Dirk wouldn't take kindly to his latest protégé absconding. He'd be royally pissed off. And he'd tell my dad.
Chasing after Mia would mean effectively screwing up my last chance. The thought should've had me terrified. Instead, all I could think was, 'what if I told Dad first?'
Because that's what I'd have to do. He'd stood by me too many times for me to blow him off for love.
Love?
Fuck, that's the second time in as many minutes I'd associated love with Mia.
I loved her.
Me. A guy who barely knew the meaning of the word. Pity my timing sucked.
When I reached my villa, I paced for a good ten minutes. Formulating ideas. Discarding. Refining. And not once in all that time did I feel bad about walking away from my tennis career.
Guess I had my answer right there.
Being at the academy, in Sydney and here, had never been about a great passion for the game. It had been about me escaping, running away, doing whatever it took to avoid a lot of the painful crap in my life.
Thanks to Mia, I was through running.
I knew what I wanted. Her. And if that meant being in Denver, I'd do it.
But I needed help first.
Doing a quick calculation of time differences between here and Sydney, I fired up my laptop to Skype Dad.
It took several seconds for his face to appear on the screen, a big smile creasing the face that most Australians knew and loved as the face of talk show.
"Hey, Son, how's life in Cali?"
I settled for a noncommittal "Okay."
"Doesn't look it, by that frown." Dad mimicked a gloomy expression. "What's on your mind?"
Here went nothing.
"I want to quit tennis. Not entirely, but I don't want to play the professional circuit. I want to go to college. In Denver. Enroll in an English major. Play college tennis for fun, not out of obligation to repay your faith in me."
The words tumbled out in a rush, the half-formed ideas that I'd toyed with coalescing into a plan that sounded crazy but doable. "Tennis has been my crutch, Dad. My go-to place for years, a way to burn off my anger. But I've met someone and she's made me realize a lot of stuff and I'm not so angry anymore."
I took a deep breath and rushed on, encouraged by the lack of horror on Dad's face. "You've been amazing, standing by me and pulling strings to get me this second chance. And the last thing I want to do is disappoint you. But I'm hoping you'll be proud of me now, of the decisions I've made, and the way I've learned there's more to life than whacking the shit out of a ball from frustration."
There, I'd said it. A jumbled confession of sorts that should've left me feeling empty. Instead, I felt liberated.
I held my breath, waiting for Dad to speak. When he did, by the admiration glowing in his eyes, I knew everything would be okay.
"I’m proud of you, Son. More than you could ever know." He smiled. "It takes guts to throw away your crutches. Real courage." He made a fist and pumped it in the air. "You're a champ, whether you play tennis or not."
"Thanks, Dad." To my horror, I could feel tears stinging my eyes. "You've never let me down."
Dad's smile faded. "Sadly, that's not true." He shook his head. "I let you down before you were even born."
"You didn't know about me."
The second Dad locked gazes with me and I glimpsed a flicker of guilt, I knew the truth.
"That's the thing, Son. I did know. I knew your mum was pregnant and I accepted her decision to abort." His eyes clouded with pain that must've been reflected in mine. "I could've stuck around and supported her through it, but I didn't. I took the easy way out, was relieved in fact she didn't want me around anymore. So I thought there was no baby." He pressed a hand to his heart. "Finding out I had a son all those years later was a gift, but it also made me terribly ashamed of how I'd walked away too easily all those years earlier."
His shoulders sagged. "Your mum deserved better and so did you."
I hesitated, wanting to ask a question but not entirely certain I wanted to hear the answer. "Is that why you've stood by me these last few years? Out of guilt?"
"Partially," he admitted. "But I could see so much of myself in you, how I was at your age, that I hoped you needed a father as much as I'd needed one but never had."
I admired Dad's honesty and was more than a little intrigued. "So you took your frustrations out on a tennis ball too?"
"Nothing so harmless." A wry smile alleviated some of the tension pinching his mouth. "I was a dumb bastard who took my frustration at life out on a bottle and pot." He screwed up his nose. "When I wasn't stoned I was blind drunk, seeking solace in something, anything, rather than face my miserable existence. Thank God you were smarter than that."