Slice [On Hold]

Chapter 2: Mercy

I was used to the smell of sweat. It didn't bother me since it went hand in hand with the job. Sweat meant you were close to the action, in the thick of it. Sweat meant you'd made it. But today I smelled death. Static and final it filled the funeral home. I wasn't sad. I was too angry to be sad. I had to be angry in order to stay strong for my brother. My six-foot-three brother who was currently crumpled in a ball on the floor of his home, not leaving the spot where he'd found his dead fiancé in a pool of her own blood. It wasn't real if I kept moving. If I kept crossing off another task. Who knew death came with such an extensive to-do list for the living?

"I'm sorry, Miss Holiday, would you like me to repeat myself? I don't mind." The older gentleman in front of me squints his eyes, the soft folds of skin wrinkling more deeply, his face expectant but not impatient.

"What? No, no I'm sorry. Yes, next Thursday will work." Yes, I can clear my schedule for next Thursday to bury my brother's fiancé in the ground. I stand and offer my hand, my naturally firm handshake feeling weak, detached. Both of our parents had died in a car accident when I was sixteen and my brother, Callan, was twenty-two. The tennis media had speculated about whether their death had been the cause of my brother's early burnout, his promise on the court never quite translating into the professional greatness that my family had spent our entire lives wishing for him. Because Callan wanted it. He really, really wanted it. Too bad at this level of sport, wanting it more than life itself was still not enough. Callan was my only immediate family now, and even though he wasn't being buried in the ground next week alongside his fiancé, I felt his death like a physical thing. He'd never be the same.

I fished my phone out of my purse as I got into my car, seeing three missed calls from my boss. I didn't need to call him back to know how the conversation would go.

Are you okay?

As good as one might expect.

I'm here for you, Mercy. We all are.

I know, thank you.

Did you hear the results?

Yes.

Will you be there?

No.

I understand.

I appreciate it.

My best to you and Callan.

Thank you.

I had tried not to hear the news about the US Open Finals. But it was impossible to avoid. I was one of the professional physical therapists for the biggest stars in tennis. Technically I worked for the tennis associations and not the players, but the sport was my entire world. I'd never been good enough to turn pro, but I still loved and revered the game. The health and physical wellness of the sport's top athletes is my contribution. But even if I hadn't heard the recent news, I'd still know the match results in my soul. The two players advancing to the US Open finals were simply known. Brodie Archer versus Luigi Boisvert. They were the game of tennis at the moment. The sport came down to the two of them. A cocky, rebellious American versus a suave, graceful Argentinian of Italian descent.

As a physical therapist employed by the Association of Tennis Professionals, I didn't choose sides. I wanted every ankle equally strong, every wrist perfectly wrapped. I treated both players before, during, and after the matches. Sure, each player has their own loyal team of specialist coaches, trainers, therapists. But for me it was technical, like repairing machinery. It wasn't emotional fandom. I didn't do it for them, I did it for tennis. The sport. The game. The performance.

But that didn't mean it wasn't hard to form preferences. To see how the sport's top athletes really carried themselves in the more private shadows off the court. Conceited, paranoid, obsessive, compassionate, genuine, spoiled, angry. The emotions were highlighted between games, the spectacle of the court obscuring the emotional with the physical. But when they stepped into the training room, when they were writhing in pain, their stoic masks cast off, that's when you really saw a person.

The world loved Brodie Archer almost as much as the world loved to hate Brodie Archer. He was an athletic phenom and a media sensation, charm and scandal personified. He was larger than life, played like he was there for the crowd as much as the win, and had a face for Hollywood. Brodie Archer, the King of Tennis. Love him or hate him, you can't look away.

But for me, Brodie Archer was personal. I didn't love to hate him, I hated to hate him. I resented how much I hated him. The depth of which had grown impossibly deeper and irrevocably permanent when my brother had called me three days ago in desperate tears, his voice foreign and hollow, blubbering incoherently about what he'd found when he'd come back from a client training session at the courts.

She's dead, Mercy. Just fucking dead! How could this...I mean...why, Mercy?

Who, Callan? Who's dead?

Erin! Why would she do this?

Do what, Callan? What happened?
There was a note—

A note?

She...she was lying on the floor in her blood, God, there was so much blood.

What did it say?

Why is this happening to me? Why me, Mercy, why her?

Callan, what did the note say?

It was...it was for him.

And I knew. Without my brother saying it, I knew. My brother's fiancé's final words to this world hadn't been left for Callan. They'd been for the boy she'd first fallen in love with. For the person that had broken her heart and crushed her soul and left her behind for the greatness that the world graciously and easily bestowed upon him. The King of Tennis, the champion of hardcourt, grass, and clay. The breaker of all records. Brodie Archer.