Grief after losing a close friend and continuing to move forward

Grief and moving on shape Willa Ashford’s return to volleyball after Colleen Sherman, her closest friend and longtime partner, is presumed dead. Willa initially experiences another partnership as a betrayal of their bond; competing again becomes possible only when she recognizes that continuing to live and play can honor Colleen rather than erase her. The story complicates that recovery with the absence of a body and, eventually, with the need to build a future after Colleen returns from captivity.

A bond made into family

Willa and Colleen had played together since Willa switched to beach volleyball ten years earlier. Willa arrived with an indoor volleyball gold medal, but Colleen was the beach-circuit veteran who taught her the game. Their partnership grew beyond the court: they became as close as sisters, and a family tragedy deepened that intimacy. Their parents had traveled together to an event in Croatia when their small plane crashed into the Adriatic Sea. Both women were left without parents or siblings, and each became the other’s only family.

That history explains why Colleen’s disappearance was not an ordinary bereavement for Willa. Colleen had been the person Willa turned to when life became unbearable; losing her left Willa facing not only a friend’s death but the apparent removal of her most dependable source of comfort. Colleen disappeared while sailing with her fiancé, Corey Baxter. After a storm, Corey awoke with a severe head injury and Colleen was gone. Her body was never found, leaving Willa without the certainty or physical evidence that might have made the loss feel complete.

The unresolved absence persists in ordinary decisions. Willa made herself go to Colleen’s house every few months to clean it, but never considered putting it on the market. She later recognized that she may not have believed, deep down, that Colleen was truly gone. Corey wanted to stay there; Willa refused, though she felt guilty about the decision at the time. After learning what had happened, she was glad she had held that boundary. The house thus marks both the practical burden of grief and Willa’s lingering inability to treat Colleen’s absence as settled.

Leaving the court, and the cost of returning

After Colleen’s presumed death, Willa had no desire to play volleyball again. The loss nearly broke her, and she could not imagine taking the court with another partner. When she retired, she hung up her bikini and vowed not to look back. That choice was not simply a break from competition: volleyball had been central to her life for more than twenty years, and the person who had made its beach form feel like home was gone.

Willa did not, however, leave the sport altogether. She accepted an unpaid assistant-coaching position at a high school and found that she loved teaching. Her young players absorbed what she showed them, and she began to consider openings that might lead to head coaching. She had loved indoor and beach volleyball alike, and coaching offered a way to remain connected to both the game and the knowledge she had accumulated without immediately asking her to replace Colleen on the sand.

When Willa later agreed to compete again, grief returned as guilt. The prospect of taking the court with someone else made her stomach cramp; she felt that playing with a new partner risked disloyalty to the person who had been her best friend and family. In a conversation with Colt Fontaine, she acknowledged that Colleen would want her to keep playing and be happy. Willa’s recognition does not cancel her mourning. Instead, it gives her permission to understand that a continuing life is not an insult to a dead friend. She also saw that volleyball had belonged to her before she met Colleen, and that choosing to return was her own prerogative.

A legacy carried into competition

The immediate reason for Willa’s comeback was larger than personal ambition. Executives, sponsors, and donors from the organization overseeing U.S. beach volleyball asked her to compete in the tournament in Serenidad, the last opportunity for a U.S. team to qualify for the next Olympic Games. The country had dominated the international scene in recent years, and failure to secure a place would leave it without representation. After soul-searching and conversations with Victor Bello, Willa decided that the legacy she and Colleen had built was worth defending.

Finding a partner made the emotional question concrete. Willa and Victor reviewed potential players, but Tabby Hubbard entered the selection late, after Denise Salazar fell and broke two bones in her leg. Tabby was the best available talent and eagerly accepted the chance. Willa understood that individual ability could not guarantee a successful team: she and Tabby had only six days to develop the chemistry needed to face the world’s strongest competitors. Her doubts were sharpened by memory of a partner she had once considered impossible to replace.

Their early play shows how the new partnership develops through attention and correction rather than instant intimacy. Against Lydia Zeller and Suzette Nupiere, Tabby’s competitive streak surfaced when she challenged a line call on a ball she had expected to land out. The official pointed to its mark in the sand; Willa called Tabby back and signaled that she should let the dispute go and refocus. Their styles complemented each other, and they won in two sets. The moment gives Willa a role beyond grieving partner: she can read a teammate, steady the game, and help a new pair function under pressure. The later schedule treats the match as a test of their budding partnership, not proof that Colleen has been replaced.

Moving forward without erasing the past

Colleen’s return changes the terms of moving on. When Willa asks whether she will play again, Colleen says she does not know and needs time to adjust to life; she may instead finish the book she had been working on during her forced absence. Willa’s concern is not to demand a return to competition but to affirm that Colleen should play if she wants to. The question reverses their earlier arrangement: Willa, who once had to decide whether she could play without Colleen, now leaves the choice with her friend.

Willa, meanwhile, identifies coaching as her next step. Colleen calls it a good idea and recalls that Willa coached her through two Olympic Games. Willa deflects the praise, saying Colleen needed little advice, but confirms that she had coached before teaming with Tabby and loved it. The choice brings Willa back to the work she discovered after retirement, joining a long-standing athletic identity to a role that does not require her to reproduce the old partnership.

The book’s opening image of Willa and Colleen together at match point, defending their Olympic gold, supplies a final counterpoint to Willa’s period of presumed loss. Colleen’s familiar double-thumbs-up gesture recalls the one she gave before their first gold four years earlier. The gesture makes continuity visible: their shared history remains present in the way they communicate on court. For Willa, moving forward is therefore neither forgetting Colleen nor remaining frozen in the moment of loss. It means accepting new work, new choices, and even another partnership while recognizing that the bond which shaped her life still matters.