matches. He’d kiss me as he left the court, and my heart would explode along with the excitement of the crowd.

Then his brother died in December, and this small wall formed between the two of us, brick by brick.

When my mother died, I sobbed and grieved because I’d never get to see her or hear her voice or hold her again. I was trapped in a garden navigating the beauty of her life without her.

If my grieving was a garden, then Jeremiah’s was a forest of winding traps and walls.

He was stoic. A fortress of no emotion. He told me there was no reason for him to cry because he wasn’t losing anything. But I watched that eat away at him—the relationship he could have had with his brother but never did. And now, never would.

“You’re allowed to grieve. It’s okay to feel angry and upset and sad and everything in between—” I had said before he cut me off.

“There’s no reason for that,” he simply replied. “Your heart is too big. Always was. It’s making you weak.”

He stopped speaking with his family altogether after deciding not to attend the funeral. I attended to pay my respects, holding his mother’s hand.

He went straight back to tennis like nothing happened. He never slept. He practiced all day. He didn’t speak unless it was about tennis. I wouldn’t hear from him for days when I left for tournaments, but I’d see photos of him in the paper out celebrating.

He’d return to our flat and kiss me and take me to our bed, buthe wouldn’t answer me when I asked how he was doing. I could see he was running himself into the ground. The bruises on his legs from practice were constantly replenishing themselves. I never knew where he was.