And it has been. My routines have been on point, and what’s more … I’ve felt like performing. I love gymnastics, don’t get me wrong. But while on this tour, putting my body through the skills has kind of just felt like going through the motions. I’m ready for the next phase of my life. Except, with the last couple of tour stops, it’s almost been a rediscovery of the sport. I’m falling in love; gymnastics is romantic for me again. I get that floating feel in my stomach and my heart beats double time before I launch into a tumbling pass or sprint at the vault.
Nat’s attitude uplift seems to have done the trick, because Peyton is radiant tonight. She’s performing as if this is a real competition; playing it up for the audience like they’re the judges and she is hungry to earn a ten.
I have a feeling that’s how the rest of the tour is going to play, too. We are all refreshed and ready to show off after the holiday break. Having a few days at home, and then our short vacation at the cabin … they’ve given us a renewed energy. Coming back, getting on those separate buses, it was fun to hang out with the guys for a few nights. And it made it all the more fun when I finally got to see my wife again.
Right now Duke is wowing on pommel horse while Peyton floats over the bars, the dowels on the inside of her grips barely making contact before she launches into the next skill. She’s back and forth between the bars, her long legs flowing between them gracefully.
I’m mesmerized by the beautiful creature I get to go home to every night.
That’s probably why I miss the teenage girl who hops the barrier. The lights are low, the arena lit up with spotlights and cellphone cameras. There are pockets of darkness, and security misses her. I don’t even see her until she’s standing at the utility cables holding the uneven bars up.
And even then, my mind doesn’t grasp it. “Hey, what is that girl doing?”
I whisper this to Nat, who stands beside me. It seems like hours before she turns her head to look, before Ryan grabs my arm and pulls me out of the shadows where we were watching her.
“Dude, what the fuck?” His sentence comes out slow and drugged.
It’s as if my whole life, all of time, turns slow motion. My eyes won’t focus correctly, and I see her shake those cables. The steel joints of the bars creak, like nails on a chalkboard. The sound rings in my ears and curdles my blood. Still on the high bar, Peyton is unaware of the earthquake this teenager is causing. The slim girl, she can’t be older than sixteen, is forcing her whole body into the structure, knocking at the cables nailed into the floor and pulling at the safety apparatus that keeps them locked in place.
“Stop! Stop!” Nat shrieks and it wakes me from my state of shock.
The girl is still pounding on the uneven bars, and Peyton starts to wobble. Her body is fully extended on the high bar, her hands the only thing gripping the wood cylinder. People are screaming, shouting, and the sounds are barely hitting my eardrums. My feet move of their own accord, tearing up the ground between where I stand and where Peyton teeters on top of the bars.
The girl is throwing her body full force into the cable now, and where the fuck is security?
“Jared!”
Peyton’s pierced cry sounds through the arena and I’m throttling my body the rest of the way. And then I hear it. The unmistakable sound of metal snapping. Like the pin being pulled out of a grenade.
A horrific grinding sound fills the air, and the bars begin to collapse in on themselves. The girl watches Peyton and begins to throw her arms up in victory as my wife begins to fall from the sky.
Nat gets to the girl first, her instincts totally focused on taking down the person trying to hurt Peyton. She tackles her, wrestling her to the ground and pinning her hands.
I’m too far, just feet behind her, when …
Peyton’s hand slips as the bars collapse, and her forehead smashes into the bar she was just holding onto. I can see the consciousness go out, her eyes close and she seems to slump onto the falling structure. Her body crumples to the mat awkwardly, her head unsupported on her neck and slamming into the blue padding. Her legs twist, and they don’t look normal. There is a gash in her head and blood seeps onto the floor.
“Peyton! Jesus Christ, baby!” I reach her just as she falls, just as the bars start slowly falling towards us, tipping our way. I grab her, her small body cold and unresponsive.
