I see his gaze drift over my shoulder, and I turn to follow it. Hallie is stretching in an oversplit—a split with stacks of mats under each foot and her crotch flush against the floor. She grabs the toes of her front foot and bends over to face her knee. The position requires superhuman flexibility developed over years, which sums up my point exactly. We all have to stay focused on our goal.
He sighs. “You’re right. I get it.”
“I’d still love to be friends, though, if you’re open to it,” I add. “Really.”
His expression is tough to read at first, but it ultimately crinkles into an attempt at a smile. “Of course.”
Me and Ryan, friends. There’s something about the idea that’s hazy and hard to picture, but maybe that’s because nothing about my future feels completely solid right now. I’ve finally saved up enough money to move out of my parents’ house, and I’m going to see an apartment this weekend. The idea of moving makes me feel hopeful.
“I’ll see you around,” I promise Ryan.
He claps his hands authoritatively and calls across the gym, “Hallie, how’s that stretching going?”
* * *
For the rest of the morning, Ryan and I stay out of each other’s way. I give him space while he works with Hallie on vault. When it’s time for me to take over on floor, he tells Hallie he’s going to head to the office to answer some emails.
“Tumbling, let’s go,” I instruct.
She warms up and practices each of the four passes we’ve chosen for her routine. After a hard landing, she sighs and rolls out her ankle, flexing her foot in different directions.
“Feeling okay?” I call across the floor.
She takes a few experimental steps, head cocked to the side.
“Yeah, yeah. That landing was weird, but I’m good.”
“Did you get a chance to see that doctor?” I ask.
“Dr. Kaminsky?” she asks. “Yeah. He checked me out.”
“What did he say? How are you feeling?”
She sighs. “Nothing major is wrong, but I can tape it up if it’s bothering me.”
“Did he order any texts? X-rays? MRIs?”
“It’s all fine,” she says. “I’m gonna tape up my ankle.”
She retrieves gauzy prewrap and athletic tape from the supply closet and sits on one side of the floor with her foot in front of her, methodically winding the materials around her ankle and heel to stabilize the joint.
I sit and join her. She silently fumes when the tape is too tough to rip cleanly. I help her pull off a long strip.
She bites her lip. “I know he’s a good doctor, but I don’t know… I kind of got a weird vibe from him. And my ankle really feels fine, anyway. So it’s not like I’d need to go back.”
Something about Hallie’s quiet, fidgety demeanor and insistence that everything is normal raises a red flag for me. She reminds me of Jasmine, back when we were kids, the way she’d pretend like Dimitri’s behavior on bad days didn’t bother her. She always cried later, when it was just the two of us. I remember the pressure to stay tightly controlled and focused on training, the way we would push down our feelings until we could barely notice them anymore. I don’t want that for Hallie.
“If something’s not right, you can tell me, you know,” I say slowly, choosing my words carefully. “I’m always here if you want to talk.”
She hesitates, glances at the door, and then back at me. Ryan is nowhere in sight. She absentmindedly picks at the edge of the roll of tape.
“Both times I’ve seen him, he examines my ankle and shows me certain exercises I can do to strengthen it,” she says. “But then he also says the reason I have trouble with it has something to do with my hips. So he has me roll down my leggings a little, and he holds my hips and watches me bend over.”
She doesn’t make eye contact. She keeps picking at the tape.
I don’t know enough about medicine to know if she’s describing a legitimate professional encounter or something far more sinister. But something feels off to me.
She pulls her knees up to her chest. “He’s a doctor,” she points out. “My mom was in the room with me both times. She didn’t think anything of it.”
When Hallie finally looks up at me, her eyes are bright and glassy with tears.
“It’s never okay for him to make you feel uncomfortable,” I say. “Not even if he’s a respected doctor, and not even if your mom is in the room.”
“Got it,” she says. She digs her chin into her knee.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” I say.
She shrugs.
