by Amanda Grace
“Any sports?”
No. Sports cost money. “Uh, no. Not really a sports person, I guess.”
“See, Liv? You’re not the only human being in a five mile radius completely incapable of mastering a sport.”
“Gymnastics is a sport,” she says. “Quit acting like it’s not.”
“Sports involve balls or wheels.”
“Yeah, and we’ve established I have ovaries.”
I snort and her eyes slice over me, taking in my clothes, my unruly hair, my utter lack of makeup. I sit up taller and stare back, waiting for it. Anticipating the biting remark. She meets my gaze and we stare into each other’s eyes for a heartbeat longer than is comfortable.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing at me. Unless you’ve got balls.”
“Liv!”
She blinks innocently at Liam. “What? I don’t see why you’re so into her. You don’t normally scrape the bottom of the barrel.” She stands, her chair screeching across the tile floor I get to mop later. “I’ll wait in the car. The smell of cheap food is leeching into my clothes.”
Then she spins around, her perfect hair whipping around her shoulders, and strides out.
“Yikes. Sorry. She’s not usually like that. She’s just pissed at me and she’s taking it out on you.”
“Why’s she mad at you?”
He sighs. “I accidently stood her up on Friday night. And then yesterday I told her I’m kind of ditching our usual birthday plans.”
“Our? So you’re not just brother and sister, you’re twins?”
“Yeah. And we’ve always celebrated it together.”
“So why not this year?”
He pops an onion ring in his mouth, and I get the distinct impression he’s trying to buy himself time. “The thing is, I love my sister, but lately I kind of feel like the asshole mother bird who has to shove its kids out of the nest because they’re not attempting to fly.”
“That was very poetic of you,” I say as I reach over and steal an onion ring.
“I just thought she’d grow up and expand her horizons, but instead she’s kind of getting more and more clingy.”
Olivia Reynolds, clingy? That doesn’t fit my picture of her. She’s too confident, too self-assured.
He chomps another onion ring. “So, do you want to hang out tonight?”
I blink. “Tonight?” Thank god I didn’t react with what I’d wanted to say, which was—me? So maybe he did come here just for me. Not for his undying need for a greasy burger. I kind of expected Friday to be a one-time deal, though. Surely he has better prospects than me. It’s not like his school is gender-segregated.
“Yeah, tonight.”
“I work until ten,” I say.
I expect him to frown or react, like oh poor you, working late on a school night, but he just nods. “Oh. Sometime this week? Tuesday or something?”
“Uh, sure. I guess so.”
“Great,” he says, wiping his fingers on a napkin. “Where can I pick you up?”
A white-hot streak of embarrassment shoots through me. “I’d rather just meet you there. Uh, wherever there is.”
“Dorky’s,” he replies.
My jaw drops. “You like Dorky’s?”
Dorky’s Barcade is the closest thing to paradise for me and Carolyn. I set aside twenty dollars from every paycheck and take her there on Sunday afternoons, if I don’t have to work. We order a basket of grilled cheeses for five bucks and use the other fifteen on quarters. If I’m careful, we can spend two hours there, forgetting about our troubles. Watching my sister light up, laugh, enjoy herself in that place is what gets me through each week.
But I hadn’t really pegged Dorky’s as Liam’s style. They’re into old school stuff like Super Mario Brothers and Pac-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and they play ’80s movies. But now that I’m getting to know him, seeing past the football and the penthouse, maybe a place like that is totally up his alley.
“What’s not to like?”
“I mean, I love it. But I thought maybe you had … ” My voice trails off.
His mouth quirks up on one side. “What, like my own arcade?”
I crinkle my nose. “Sorry. No, I mean, better places to go.”
“No one is too good for Dorky’s.”
I grin. “I agree. Meet you there at six?” That’ll give me enough time to feed Carolyn dinner before I hand her off to my mom and walk down to the arcade.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” he says.