The bars fall to the mat in a loud bang and a cloud of chalk dust. I can’t focus on it, can’t focus on anything but my wife passed out in my arms. I lay her down on the padding just beside the fallen apparatus, and check her pulse. It’s there, and she’s breathing.
“Thank God, thank God …” I’m mumbling to myself as I check each inch of her, stopping when I get to the wound on her scalp.
It won’t stop bleeding, and I tear off my shirt to press over it.
“Slut! You slut! Get away from her Jared, she’s just a slut!”
I turn my head, the yelling of this teenage girl just now registering in my brain. She’s spitting mad, kicking at Ryan who is dragging her away with his arms around her waist. She’s kicking at him, scratching his arms and baring her teeth. Security is behind him, just now grabbing her. Fucking finally.
My head can’t even process what’s going on with this girl, so I turn back to Peyton. She’s still unconscious, her slim body cold to my touch and a bruise already forming under the skin of her forehead.
“I need nine-one-one! Someone get help, a doctor!” My throat is hoarse when I finally get words out.
The trainer for the tour rushes to my side minutes later, and pushes me out of the way. I do all I can to stay close to her, to hold her hand and pour all of my emotions into just my fingers, hoping she can feel how much I love her.
“Help her,” I beg. “Help her.”
36
Peyton
Jesus Christ. It feels like I got run over by a fucking Mack truck.
The room comes shining through my eyelids bit by bit, the clean sterile smell filling my nostrils. Everything aches, except my bones and muscles feel like they’re in a haze, like I’ve been heavily drinking. Or someone drugged me.
I try to speak, but only a squeak comes out and my throat feels like I’ve swallowed half the Sahara Desert.
“Baby? Peyton? Oh my God, hold on …”
A fuzzy shape moves out of the corner of my eye, and I blink rapidly to clear the film blocking my vision. When I can finally see a little bit clearer, a hand holding a cup of water comes into view.
“Here, drink.” A straw is held to my mouth and I begin to suck down water.
It’s such a relief that I make a croaking, crying noise. Just sitting up and moving my neck strains muscles everywhere, the pain radiating through my head.
The cup disappears, and into view swings Jared. He looks tired and his eyes are red, the long top of his wavy brown hair disheveled. One side is matted, like he’d been sleeping on it.
“I’m so happy you’re awake.” He bends, touching his lips to mine in a gentle, but meaningful kiss.
“What … happened? Where … am I?” My speech is broken and quiet.
He takes a breath, picking up my hand and holding it in both of his. He drinks in my face, my body, my hands. He’s reassuring himself, and relief buzzes through his features with each inch of skin he looks at.
“I love you. I love you so much.” He kisses me again.
“I love you. What happened?” My brain is fuzzy. One minute I was up on bars, and the next thing I know, I’m lying in what I can only assume is a hospital.
“You’re at Great Lakes Medical Center, we had to bring you to the hospital. There was … there was an attack … on you.” Jared looks like he’s in pain with every word coming out of his mouth. “A teenage girl somehow got out of the stands and onto the floor, she was jealous of us … of our marriage. She wanted to hurt you; no one saw her slip onto the arena floor. Not until … not until she started shaking the bars, trying to pry the cables free.”
Shock
slams into my already bruised chest. “She was … she was shaking me off the bars?”
An image of me in a tree, falling and hitting every branch on the way down, comes to mind.
“She was in a rage, she wouldn’t stop shaking it until you fell. And then … she finally broke one of the cables free. The bars started to collapse, you fell, hit your head. You passed out, and so we brought you here.”
I start to cry uncontrollably, like a child who is scared and has no idea what is going on. “Am I going to be okay?”
Jared moves in close, cradling my head. “Oh shit, babe … I’m sorry I should have led with that. You have a bad concussion, some bruising and a cut they had to put six stitches in, but other than that, you’re going to be just fine. They wanted to keep you overnight for observation, but it’s about six am now so we should be able to go home soon.”
