Head Over Heels

by Hannah Orenstein

  Normally, if Hallie were working on her own, Ryan and I would hang out. But I have nothing to say to him—not anything appropriate that I could say here, anyway. From the way he avoids me, I don’t get the sense he’s interested in speaking to me, either. So, instead, I do a little ab work until I panic that it makes me look like I’m peacocking for him. I get up and straighten up the supply closet, even though nothing is really out of place. I bounce lazily on the trampoline, turning back tuck after back tuck just because they’re simple and fun. I go to the bathroom and run my hands under the faucet for three times as long as I need to, just because I feel lonely and out of place in the one spot that’s always felt like home. I loathe everything about today. Nothing about this entire disastrous situation feels right—nothing.

  Eventually, I wander back into the gym and perch on one of the beams to watch Hallie condition with Ryan from a safe distance. After her shaky performance at Worlds last fall, Hallie returned to the gym with a powerful vengeance. She threw herself into her practice with dynamite energy, ready to shape herself into a better athlete. But this time, returning from Nationals, her spirit couldn’t be any different. Across the gym, she’s supposed to be drilling sets of reps on bars: chin-ups, pull-ups, and leg lifts. She dangles loosely from the high bar and works with sloppy form. If she cared about the outcome, she’d work better. Work harder. She’s throwing today’s practice away.

  I don’t know the specifics of the ups and downs of Hallie’s athletic career as well as, say, Ryan would, but I know enough: she was a supernaturally talented kid, and when her coaches said she had a real shot at an elite gymnastics career if she took training seriously, her parents made sure she had every advantage: a private coach at Summit, summers at training camps, a tutor so school would be more flexible. She always performed well enough in competitions to nab medals and level up. For Hallie, the Olympics probably never felt like a long shot. And now, to come so close and still worry you’re not quite good enough? That can’t be easy.

  I feel for her. I wish circumstances were different—it’s only human to need some time to rebound, recharge, and return with a better attitude. But time isn’t on her side, and if she wastes the next few weeks or months by sulking, she’s letting a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice wither and die. It sounds dramatic and unfair, but so is this sport.

  Hallie trudges my way, clutching her side and breathing hard from the workout Ryan just gave her.

  “Ryan says we should start with floor today,” she says.

  So, apparently, he won’t even speak to me unless it’s through her.

  “Sure, let’s go,” I say brightly, trying to lift her mood.

  “You want me to warm up tumbling first?” she asks.

  That’s our usual routine, but today, I want to try something different.

  “Actually, let’s hold off on that for now,” I say. “I want to go over the video of your Nationals routine together.”

  She groans. “Do we have to?”

  “Yes, we do, because that’s how we’ll know what to target over the next few weeks,” I insist, using my most authoritative voice.

  It’s often all too easy to feel transported back in time at Summit, and to lose sight of the fact that I’m actually a decade older than Hallie, but it serves me well to remember I’m in charge sometimes.

  “Let’s go, I have it on my phone,” I say.

  “I hate this,” she mutters. “You’re the worst.”

  “You’ll thank me when you win a medal on floor at the Olympics, okay?” I say.

  She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  We sit with our backs to the cool concrete wall and watch the routine on my phone screen. If it’s cringeworthy for me to watch her stumbles and mistakes again, this time with Jasmine and Barry’s sharp commentary playing in the background, I can only imagine how she feels.

  “Ignore the commentary,” I say, turning my phone on silent.

  To a casual viewer, Hallie’s routine gleams. She looks like a superstar dream. But to me, the mistakes are obvious: her leap series doesn’t hit the requisite 180-degree splits; there’s just a hair too much power on one tumbling pass; her poise drops as she loses energy toward the end of her routine. The second the video is over, Hallie pushes away the screen.

  “I get it,” she says darkly. “I suck.”

  “You don’t suck,” I retort.

  She pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on top, looking very, very small.