“It might be helpful to tell your mom,” I suggest gently. “That way, she’ll be sure not to bring you back to him.”
I don’t want to pressure Hallie into saying anything she’s not ready for, but also, her parents should probably know—and I’m not sure it’s my place to tell them. I remember how daunted I felt at her age by the prospect of being vulnerable with my parents. But I wish I had been more open with them.
“Maybe later,” she says. “Not right now. And can you please not tell Ryan about this?” she asks.
She looks at me so expectantly, I don’t know how to say no.
“Sure,” I say, leaning forward to wrap her in a hug.
Hallie leans her forehead against my shoulder and lets me embrace her. I feel this odd wave of maternal instinct, and so I stroke her hair and rub soothing circles on her back. She exhales.
• CHAPTER 11 •
On Craigslist, I found a spare room in an apartment on the edge of Greenwood. The person leasing it, a yoga instructor about my age named Sara McCarthy, was two years below me in Greenwood’s public school system, though we didn’t know each other as kids. Normally, this would make me wary; I wouldn’t want a repeat of my disastrous date with Lucas. But as Sara gave me a tour of the cozy, colorful apartment, she didn’t ask any leading questions or pry for uncomfortable answers. She seemed both bubbly and relaxed. The apartment spanned the top floor of a duplex; the living room was painted an electric shade of purple, like Rachel and Monica’s apartment in Friends; the rent was affordable; the bedroom came furnished. I said yes on the spot.
A week later, I pack my things into the trunk of the Honda and drive across town to move in. Sara helps me carry my suitcases and laundry baskets of clothing out of the car and up the stairs.
“It’s fine if you smoke, just open the window first,” she says, miming holding a joint. “And I make kombucha every Sunday—you’re welcome to have some.”
I’m not particularly interested in either offer, but I appreciate her openness.
“Cool, thank you,” I say.
She jostles open the door to the apartment and leans one of my suitcases against the couch covered by an enormous hand-crocheted afghan. A pink yoga mat hangs in a nylon carrier on a hook by the coatrack, and a trio of creamy white candles rest on the coffee table.
Despite my protests that there’s no need for her help unpacking, Sara seems happy to. She brews us hot, fruity tea and carries it into the bedroom at the end of the hall—the one that’s now mine. She lets me have what is clearly the better of the two mugs, printed with a faded graphic of a cat wearing bejeweled cat-eye glasses and only barely chipped. She sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed and folds clothes into neat stacks for me to place inside the old-fashioned armoire by the window, chattering easily as she works.
“So, I’ll admit, I know who you are, obviously,” she says, pushing her hair behind her ear to reveal a constellation of silver stud earrings.
“Oh,” I say nervously.
Maybe I’d misjudged her.
“I mean, like, from years ago,” she says. “My little sister went to Summit and practically worshipped you from afar. She’d flip if she knew you were moving in, but I don’t know… You seem so normal? Is that a weird thing for me to say?”
“Um… I don’t know? A little?” I say.
I get the sinking feeling that I’ve just moved all
of my possessions into the home of a woman who sees me as Avery, the athlete, not Avery, the regular roommate.
“I’m sure your life has moved on,” she says graciously.
I’m grateful she said that—it makes me feel more confident that’s true.
“I just recently moved back from six years in LA,” I say, as if to prove that I’m not still the girl who grew up in Greenwood.
“I mean, I’m not the person I was a few years back, either,” she says. “I went to UMass for psych, but then I got pretty into yoga there, and that led to me getting my yoga teacher’s training certificate, and here we are. Just couldn’t stay away from this ex-ci-ting town.”
Her tone makes it clear she’s kidding.
“I teach at Mind & Body Yoga,” she explains, naming the yoga studio not far from Greenwood High. “Since I practiced there so often during summer breaks home from college, I couldn’t say no when they offered me a job. I gotta say, I’m jealous that you moved away. I wish I could’ve done something cool like that.”