I cling to his shirt, glad I blacked out the memory of this girl trying to hurt me. She could have killed me. One snap of my neck in another direction, if the bars had fallen on top of me … Jesus. How could someone be so incensed that they’d go that far?
“Is she … did she get arrested?”
Jared cups my cheek, and I know he’s holding back. He doesn’t want to overload me.
“Tell me, baby. I can take it.”
He sighs. “Police have her in custody now, but since she’s a minor … she may only get away with a slap on the wrist or community service. They aren’t sure yet, it only all just happened.”
Fear radiates through me, and he can hear it when the heart monitor next to my bed starts to beep rapidly.
“Peyton, baby, calm down. It’s no use getting worked up yet, they haven’t even formally charged her. Don’t worry, we will do everything we can so that she’ll never be able to touch you again.”
“Why would someone do this?” I reach for any part of him I can touch, the need to feel safe so consuming it’s almost choking me.
I’ve never been attacked like this, never had someone feel such a strong amount of hate towards me that they’d want to do something like this. I haven’t been a saint, but I’ve never had the feelings that this girl must have. It’s terrifying, and my head pounds. I reach up, feeling the stitches along the very top of my forehead. My fingers hit the thread and I snatch them away, not wanting to think about what that black stitch looks like at the front of my scalp.
“It’s a mad world.” Jared bends down to kiss me again, and his lips fill me with as much hope as my body will allow me to feel. “But I’m always here, right here to protect you. I love you, baby. We’re going to be just fine. Better than fine.”
“What about the tour?” I look up into his eyes, getting lost in the molten chocolate.
“Why don’t you sleep now? Get some rest. We’ll figure it all out when you’re feeling better.”
As he says this, my eyes do droop. My head clouds again, and I really, really want to give in to the urge of sleep.
“Stay with me?” I’m half-asleep when I ask.
“Forever.”
It’s the last thing I hear before I give in, floating into the darkness.
“You look like a goddamn princess.”
Nat drops onto my bed with a bag of something that smells deliciously close to French fries.
I’ve just woken up from my second nap of the day, and my hospital room has transformed. Flowers, cards, candy and other gifts clutter the room. Jared has been reading the cards to me all day, messages from fans and friends. His family sent a beautiful fruit arrangement and I made him sneak me a chocolate covered banana.
“You bet your ass I am. Now give me those fries before my husband comes back and takes them away. He’s entirely too ‘stick to the rules’ during this whole thing. The nurses think he’s an angel.” I roll my eyes.
In reality, Jared has been an angel. He’s been by my side the past two days while they kept me in the hospital, they needed to do a full body CT scan just to be sure I had no internal injuries. He’s held my hand, watched bad TV movies, slept in a chair and pretty much hasn’t left my side. He’s held me while I cried, and I have no idea how I’d ever make it through this without him.
Nat hands over the bag, and fried goodness wafts up at me. I shove three in my mouth.
“How is everyone?” I want to know what has been going on.
“Worried about you. Worried about what will happen with the tour. No one expects anything, we all want you to make your own decision, but get better first. How’s the Jell-O been?” She gives a funny grin, and I know she’s trying to hide things and also make me feel better.
I stink-eye her. “My husband is the one who is supposed to gloss things over and make me feel better. You’re my best friend. You shoot straight. So tell me what’s really going on. Especially the investigation.”
I’m ready to hear all the details, and want everyone to stop handling me with kid gloves.
“Fine. Her name is Sabrina Melstro, she’s fifteen from Detroit. She apparently has had an obsession with Jared for years, and this was the first time he was ever near enough for her to get to him. She’s been planning the attack on you ever since she saw you guys kiss at that one performance. The wedding set her off more. Her parents say she has borderline personality disorder, and that’s probably what fueled her to have the break. The police have her in custody still, and we think they’re going to admit her to a psychiatric facility and place a mandatory two-year hold on her. Gail has been freaking out about the tour, but no one is opposed to foregoing the last couple of shows. Or doing them without you and Jared, if you give us your blessing. And …”
She pauses, letting all the information sink in. But I want to hear it all. “And what?”
