Lost and Found

What if... #2

What if Sara didn't have to quit badminton

Sara sat in a dressing room head resting against the wall. This was her biggest tournament ever. The Olympic games. The Olympic games of 2020. 

Almost everyone Sara loved was there. Everyone but a few. Those few she had blocked out of her life in August 2019.

Anthoine's death had destroyed Sara. She had broken contact with every link to formula one and any motor racing. She couldn't go through it all again, so the best way was to ensure there was not even a little chance of having to do so. She didn't talk to Pierre anymore. She unfollowed everyone that could post anything about racing and banned anyone she knew of talking about it when she could hear it. 

Even the old scrapbooks she had with photos of Pierre, Anthoine and Juliette had been thrown in the attic of her parental home, to be never touched again by Sara. 

There was still a part of Sara that would sometimes sneak past the iron gates she had created to hide all her memories and feelings behind. This was one of those moments. A moment in which she was forced to look back. She had just been asked about the years leading up to this. The years of training while going to school. The years connecting with fellow youth, training to be the best in their sport.

The years with Anthoine, Pierre and Juliette.

But she couldn't right now. She needed to focus. This was the most important match of her life. This match would decide whether she would become an Olympian champion or not.

But her brain refused to turn off. It kept going and going down the rabbit hole of locked-off emotions and memories.

She blinked rapidly, hoping the years she had been holding for so long wouldn't spill out now. If she would start crying now, she wouldn't stop. 

"Sara?" Someone knocked on the door of the dressing room. "It's time." It was Fabienne, her trainer. It was time to step out of the dressing room and put her game face on. One deep breath and she would be ready. One deep breath and she needed to be ready. 

It was time. She got up, decreased her skirt and left the dressing room. She needed to forget them. 

xxx

"Fuck!" Sara fell to the floor. That was it. She had lost her gold. The tears started flowing. The stress of the past year came flooding out. The disappointment of not being enough. The pain of losing everything and everyone important to her. 

She sobbed loudly, unable to care about the cameras pointed at her. Her entire world kept unravelling, piece by piece. Winning the Olympics had been her one steady point for the future. Now that had failed as well, what was left but a deep black hole?

Arms wrapped around her as she was lifted off the ground and escorted off the field and out of sight of the cameras. 

"Hey, shh. It's going to be fine. There is always the next Olympics." Sara shook her head. "Yes, yes there is."

"You don't know that!" She yelled, Fabienne took a step back in surprise at Sara's sudden outbreak. "You don't know what will happen in those four years. And don't even give me that 'you were born to become an Olympic champion' crap. You don't know. We all thought Anthoine was born to become a Formula One champion and that did nothing for him when he got into that fatal crash. Fate wasn't like, 'oh shit, he still has to become a champion, we have to let him live', now was it?" 

Melissa had watched her daughter from a couple of feet away. She had seen her outburst and couldn't help but feel somewhat relieved, no matter how strange that sounded. She had been watching her daughter bottle all of her feelings about Anthoine's death up and was glad Sara was just throwing it all out.