“I mean, it’s kinda like you said, one thing turns into another, right? And then you wind up in a place you never thought you’d be? After my gymnastics career ended, I moved to LA for school, then stayed because of my boyfriend at the time,” I say, glossing over the manic years of partying. I’m not sure if she’d approve. “And then when that relationship ended, I didn’t have much keeping me there. So I moved back, and luckily, a coaching job opened up at Summit.”
“Okay, wait a sec,” she says, lowering her voice conspiratorially, even though we are the only people around. “Your boyfriend. You dated that football player, right?”
As soon as she mentions Tyler, it hits me that I haven’t dwelled on him in a week. I feel a little proud of myself for beginning to move on.
“Yeah, yeah, I did,” I say, trying to downplay it.
I turn toward the closet and hang up my parka so I don’t have to face her.
“That sounds totally major,” she says. “What was that like?”
Her tone sounds hungry for gossip, but I’m not in the mood to give it. I get why some people might be starstruck by the prospect of dating a pro football player, but having actually done it, the sheen is lost on me.
“Uh, lots of muscles, lots of sweat,” I say quickly. “But underneath all that, just the same old, same old.”
“Huh,” she says, chewing that over.
“We just grew apart,” I explain slowly, testing out her reaction. “We both changed. We wanted different things.”
She dramatically closes her eyes and places her hands together in prayer. “Preach, girl.”
I laugh.
“I used to date this guy who…” she begins before cutting herself off. She shakes her head. “You know what? No. He’s not even worth the breath it would take to explain it.”
“Fair enough,” I say.
I’m starting to like Sara.
I reach for the scissors on the nightstand to cut open my last box of things. We’re both quiet for a minute.
“Actually, I like this new guy,” I blurt, surprising myself, even.
“Yeah? Who?” she asks.
I run the odds in my head that Sara would have ever crossed paths with Ryan. Greenwood has just thirty thousand people, but he didn’t grow up here, and they seem to run in different social circles. I don’t think they know each other. I grab my mug of tea and sink down across from Sara on the bed.
“His name is Ryan. We work together.”
“Ooh… another coach?”
“Yeah. I actually sort of knew of him when we were younger, and I always thought he was cute. We work pretty closely together now—it’s just the two of us training this one incredible gymnast. We think she could have a pretty decent shot at making the next Olympics.”
“So has anything happened between you two?” Sara asks.
Right—she is not here to listen to my thoughts on Hallie’s athletic career. The question was about Ryan.
“We were work friends up until New Year’s Eve, when he invited me out to his friend’s party,” I say. “We kissed at midnight. And then… I don’t know, things sort of changed between us? I realized how much I liked being around him. It freaked me out. I don’t know.”
This is the first time I’ve ever told this story out loud, the first time I’ve had a person to tell it to. The events of that night have been playing on a jumbled loop in my brain ever since I left the party in Somerville, but that doesn’t make explaining what happened with Ryan any easier.
“Not a good kisser?” she asks, wrinkling her nose.
“No, not that. Not at all,” I rush to say.
God, how many times since New Year’s Eve have I imagined the electricity of our kiss? Sometimes, I catch myself daydreaming about it at Summit when I know I shouldn’t.
“You should go for him,” Sara says clearly.
“What?”
“You like him. So tell him that. Go out with him. Do something.”
I feel hot, like I’m under a spotlight.
“I can’t do that,” I protest.
“You can sit here in your discomfort, or you can step outside your comfort zone and try something new,” she continues, slipping into what I assume must be a platitude from her yoga classes.
“We work together. It’s complicated,” I explain. “I told him we probably shouldn’t do anything like that again.”
“Life is short,” she says.
She shrugs and scoots off the bed, then whirls around to face me. “We can be friends, can’t we?” she asks.
“Of course we can,” I rush to say.