“Sabrina’s parents would like to come see you and apologize.”
I let it all soak in, taking bit by bit and letting my brain digest it. I eat a few more fries.
“I’ll come back to the tour, we should finish it. We all started together, and I want to be there when Jared retires. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do anything, but I’ll be there. I … I hope that girl,” I can’t say her name, “gets the help she needs. I’m not ready … to see her or her parents. And I already told Jared I want a restraining order. I don’t care if she’s in a facility, I don’t want her to be able to get to us.”
My voice is final. I go back to eating my fries while an episode of The Price is Right plays behind us.
“I’m really glad you’re okay, Peyt. That was scary as hell. You’re my best friend, I could never lose you.”
She reaches out and touches my hand, and I can’t help but tear up. I’m so lucky to have these people in my life. I may not have been born into a family, but maybe I’m luckier. I got to choose the people who became my family, and for that I love them so much more.
“You brought her fries!” Jared appears at the door, his expression exasperated but happy.
Nat and I crack up into a fit of giggles before I pop a few more in my mouth.
37
Jared
I’m on edge and skittish as we walk into Madison Square Garden, my eyes scanning the crowd and every security guard waiting at the bottom. They’ve doubled the detail for this last show of the tour after what happened to Peyton, and still it’s not enough.
“Dude, everything is going to be okay.” Duke claps me on the back.
“You can’t know that.” I grip Peyton’s hand tighter and look down at her.
Hazel eyes stare into my own, scared and timid. My wife, the love of my life, has never looked this scared. It makes me shake in my gymnastics pants. I wrap an arm around her shoulder, holding her close as we all walk out. My teammates have made a barrier around us, walking with us in the middle as we enter, waving and smiling to the crowd. Peyton waves her hand too, and that gives me a little more hope.
“You’re the bravest person I know,” I bend down and whisper in her ear.
And she really is. It’s been two weeks since Sabrina Melstro shook her dow
n off the bars, two weeks since I held her in my arms unconscious. She stayed in the hospital for two days, and then we flew home to Texas for a week while she recovered. My mom came up to help for a few days, making meals and clucking over Peyton like a mother hen.
Sabrina is currently in a psychiatric facility, where she’ll stay for the next two years or longer. As long as it takes for a judge to deem her fit to live in the world without harming someone again. I have tried to let go of some of my anger towards her, after all it wasn’t necessarily something she could control, but it’s going to take some time. And Peyton … well, she can’t even really talk about it. She doesn’t want to talk about Sabrina, can’t even say her name, and won’t entertain any ideas of allowing her parents to come apologize. I don’t blame her, but I know at some point she’ll have to talk about it. Right now though, I’m giving her all the time she needs.
The tour postponed for a week, and then the rest of our teammates performed in three shows that we ended up missing. Fan mail, flowers and sweets have been pouring in, sent by my agent to the condo in Dallas. The fans miss her and are supporting her, and I just keep trying to remind her of that. It took a little convincing from Nat and I, but we got her back to the final show in New York City. She needs this, and deserves to be here for the final show. She deserves to hear the crowd chanting her name right now; she has stuck it out through this whole schedule and deserves to be here when she takes her final bow in the gymnastics world.
“PEYTON! PEYTON! PEYTON!” The crowd chants her name, and I nudge her forward out of the circle of our teammates.
She stands on her own, waving up at the people cheering her, and tears stream down her face. I know how nervous she was to come back out here, but this is more gratifying than my words ever could be right now. This world, these fans … they love her. They’ll miss her. She once told me that she got into this sport because of the love she felt from the audience, and I think parting with it in this way is the perfect bittersweet ending.
Grasping Air (Flipped Book 2) Page 17