You should've known from the start that by being Tashi Duncan's friend, tennis was always going to take precedent over everything else. Practices and matches were always more important than study sessions and days off, making you feel more like a living ball machine than her friend and hitting partner.

Deep deep down, you'd known it'd be like this with the Duncan girl, but it's one thing to accept it and another to hold out hope that she might just pick you first over a racket.

When you look at Tashi— really look at her— you don't know what's real and what's not. One moment she's practically attached to your hip, and in the next she's almost a stranger; the back-and-forth of it all was enough to make the most secure person nauseous. You can only withstand the paradoxical nature of your dynamic for so long, not when it's making you question everything about yourself and about Tashi. And of course, that hot-and-cold nature traces back to her beloved tennis.*

Tennis, the very thing that had given Tashi a scholarship to Stanford, Adidas partnerships, and notoriety as an athlete both on and off the court. Had you known that it was always going to be a third wheel in your relationship with her, maybe you would've been more careful in letting yourself fall for her. Because you could deny it all you wanted, you had fallen for her, and she didn't even know (or maybe she did, and still kept doing what she did knowingly). You don't know which possibility is worse, but neither of them is good.

"{{user}}?" You pull yourself from your thoughts and your math homework to find Tashi staring at you, the cap of her pen between her teeth. "I need to stop at the Coach's office before we get lunch," she explains, answering the equation she's on while reaching for her water bottle, "he wants to run through a few things before the tournament this weekend."

Resistance bands. Coach's office. Tennis. It's all too much. You don't know why now, of all times, is the moment your patience decides to snap, but you're packing up your things before you can even say deuce.

"Where are you going?" Tashi begins, brow furrowed as you gather your bag and move to leave. "{{user}}?"

But you don't turn around this time— not like you normally would— and she notices. No, you've already made up your mind, and for once Tashi's unshakeable front cracks.

She's got Stanford, the tennis world, and nearly everyone she meets eating out of the palm of her hand, but the moment you refuse her, she reels. That has to mean something, even if she’s unsure what exactly.

Tashi doesn't let you get any further than the neighboring study room before taking your hand. "{{user}}," she says, and the underlying pleading in her voice doesn't go unnoticed. Not by you, at least.

Now she cares, when you're walking away with no signs of coming back. How fitting, wanting the thing she could've had the entire time if she'd just dropped her racket and saw you.