  “I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you,” I warn her. “You gave an amazing performance at Nationals, but you need to deliver an even stronger performance at Trials if you want your athletic career to continue. If you don’t use this moment to learn from your mistakes and grow, you might as well just quit now.”

  That catches her attention. She stares at me, dumbstruck and horrified.

  “Quit now?” Hallie repeats.

  “I get that you’re sad, I get that you’re jealous of girls like Delia and Emma, I get that none of this went the way you hoped. But you’re still here, in fighting shape, and you have the opportunity of a lifetime coming up in just a few short weeks,” I remind her.

  She sighs and doesn’t look at me for a long time. “I’m just afraid that it won’t matter what I do to prep,” she admits. “Like, what if I’m not good enough? What if that’s just it? Some people have what it takes, and some people don’t.”

  “You can’t think like that,” I say.

  “But what if it’s true?” she asks. “I mean, how many millions of little kids take gymnastics classes? And then, what, only four people actually make the Olympic team every four years? Come on.”

  She’s right, but I don’t want her to think that way. A failed Olympic hopeful probably isn’t the most convincing person to deliver a pep talk right now, but I’m the person she’s got. I fumble for the right words; I think back to the girl I was moments before competing on floor at Olympic Trials in 2012, and what I’ve so desperately wished I could have said to her. What I wished I had known.

  “There are no guarantees at all,” I say finally. “Not in gymnastics. Not in life. But you have to give this the best goddamn shot you have, I swear to you, because it’s the one chance you have.”

  Her lower lip trembles, and she buries her face in her knees.

  “Now get up,” I command.

  I stand, hands on my hips. For a moment, I worry that I’ve gone too far. She doesn’t move. But then she pushes herself off the ground to stand up. Her cheeks glisten with tears, and her chest rises and falls with emotion, but she’s here. Standing. Ready to work.

  MAY 2020

  • CHAPTER 24 •

  The calendar slips into May before I know it. Each day at Summit is tightly packed: Hallie’s schedule is dominated by heavy-duty practice and punctuated by appointments with a revolving door of professionals: yoga and meditation sessions led by Sara, acupuncture and massage by a team of sports medicine doctors I found at Children’s Hospital in Boston, visits from a nutritionist to map out her pre-Olympic meals. I give so many pep talks, I spend my lunch breaks Googling inspirational quotes. My nights are busy, too: I hang out at home with Sara, go out for drinks with Jasmine more regularly now, and visit Mom and Dad for dinner when they complain it’s been too long since they’ve seen me.

  I’m glad I’m mostly busy, because even with the little free time I have, it’s too easy to dwell on what happened with Ryan. The sadness creeps in during idle moments when I least expect it: I’ll be washing my hair in the shower when I realize how badly I miss kissing him. Or I’ll be waiting by the stove for water to boil when I get the urge to text him—and I can’t anymore. When I’m lying in shavasana at the end of yoga class, I should be relaxed. But instead, I rake over every memory I have of Ryan from February and March, trying to spot the moment I missed him betraying me. The last thing I want to do is let the weight of the breakup crush me. I have to keep moving in order to eventually move on.

 
; When practice wraps up on Monday night, I’m heading out of the lobby when I see a missed call and a text from Jasmine. I pause in the doorway of the building to read the message.

  Do you happen to be free tonight? Would love to talk to you. It’s important.

  I’m about to text her back when I hear a noise behind me—someone clearing his throat.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say, stepping outside into the warm spring night. It’s finally nice enough that you can get away without a jacket, and blips of music float by as cars drive past with their windows down. “Didn’t mean to block the door.”

  I turn and flinch. There’s Ryan, awkwardly ruffling a hand through his hair.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says.

  We’ve worked alongside each other just fine, but that’s the key word: “alongside.” Not with each other. Outside of communicating the essential logistics of Hallie’s training schedule, we’ve barely spoken two words to each other since returning from Nationals. I’m afraid that if I start, I won’t be able to stop, and I’ll blurt something embarrassing and emotional.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  That much, at least, I can manage.

