Letters to Nowhere

by Julie Cross

  Breathe (2 AM)—Anna Nalick (“there’s a light at the end of each tunnel, you’re just as far in as you ever were out”)

  Cartwheels—Snowpatrol (don’t read too much into this…just wanted to make you laugh)

  Something to Believe In—Parachute (whatever that may be)

  Extraordinary—Liz Phair (this requires full volume and jumping on your bed. go ahead, you know you want to)

  Keep Your Head Up—Andy Grammar (it’s okay if you listen to this while throwing darts at Nina Jones’s head)

  I’ll Stand by You—The Pretenders (because it’s true)

  Wonderwall—Oasis (I don’t know what a Wonderwall is but I love this line, “maybe you’re gonna be the one who saves me”)

  Name—Goo Goo Dolls (“did you get to be a star?”)

  Dirty Little Secret—All American Rejects

  Little Talks—Of Monsters and Men

  She Is Love—Parachute

  On a completely different note, if you don’t make the Pan Am team and you don’t end up on the beach in Rio next month, will you go to prom with me? Sorry that I don’t have a promposal song, that seemed too corny and I was already pushing it with the playlist.

  Love,

  Jordan

  After I put the headphones on and started playing the first song, I pulled my phone out to text Jordan.

  ME: Thank you! I love it. Listening to #1 right now. And yes…

  JORDAN: I had a lot more songs but I wanted to save a few for the next playlist

  ME: Tell me the truth…what’s the deal with Stanford?

  JORDAN: It’s not a big secret. I got in. I didn’t get a full ride like some people I know

  ME: Oh. I’m sorry

  JORDAN: Honestly, I never thought I’d get in or maybe I would have planned better or done something…either way, I have other options.

  Money. That was why he couldn’t go. Stanford probably cost a fortune. A lot more than Missouri State, that much I knew for sure. But Bentley had said they would figure something out. He wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t mean it. That was my impression of Coach Bentley, but maybe Jordan’s version of his dad didn’t come with the same kind of certainty, because he hadn’t looked convinced when Bentley said those words to him.

  But the look on Jordan’s face when he read that acceptance letter, it was like seeing a perfect moment from the outside. He could tell me a million times that it didn’t matter if he went to Stanford or not, but I’d never believe him.

  ***

  We might not have been in Houston at the National Team Training Center, but that didn’t seem to affect Nina Jones at all. She held the intimidation factor just as strong as ever when we lined up for her before our second workout today. The morning had been strength testing and basics and of course those lovely physicals that we all looked forward to.

  I had done very well this morning on my strength testing, despite my fading drive. It hurt to push myself through the press handstands and the leg lifts and all of it, but it was a different kind of pain than what had been crushing me the past couple days. And it was a short relief to feel something new. But tonight, I couldn’t find a reason to fight through this workout. To make myself stand out in a field of twenty–four of the best gymnasts in the country.

  “You nervous?” Stevie asked from beside me.

  “I’m just tired,” I said. “Really tired.”

  “Well, snap out of it,” she hissed. “I’m gonna be pissed at you if you so much as water down one single event.”

  I glanced at her, totally shocked, but I couldn’t respond because Nina had begun dividing us into groups. Stevie and I were together and Ellen and Blair in another group. Stacey went with the juniors and Bentley stayed with us. We had been assigned to start on vault.

  Bentley stretched our shoulders while we waited for Nina to join us with her clipboard. Panic crawled through my insides just seeing her stern face, her hand ready to make all kinds of negative comments in the notes we never saw. And the words, I can’t, I can’t…played over and over in my head.

  “I just want to do doubles today,” I whispered to Bentley, trying not to look at Stevie, whose glare I could already feel.

  He nodded and prepared to take his place closer to the vault table with the other coaches.

  “Henry’s girls,” Nina said, addressing me and Stevie. “What are you showing us today?”

  “I’m doing an Amanar, and so is Karen,” Stevie answered before I could stop her.

  “No, I’m doing a double.”

  Nina moved closer and lowered her voice. “Have you been working on Amanars, Karen? You did doubles at the last camp in February.”

  “I have, but…but…my shoulder’s sore,” I lied.

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Perhaps tomorrow?”

  I let out a sigh. “Maybe.”

  She walked off to the opposite end of the runway and Stevie leaned close to whisper in my ear. “Liar.”

  I ignored her and shrugged off her words. Bentley set the springboard for me and I got the go–ahead for my first vault. I landed it clean, with no steps or other form errors. None of the three National Team staff said anything to me, but they started talking about me before I even got off the landing mat.

  “Her height is amazing, but we’ve got four girls doing Amanars. She can’t beat those scores with a double,” someone said.

  I sped up my walk and focused on watching Stevie. She landed her more difficult vault with a big step forward, but I saw surprise fill the faces of the committee members. She had barely made a double around in February.

  Stevie Davis was officially back.

  I gave a silent cheer for her, because even though she had called me a liar minutes ago, she was still Stevie Davis, one of my favorite gymnasts ever.

