Page 7 of Rivals and Liars

"Don't be an idiot," Kate says. "I hurt my back and I didn't want to push it."

Conor frowns, and their mother, who had been opening the fridge, turns toward them.

"Again?" her brother asks, worried.

"It's nothing. My physio said a few days of rest would be enough—that's why I didn't go to Germany."

Kate feels uncomfortable with herself for lying to her family. Everyone at home knows she started having issues about a year and a half ago, but they don't know that sometimes the pain leaves her unable to breathe, that it keeps her from playing the way she should, and that it's been showing up more often than she knows is normal.

"What does Diane say about it?" her mother asks.

"Nothing, Mom. There's nothing to worry about. At my age, every athlete starts feeling pain somewhere. I'm not twenty."

"Okay." Conor hugs her again and kisses the top of her head. "Take care of yourself, and use these days to do absolutely nothing. I'll come by this weekend and stay over—we'll have time to catch up."

Kate smiles and nods. They really do know everything about each other's lives, since they usually talk for a while on video calls every three or four days, though she's never told him anything about Leire.

That afternoon—after a three-hour nap she hadn't expected when she lay down on the couch—Kate took advantage of a break in the rain to go out for a walk with Banjo. She loves doing it whenever she can, letting the dog take the lead and throwing the ball for him in the park until he tires himself out, then sitting on a bench while he entertains himself gnawing on a stick beside her.

She talked to Leire for a while—Leire called as soon as she woke up, since the time difference is eight hours and they always make the most of the small windows they have. She could tell Leire was worried, but when she asked, Leire insisted she was fine, so they both lied to each other, because Kate also told her she felt perfectly fine when in reality she'd winced several times bending down to pick up the ball.

She gets home and bites her lip when she sees Diane's car out front.

"Sorry, I completely forgot we were meeting," she apologizes as soon as she walks in, putting on the puppy-dog face that never fails with this woman.

Being on a forced break doesn't mean they have nothing to do—work sessions where they review Kate's matches or her opponents' are something they can do anywhere.

"I noticed," Diane murmurs from the couch, sitting next to her mother.

Kate takes off her jacket and gestures for her coach to follow her. The family home is large, and her father converted one of the empty rooms into a study for when Kate meets with Diane for their work sessions—a space where they can stay focused and undisturbed. It has a couch pushed against the wall facing a large screen and a work table with two chairs right by the window.

"How are you feeling?" Diane asks when she closes the door.

"Good, I slept a lot after lunch," the player answers, and turns around when her coach goes quiet.

"That's not what I asked, and you know it, Kate."

Kate swallows hard, her stomach tight with anxiety, and Diane doesn't need anything more to know she's in pain.

"Come on, sit down here," she says, pointing to the couch as she pulls up a video on the TV.

Diane picks up her notebook—filled with notes scrawled everywhere that only she can decipher—and after watching the first clip, which she's already seen several times before coming over, she walks Kate through everything she finds relevant.

"The back pain is changing the speed of your serve. You've lost power—"

"And what do you want me to do about it?" Kate cuts her off.

Diane looks at her, and the player bangs the back of her head against the couch a few times before apologizing, because she's never spoken to her like that.

"I'm sorry. This is just really getting to me."

"I know, sweetheart," Diane says, "that's why I wanted to talk to you."

"About what?" Kate turns toward her, pulling her knees up onto the couch.

"You've had a brilliant career, Kate. You won a Grand Slam at twenty-two, and you've racked up hundreds of wins and titles. You don't need to keep going."

"What?" the player asks, confused.