  He moves past me toward the parking lot, then stops and turns.

  “Everything all right?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I just got a weird text, that’s all,” I say.

  I don’t tell him it’s from Jasmine. From what she’s told me, he and Dimitri are spending more and more time together. I don’t want whatever I say to Ryan to get back to Dimitri.

  “I hope she’s okay,” he says.

  He looks concerned, but he doesn’t move from his spot on the pavement. If our relationship had unfolded differently, I’d be able to tell him everything. He’d reassure me things would be okay. But now, ten feet sits between us, and it feels like ten miles. I know that neither one of us will close the distance.

  “Yeah, it’ll all be fine,” I say.

  I cross my arms and lean back against the door frame. He seems to get the message—I have nothing more to say to him. He waves good night and gets into his car. I wait until he drives away to text Jasmine back.

  I’ll come over now, I tell her.

  * * *

  I’m nervous pulling into Jasmine’s driveway. We’ve seen each other plenty of times since Nationals, but always in public—never at home. Together, we’ve split oysters and sauvignon blanc at a French bistro, shared a big veggie pizza at Stonehearth in the town center, and even met up on a Saturday afternoon to get manicures together (I rarely indulge in them, but she promised it would be fun, and I have to admit, it was pretty nice). There’s an unspoken agreement: we don’t hang out around Dimitri. I don’t know if he’ll be home tonight.

  I heave the gold knocker against the door and hear the pitter-patter of bare feet inside. Jasmine opens the door looking unlike I’ve seen her in years. Her face is free of makeup, so completely so that I can see the dark circles beneath her eyes and a blemish forming on her cheek. Her hair is unceremoniously pulled back into a low ponytail, and she’s wearing saggy gray sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. She looks both embarrassed and relieved to see me.

  “I’m so glad you came,” she says, pulling me into a hug. “Thank you so much.”

  I step cautiously inside. The house is quiet. “Of course.”

  “He’s not home,” she says, as if she can read my thoughts. “It’s poker night. He’ll be out for hours.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  I mean Oh, good, but I didn’t want to sound too enthusiastic.

  She leads us through the kitchen, where she pours me a glass of rosé to match the one she’s already drinking, and then into the living room, where we settle onto the ivory-colored sectional beneath the wall of medals. She pulls her feet up under her. On the glass coffee table beside us, a fragrant candle burns brightly.

  “I know we don’t really do this,” she says, gesturing at the couch between us. “Or at least, not for a long time.”

  A decade ago, there was nothing unusual about us spending hours in each other’s bedrooms, sneaking snacks and talking about the movie stars we thought were cute. But that was before London, before she got married, before we grew apart and grew up.

  “We can do this,” I say. “We’re friends.”

  She gives a small smile at the word “friends” and sips her wine. “Yeah.”

  “So…” I say, trying to prompt her.

  I don’t want to push her, but I know she didn’t call me over here just to chitchat.

  “I have news,” she announces.

  “Okay,” I say gently.

  I can’t help but race through the options: she’s not pregnant—she’s drinking wine—but maybe it’s something about Dimitri and Ryan, or her career, or worse, a health scare of some kind, or something terrible with her family.

  She gives me a nervous look and takes a deep breath, as if she’s psyching herself up to say whatever it is out loud.

  “I’m going to leave Dimitri,” she says.

  Her voice is low and quiet, as if she can’t quite trust that we’re really alone.

  “Oh my god, Jasmine,” I breathe. “Wow.”

  She nods. “I know. I haven’t told him yet. I need to get my life in order first. But… I’ve decided.”

  “How long have you been thinking about this?” I ask.

  “Part of me has known for a long time that marrying him was the wrong decision,” she explains. “It felt right at the time, but I was swept up by him, and I was so young, and I wasn’t thinking straight. He had a way of intimidating me—more so back then—and when he said we should get married, I wasn’t brave enough to say no. But…” She hesitates, then admits, “Part of the decision came from talking to you.”

