Page 68 of Break Point

“Hey, how’s my favorite Storm athlete?” Aaron sets a box of KT Tape down on the counter and opens his arms for me. His hug is welcomed. It feels familiar, and I try to hang on to how my body reacts. Maybe that’s all I need, routine. Aaron has always been part of my routine.

“You got a few minutes?”

His brow pinches as he slides onto one of the tables and nods for me to do the same. Our legs dangle in the space between us, and I pick at my fingers while kicking my feet nervously like a toddler learning to swim.

“It’s not like you to be bashful, Jaden. Spit it out.”

I cross my ankles to hold my feet still and lift my chin.

“I think I’m broken.” It’s the only way I can phrase it that makes sense. Aaron shakes with a quiet laugh.

“You’re not broken. Trust me, I’ve seen broken. Hell, I’ve fixed you up more than once. No, what you are is scared.”

My breath stops at his blunt response, and the words sit heavy in my tummy.

“I’m not scared, Aaron. I’m out here, every day, trying. And nothing is working. Hell, I can’t even get a serve up over eighty. I may as well hit the senior circuit with that velocity.”

Aaron lets out a belly laugh this time, and I smirk at my joke but quickly slump into my all-too-familiar defeated posture. Truth is, I haven’t broken seventy with my serve. I just didn’t want to say it.

He slides from his table and moves to sit next to me, leaning his bicep into mine, and I shake with a silent sob.

“Sorry, I’m just frustrated,” I say, running my sweatshirt sleeve under my eyes.

“I know you are. You should be. You’re a competitor, and you feel like all the tools you’re used to using are suddenly running out of batteries.”

I glance at him with a tinge of relief that he seems to understand me.

“Exactly.” I exhale. “So what do I do?”

He holds my stare for a beat, his lips in a straight line, until he eventually says, “You find new tools.”

I blink twice before blurting out a hard laugh.

“New tools. Yeah, okay. I’ll just throw away a dozen years of training and start back at zero. Thanks, Aaron.” I slide from the table, but he snags the sleeve of my sweatshirt before I storm away.

“Hey, don’t do that. You’re not hearing me.”

I spin to face him, but his sympathetic expression does a number on my obstinate response. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s just, I don’t know how to get back to where I was. I know one way. And that way has worked out for me. Really well! What if—”

“What if you’re not as good as you were?” He purses his lips and shrugs, as if being less than is okay. Maybe for him it is, but for me, being second best is the same as being first loser. I don’t want that. If I can’t reach my dream, I need to find new goals. And that thought? It’s fucking devastating.

“I can’t do this for the fun of it. It’s never been about that for me. My parents are losing their business because of how much they’ve leveraged things to send me here, to Cordon. Not for school, Aaron. For tennis! To play on this court, and to get the attention that comes with it. I’ve barely got a partial scholarship as it is. I doubt Cordon is going to let me keep that if all I’m doing is going to practice and riding the bench.”

Aaron sinks back on his palms and tucks his chin, his brow puzzling with thought.

“I thought you had a pretty good deal going with that dating app? I see your face everywhere, and—”

“I don’t know if I can keep that up either. If I’m not a top tennis player, then what good is my face on a dating app? I’m sure Bryson’s sister will want to keep paying me, but only because I’m actually dating her brother now. And how fair is that? I’m a charity case then, and fuck, is that embarrassing.”

Aaron kicks off from the table and clears his throat before resting his palms on my shoulders.

“I know you’re fiercely independent, Jaden. But someday you’re going to need to learn to let the people who love you help you out a bit. And that boy, who you were hell bent on destroying three years ago, seems to believe in you. You know, you asked me once why I took it easy on him when he went through his injury and was still making some poor choices . . .”

Now that I know Bryson better and understand the difficult relationship he has with his father, I’m a lot more sympathetic. Even with my family history with pill abuse. Bryson and my dad weren’t so different—they were both simply trying to keep going.

I hold Aaron’s gaze and nod.

“I knew he wanted to be here more than anything in the world. I had a feeling deep down it was about a lot more than football for him, so I trusted my gut and did what I thought was right. For him. And look how that turned out.”