  Stevie didn’t have as difficult a bar routine as I did, but she totally nailed it for the committee. I doubted they would use her on bars if she did make the Pan Am team, but every solid performance helped prove she was back in top form. I had warmed up the layout Jaeger, getting a few surprised gasps from some of the other girls in my rotation, but when Nina came over with her crew, I started to panic all over again. Three other girls went before me and I tried to visualize my routine in my head, but I couldn’t get past the layout Jaeger, I just kept missing it in my mind and landing face–first into the mat. And without even telling Bentley, I changed it back to my old, simpler piked Jaeger.

  I also missed quite a few handstands. Every time I cast up to the handstand, I felt myself falling over, and I stopped before hitting vertical because I didn’t want to completely miss the routine. We weren’t getting scores today, but I could practically feel the deductions adding up in both Bentley and Nina’s heads.

  “What happened with the handstands?” Bentley whispered as I peeled off my grips and prepared to head to beam.

  I let out a breath. “I don’t know. I couldn’t control it and I was going to fall over.”

  “Couldn’t control it? Or just didn’t think you could?”

  I felt terrible for making him look bad. It was one thing to try a new skill and mess up on it, and a whole different thing to screw up basics and look like someone who hadn’t been coached well on technique.

  “I’m just really tired,” I said as we walked across the arena. “Do you think I should leave out my tucked full on beam? I don’t want to miss it…”

  He clasped his hands behind his head and let out a frustrated groan and I felt even worse. “It sounds to me like you’ve already decided.”

  And with that, he walked off to help Blair and Ellen at bars while Stacey joined us at beam. I left out my tucked full when I performed for the committee and had virtually no other mistakes in the routine, but I knew for a fact that seven of the twelve senior girls had a higher difficulty score than I had on beam without the extra skill. I wasn’t sure how much that mattered because I didn’t watch everyone’s routine to see the execution, but with only four girls needed for beam at the Pan Am g
ames, I didn’t see myself falling into that group.

  Then on floor, I felt like I was only going through the motions. Stacey was on the sidelines during the whole routine, gesturing for me to raise my chin, to smile, to look like something other than a robot, but my legs and arms felt like lead, not the light flower I was supposed to mimic in my choreography. Nina stopped me after I finished my routine and told me I lacked artistry. I wasn’t sure how I could fix that by the next day, but I had a feeling my chances for the Pan Am team had just narrowed, and it seemed like my life was spiraling out of control. Instead of wanting to come back better tomorrow, I just wanted to crawl into my hotel bed and fall asleep so Nina’s grating voice could leave my head.

  Blair was on her phone in the lobby of the hotel when we returned from dinner, probably being forced to give a play–by–play of the entire evening workout to her overbearing mother. Grateful that I was still pissed off at my parents and couldn’t fall apart at the thought of not being able to call them, I went up to our shared room alone. After a quick shower, I flopped onto my bed and pressed my face into the pillow, falling asleep almost instantly.

  A little after eleven that night, the door opened and Blair finally came in. I squinted into the dark and then sat up quickly when I saw the person who had followed her into the room.

  “Jordan! What are you doing here?”

  He looked very serious and free of his usual amused expressions. “Blair told me you sucked today and I thought maybe…maybe…”

  “Maybe both of us could help you,” Blair finished for him. She sat beside me on the bed and Jordan sat on her bed.

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “I’m not sure how much I like the idea of you two talking about me when I’m not around.”

  “This is hard for us, too,” Blair said. “We had to plan what we were going to say. It’s like an intervention.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I promise I’m going to do better tomorrow. Stop worrying about me. It’s not like either of you can do the routines for me.”

  Blair nodded at Jordan, cueing him to give his speech or whatever. He took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together. I couldn’t help smiling, because nervous Jordan just might be my favorite version of him.

  “When you asked Tony to steal confidential files from the police department—which was kind of hot, by the way, totally CSI—” Blair narrowed her eyes at him and he shook out his head, refocusing. “—Anyway, what did you want to see? What were you hoping to find?”

  I figured that had been obvious, but I answered anyway. “I just wanted to know if they were in a lot of pain. If they were ripped into pieces like I kept seeing in my head.”

  A few tears spilled from my eyes, and I saw that Blair’s face looked identical to mine, and I started to think maybe she really was here to help me.

  “And what did you see?” Jordan asked, though I was sure he’d looked at the folder himself, along with Bentley.

  “They were whole people. The car wasn’t as smashed as I’d imagined.” My voice caught on the last words, and I tried to keep swallowing the giant lump in my throat.

  Jordan leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “I talked to Tony’s mom this morning. I told her you were having a hard time and you thought the details would help. She told me something that wasn’t in the report. The paramedics only took five minutes to respond and they were already gone. She said the autopsy determined that they were dead on impact.”

  “It was quick.” Blair barely choked out the words. “Most likely they didn’t even feel anything.”

  I nodded, trying to breathe through the pain myself, through the images of them just after.

  “I know that I told you the other day that I hated them, too, for leaving you,” Blair said. “But I didn’t really mean that…”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “I get why you said it—”

  “No.” She shook her head, cutting me off. “I mean I know they made a big mistake, but I can’t make myself only see their big screwup. Remember when we decided we wanted to try real golf and not miniature golf because we were professional athletes and all?”