  “Me?”

  I clap a hand to my mouth. I never hid my contempt for him, but I never outright told her to leave him, either. Meddling in a marriage, encouraging a wife to leave her husband—it all feels too adult for me. I’m way in over my head.

  “It started at Nationals,” she recalls. “At the bar, remember? Nobody has ever dared to tell me to my face that Dimitri is…” She stops short and scowls. “An emotionally abusive asshole. But you did. You know what he’s like, better than anybody.”

  “Not as a husband, though,” I say.

  “Even still,” she says. “Once you said it, I couldn’t ignore it. It gnawed at me for days afterward. Everything he had said and done over the years, I brushed it aside. But you didn’t, and it made me think that I shouldn’t, either.”

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Our relationship wasn’t balanced, you know?” she continues. “There was never a time when it felt like I had the upper hand, ever. It was always him. We were gymnast and coach and then husband and wife, but the dynamic between us never shifted. We were never equal partners, the way you’re supposed to be.”

  “I wondered about that,” I admit. “When I first heard you were together, I just… I couldn’t make any sense of it.”

  “I didn’t know how strange the relationship was,” she says. “I didn’t see how unhealthy it was.”

  “You deserve so much better than him,” I say. “I mean, nobody deserves him at all, but especially not you.”

  I’m relieved for her, but I’m afraid for what I’ve set into motion. I know that, on average, it takes women seven attempts to finally leave their abusive husbands for good. I wonder where Jasmine will go; I’d let her stay with me and Sara, if she wanted to, even though the prospect of Dimitri banging on our door late at night makes me feel sick with nerves.

  “I think I know that?” she says tentatively, like she isn’t ready to fully commit to the idea just yet. “I mean, I look at my life, and the only common thread throughout all the different parts—gymnastics, TV, marriage—is that Dimitri has always been right there behind me, making me feel small. Everyone else cheers me on. But with him, it’s always…”

  Jasmine falters, and her expression crumples.r />
  “Nothing is ever good enough for him. I’m not good enough for him,” she says. Her voice gets high and tight. “He says I’m too anxious, too sensitive, too mediocre.”

  “Maybe you’d be less anxious if he didn’t make you so anxious,” I point out.

  I don’t know if she even hears me—now that she’s started to spill how she really feels, she barrels on, spitting out the insults Dimitri has hurled her way over the years.

  “The dinner is late,” she recites. “And my cellulite is bad. I supposedly interfere with his schedule. I really don’t think all that is true, but no matter what I do, the comments keep coming… I thought marriage was about being on each other’s team, you know? But not mine.”

  She gingerly places her wineglass on a coaster on the coffee table and sinks back into the cushions with a hand pressed over her mouth to muffle her sobs. For a moment, her shoulders shake, and I reach across the couch to hug her. She leans into the embrace, and we stay like that for a long time. I rub her back and wonder, with a sickening feeling in my gut, what it must be like for her to prepare to leave the man she has been with for most of her childhood and the entirety of her adult life. I can’t fathom it. She is so incredibly brave—she always has been. I hold her until she steadies herself, returning to the normal rise and fall of her breathing.

  “I’m sorry for getting emotional,” she says quietly, wiping away her tears.

  “Please, there’s nothing to apologize for,” I insist.

  She shrugs.

  “You know, I’m here if you need anything—any help at all,” I tell her.

  “There’s a lot I need to figure out,” she says, sighing. “All my money is in a joint account, and I’ll need a place to live, and I need to find a good divorce lawyer. That stuff, I can do on my own. But maybe, when it’s time, you’ll help me pack up and move out?”

  “Of course,” I promise.

  She suddenly looks shy. “Or even if you just continue to be my friend, that’s more than enough, you know. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that we came back into each other’s lives. Really and truly just blown-away grateful.”