“Good. I was hoping you’d say that,” she says, grinning. “I have to get going. The studio does candlelit yoga on Sunday nights. I’m teaching at six thirty and eight o’clock. Wanna join?”
I glance around the bedroom, which doesn’t quite feel homey yet, though it’s shaping into something that feels like mine. This apartment feels like a fresh start. I don’t want to leave it just yet.
“Maybe another day?” I suggest.
I don’t mean it. It’s the way I was raised—unless a workout involves a raised heartbeat and death-defying stunts, I’m not interested. Chanting mantras in downward dog doesn’t seem like it’d do it for me.
“Free classes on me anytime,” she says, heading around the corner into her own bedroom to get ready.
I sink onto the bed. First Summit, then whatever is going on with Ryan, and now this new place to live. For the first time in a long time, I feel the different elements of my life clicking together. I like this new life.
* * *
After Sara leaves, the apartment is quiet. I drive to the supermarket, pick up an armful of carrots, mushrooms, herbs, and rice, and make risotto for myself. Cooking dinner for one is an endeavor that requires a little too much time, energy, and money for what it’s worth, but I need to do something to keep my hands and mind busy. I have to focus on drizzling the pan with precisely the right amount of olive oil and dicing the vegetables the right way so I don’t have the bandwidth to think about Ryan. He’s been on my mind more than I’d like to admit lately.
I didn’t used to be like this—sappy, emotional, with a soft center. I used to pride myself on being able to block out distractions. It’s a necessary skill in gymnastics: when you’re four feet aboveground, balancing on a four-inch-wide beam, there’s no room to notice the trilling of another girl’s floor music or the flailing kid cartwheeling past you or the watchful gaze of your coach. There’s you and there’s the beam. That’s it. Tonight, there’s me and there’s this meal. I wish that could be it. My mind keeps circling back to thoughts I shouldn’t be having.
There’s nothing worth getting distracted from Olympic glory, least of all a crush—that’s what Dimitri drilled into me years ago. But the truth is that however deeply I know Ryan and I can’t hook up or date or whatever we were veering toward, I still want to kiss him again. I can’t stop thinking about running my fingers through
his hair and feeling his powerful hands pressing into the curve of my waist. I like him. I liked him back then, too, though I didn’t think I could do anything about it. Now, though? I’m not sure. I’m in a new home. It’s a fresh start. Anything could be possible.
• CHAPTER 12 •
Monday’s practice slips by in a flash. Hallie, clad in a blinding neon orange leotard sprayed with sparkles, whips through warm-ups and conditioning with alarming grit, charges down the vault runway like a sprinter, attacks her tumbling with gusto, and moves with an impressive sense of focus on beam. Nationals—the annual competition that brings together the country’s top talent—is one of the most important events of the year, and it’s just two months away. The upcoming competition sharpens the pressure. When Hallie’s moving in top form, like she is today, practice never drags. It’s impossible to look away from her.
She and Ryan have spent the final hour of the day together on bars, drilling her new Tkatchev–Pak Salto combo. It’s coming together nicely; right now, she can pull it off just fine, though she has some work to put in before the combination looks effortless. That’s the gold standard in gymnastics: making the impossible look not just possible, but easy. I’ve been sitting and stretching on the sidelines, watching Ryan tracking Hallie’s movements as she arcs through the air. His arms are outstretched; he’s ready to catch her if she falls.
“It’s six,” he says finally, after what must be her thirtieth attempt at the move.
“What?” she says, spinning around to look at the clock. She gapes. “No! I was just getting into it.”
“Time to go,” he says. “You know your parents like you out of the gym in time for homework.”
“One more?” she pleads.
He laughs. “One more. Then you gotta get out of here.”
“Avery, would you film this one?” she asks.
She likes to have video clips to post on Instagram—though, of course, only the most jaw-dropping ones actually get posted.
“Sure,” I say, digging my phone out of the pocket of my fleece zip-up and getting ready to record. “Ready when you are.”
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