  “Yeah.” I took a tissue from Jordan’s hand that he’d retrieved from the dresser in our room.

  “I think we were ten and eight, maybe,” Blair said. “And your dad gave up his entire Saturday to take us to the real course. He showed us how to hit the ball and then after, like, three holes we got bored and started tumbling all over the golf course and instead of getting mad at us for not paying attention, he decided to challenge us.”

  I smiled to myself, remembering. “Nobody in the world had ever done three back handsprings and then hit a golf ball.”

  “Right,” Blair said, nodding. “And we’d get so dizzy and then swing the club around and miss everything. Your dad thought it was so funny and he kept taking us around the whole course. Then we got to order lunch off the grown–up menu and you got oysters and ate one and nearly barfed and I got lamb and once I figured out that it was actually a sweet little lamb, I couldn’t eat it. And your dad let us get dessert even though we didn’t eat our lunch.”

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve, despite the fact that I was holding a tissue, and nodded. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “That was like the best day of my life,” Blair said. “You know how my parents are. So strict, so critical. And your dad let us try and screw up and he didn’t wait to teach us a lesson or anything. I thought he was the most patient dad in the whole world.”

  “He always let me get dessert when my mom wasn’t there.”

  “They made a mistake,” Blair said. “And you have to live with it, and I’m so sorry about that. But I came here to Chicago to see you prove to Nina Jones and Coach Cordes that they were so wrong about you. We need you to kick some ass for our sake. Stacey and Bentley need you to kick some ass. Stevie, too.”

  “Do you want it?” Jordan asked. “Do you want to make the Pan Am team and maybe go to Worlds?”

  And that was when I broke down again, not out of anger this time but because unfortunately that anger was beginning to fade, and now I was truly feeling how badly I missed them and how much I’d lost.

  My head was in Blair’s lap, and she let me cry for a long time. “I don’t know where to put them.”

  Jordan knelt down in front of the bed and brushed the hair off my face. “I thought maybe you were using that anger to keep you from facing everything. It’s easier if you hate them, right?”

  I sniffled and nodded. “It’s a lot easier. I just wish I could see them again for a few minutes, or imagine them somewhere great in my head. It feels so incomplete. And it feels wrong to go against what we decided, the plan for me to go to UCLA in June, but not accepting that they’re gone, being angry with them, it made doing what I want easier.” I covered my face with one hand. “It’s so selfish to want this, isn’t it?”

  “Karen,” Blair said. “Your mom worried about you so much. She talked to my mom about it all the time. Your mom was so proud of you, but she worried constantly that she’d led you into this big pile of disappointment and that when you were older you’d hate her for letting you throw your childhood away.”

  “But you don’t feel that way, do you?” Jordan asked.

  I sat up and took another tissue from him. “No, but I could never find a way to convince her that I only wanted to put everything into gymnastics, regardless of the outcome.”

  “She thought it was her job to see into the future, to make sure that you were making the best choices in the long run,” he said.

  Blair gripped my arm and forced me to look right at her. “She wasn’t wrong to worry. But she was wrong about what you were meant to do and so was Coach Cordes. I finally get what Stevie was trying to tell us that day after Cordes’s visit. You need to prove yourself right tomorrow. You have to. If there’s a way that your parents can see you, I just think it might fill some of the void that you have from losing them,” Blair said.

  I reached out and h
ugged Blair, both of us holding on tight. I could feel her crying into my shoulder and found myself doing the same.

  “I just want you to win so bad,” Blair said. “I can’t explain it, but it’s…it’s…”

  “Completely legal satisfaction, compared to actually murdering Nina Jones?” Jordan suggested.

  Both of us started laughing so hard we were crying again. We finally let go of each other and Blair stood up, wiping her entire face with the bottom of her shirt. The two of us could teach an anti–etiquette course.

  “I’m going to talk to Stevie and Ellen in their room,” she said. “I probably won’t come back until morning.”

  I glanced at Jordan and he just shrugged like they hadn’t planned this far into their intervention. He sat beside me in silence while Blair gathered up some stuff and left us alone.

  In a hotel room. Holy crap.

  Jordan kept his hands in his lap but turned his head to look at me. “Do you feel any better? Tell me the truth.”

  “I feel messy,” I said, laughing a little at the state of my face and probably my hair. “But yes and no. Like you said, being angry blocks out a lot of feelings, but maybe Blair’s right. Maybe there’s a way they can see me.”

  Jordan’s eyes widened and he pointed a finger toward the ceiling. “Like right now? They can see us right now? Because I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”

  I laughed even harder, feeling lighter than I had in months. “Maybe not right now.”

  “The past few days have sucked majorly,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t know how to help you, and I thought that’s why you liked me, and it almost seemed easier to back away a little in case you didn’t want—”

  I cut him off by wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing the skin below his ear. “You’ve helped me so much. You have no idea. I was so crazy for a while there and I thought maybe it was too much for you and understandably so.”