That was four years ago. Dinner turned into a string of dates, which soon led to a bona fide relationship. We fell for each other fast—it was giddy and disorienting in the best way possible. He liked that I understood and supported his strict training regimen, unlike other girls he had dated in the past. And with his encouragement, the messy pieces of my life took shape. The more time we spent together, the more my diet shifted from fruit-flavored vodka to real fruits and vegetables. I started working out again. Tyler was the one who suggested that I seek out a part-time coaching job. By our third month of dating, I was smitten. By our fourth, I was confident enough to say “I love you” out loud for the first time. He said it back.
Moving into his apartment was a no-brainer. We spent almost all of our free time together anyway. Growing up, I had never allowed myself to really dream past the podium stand; when you believe you’re on the edge of Olympic history, fantasies about boyfriends seem frivolous. But there I was, twenty-three years old, playing house with a hunky football player, lingering just a little too long over a bridal magazine in the checkout line at the grocery store. I had found myself living a dream I’d never known I wanted.
The next season, he threw the winning pass in the Super Bowl, and he became a household name. But the cozy closeness of our relationship thinned. We saw each other less, and when we did, it was often squeezing a date night into a football banquet dinner or charity event. I saw for the first time up close what it meant to be a champion, and I hated having my nose pressed up against the glass like a dirty onlooker; I still wanted that glory for myself. I couldn’t admit that to Tyler; that meant giving him unfettered access to the haunted way my brain still taunted me with the word “failure.”
It would be easy, I think now, as the airplane cuts through a gloriously white cloud and descends into a fog, to leave the breakup at that. I’m flying to the other side of the country, where Tyler knows no one. I could pretend we broke up because he got caught up in his own fame, and I didn’t want that kind of life. Nobody would know the difference. Nobody but me.
There was an afternoon a few months back when Tyler came home unexpectedly early; he wasn’t feeling well. It was around 3 p.m. on a Thursday, one of my days off from the gym, and I was sitting on the kitchen floor with my legs splayed out in a lazy straddle, organizing the new spice rack I had ordered online. Around me, there was a mess of little plastic bottles: saffron, nutmeg, coriander, star anise, red pepper flakes. I had accumulated so many, splurging on whatever I needed to make a recipe sing. I’d discovered, once I moved in with Tyler, that I liked to cook; the process kept my hands and mind busy. And after an adolescence of grilled chicken and microwaved Lean Cuisines, the rich flavors I created felt like a gift. So I alphabetized the spices, sipping a generous pour of sauvignon blanc.
“Oh, you’re… still home?” Tyler had said, a note of surprise in his voice, taking in my ragged pajama pants and the afternoon glass of wine. He looked past my shoulder, toward the living room I had vacuumed, dusted, and straightened up earlier that day.
“Hi! I didn’t know you’d be home so early,” I chirped. I tilted my chin up so he could give me a kiss, but he didn’t. “Do you want something to eat? I can whip something up really quickly if you’re hungry.”
Tyler shook his head and turned on SportsCenter. The open-floor-plan layout of the apartment meant I could stay in that same spot on the floor and see him on the couch in the living room. But a few seconds later, he turned off the TV.
“You don’t want to, I don’t know… do something?” he asked, voice dripping with disgust.
“I’m doing this,” I said, gesturing to the spice rack.
“You’re practically a housewife,” he said. “Minus the husband and kids.”
I gave him a sour look. We’d talked about marriage as a possibility someday, because it seemed impossible to be living together in a years-long relationship in your midtwenties and not talk about it.
“I work,” I said evenly.
“Part-time,” he clarified.
“You’re the one who suggested it,” I reminded him.
“I didn’t think you’d be happy with that little to-do forever,” he countered.
“So, what? What do you want me to do?” I asked, slumping against the refrigerator and resisting the urge to grab my wineglass, lest it make me look even more like some awful cliché.
He sighed. “I don’t know, have a… passion? Have some kind of ambition?”
“You know I do. You know I did,” I said defensively, thinking furiously: How dare he.
“It’s been a long time, Avery.” His words drip out carefully, like he’s been churning over the best way to say this for a while.
I was tempted to rattle off all the things I do all day that I genuinely enjoy: cooking, coaching, trying new workouts with my ClassPass. But that wasn’t what he meant.
“Is this about money?” I demanded. “Do you want me to pay more in rent? Because I can make it work if you want me to.”
“It’s not about the money.” He sighed. “It’s just…”
He trailed off and looked critically at my bedhead, my shrunken sleep shirt printed with the name of a gymnastics meet I competed in more than a decade ago, and the overhead kitchen cabinets I’d flung open without bothering to close.
“It’s just I expected a different kind of life with you, that’s all,” he said quietly.
And then he turned the TV back on.
There were more fights like that in the months that followed. Sometimes, I’d be honest enough to admit that long ago, ambition was all I’d had. And when the one thing I had built my world around collapsed, I didn’t know where else to turn—I didn’t know how to turn. Maybe I never fully recovered from the depression that hit like a truck seven years ago. I never found a reason to.
The plane enters a rough patch of air and gives a sickening jolt. As the turbulence jostles us, a clear ding rings out through the cabin, and the pilot makes an announcement over the PA system. “At this time, we ask that you return to your seats and fasten your seat belts. Thank you.” The neon seat belt sign flashes on; there’s an uneasy groan from some of the passengers. While my neighbor continues to doze, the man across the aisle from me crosses himself and downs the remainder of the Johnnie Walker he’s been nursing. In front of him, an infant starts to wail in her mother’s lap.
The turbulence up here doesn’t bother me much. I’m more afraid of whatever lies ahead, once the flight lands back at home.
• CHAPTER 2 •
Mom and Dad meet me at the arrivals gate at Logan airport with faces scrunched in concern.
“That’s all you brought?” Dad asks, taking the two bags from me.
“Oh, honey,” Mom says, pulling me in for a hug. She kisses my hair. “We’ll get you fixed up.”
I had returned home plenty of times since moving to LA, but this time, it has a sense of finality. I’m not here for a quick Thanksgiving visit—when Mom hits the clicker and rolls her Honda into the cold, musty garage, I’m returning for good. I take a suitcase in each hand and trace my old, familiar steps through the house.