As the space between her and others grew wider, Lily turned inward, retreating into herself and the rhythm of her own practice.
She trained alone more often, running drills until her muscles ached and her lungs burned. The shuttlecock became a metronome for her thoughts, each swing and step a way to organize the chaos inside her head. Without teammates around, there was no chatter to fill the silence, no encouragement to soften the weight of failure. Every missed shot echoed louder than before. Every mistake carved itself into her mind as if it were proof of her unworthiness.
Some days, she wondered if she was punishing herself by continuing—if every extra set, every late-night practice, was a way of paying for mistakes she had never truly committed. She questioned whether the effort was a refuge or a trap, a place where she could finally be herself or a cage she had built with her own hands.
But stopping felt worse. The thought of surrendering control, of letting the shuttle fall silently to the floor, was unbearable. She could not bear the thought of fading into the background entirely, of being defined by absence rather than by action.
Training became the only space where she didn't have to explain herself. Here, there were no labels, no whispers, no assumptions. Effort was honest, unshakable, and undeniable. Pain had a rhythm, a logic she could follow, and improvement—no matter how small or unseen—reminded her that she was still moving forward, still capable, still alive in her own terms.
Loneliness hurt—but it also sharpened her. It taught her focus, patience, and resilience. It forced her to listen to the voice inside herself rather than the echoes of others' judgments. In the quiet solitude of the court, she found clarity she could not have discovered in the noise of the crowd.