“Zoey, a little help?” a voice calls out. Rita. I glance up and realize there’s a line up at the counter. I’ve been so wrapped up in our conversation I hadn’t even noticed it.
“On my way,” I say, standing. “See you Tuesday?”
Liam picks up his burger. “Yep. See ya then,” he says, casual-like.
And as I walk away, I can’t help wishing it was Tuesday already.
Olivia
My floor routine is getting worse.
I don’t know how that’s possible, since I’m practicing non-stop, but it’s true. I just feel clumsier and more out of whack with every pass. Grace, fluidity, power … it’s all dwindling.
Two years ago, I was the best girl on the team.
Last year, I was one of the best. I was there to help make up the points when we were a little short.
But this year is different. The freshman are amazing, and I haven’t quite gotten back onto the same shape I was last season. I should have worked harder over the summer, instead of taking that trip to Europe with Liam and our parents. I gained four pounds and didn’t work out. God, I shouldn’t have relaxed like that.
I chew my bottom lip as I wait for Arianna to finish the cartwheel/back handspring/back tuck that ends her floor routine. She’s brand new to our team and already nipping at my heels. In this sport, age and experience isn’t a positive.
Swimmer Michael Phelps was in his twenties when he got all those Olympic medals. Meanwhile, the fantastic seven—the USA’s first gymnasts to win a team gold? Between fifteen and eighteen.
Not that I’m Olympic quality or anything. That ship sailed. A long time ago, much to the bitter disappointment of my mom.
I’m always disappointing her. And Dad.
And me.
There’s no way the football players over at Stadium High feel this kind of pressure. They seem to get better every year, rising through the ranks until they’re seniors, when they’re captains and quarterbacks and whatever else.
I’ve also sacrificed more every year. Every month. Every day. Just to be the best, and all I’m doing is freaking failing.
There’s one hazy memory I think of at times like this. I’m in the sunny breakfast nook at home, before we sold the old Victorian. My mom’s in the kitchen, bacon sizzling in a pan. I can’t see my dad, but I can hear the hum of an engine, and every few minutes he whizzes by on the riding mower. And every time he appears, he’s making a different funny face. Sticking out his tongue. Pulling down his eyes. Making a fish mouth.
Liam and I are across from one another at the little bistro table, and I’ve got a whole bottle of chocolate syrup, and I’m squeezing as hard as I can, hoping I end up with a more-chocolate-than-milk concoction.
I know the memory has taken on an unrealistic golden glow, the kind of memory one thinks of as “the good old days” without acknowledging that the old days sucked just as much as the new ones. I know my mom and dad probably started—or ended—the day fighting about one thing or another. I know Liam and I probably spent the whole afternoon with Anna, the au pair who spent more time with us than our parents.
But I know that in that one moment, I wasn’t thinking those things. I was laughing at my dad, so hard that I missed the milk entirely and dribbled chocolate syrup on the table. I know that I ate the bacon my mom cooked without calcula
ting how many slices I could have without topping my 200 calorie limit for breakfast.
It’s this stupid, desperate longing—this rose-colored-glasses way of looking backward—that makes it hard to concentrate on gymnastics, yet somehow makes everything I want seem more possible, too. Like maybe if I was happy once, I can get there again.
I blink away the memory and swallow an intense desire for bacon as I look back at Arianna. When she steps out of the way, I square my shoulders and move to the corner of the floor, ready to begin.
I’m already warmed up, but as I wait for Coach Vicks to finish talking to Arianna, as I wait for my music, I twist a few times, then hop a few times, trying to limber up.
I haven’t nailed this routine yet. The final tumbling pass throws me every time. And if I don’t figure it out soon, Coach Vicks will insist on me going with something simpler.
And if I simplify my routine, that means I can’t get the maximum points, and one of the freaking freshman will probably beat my scores. They’ll be the indisputable best.
And I’m not okay with that.
Coach finally turns away from Arianna and the girl bounds past me, her dark pony bouncing.
“You’re never going to finish that last rotation,” I call out to her. “You don’t have enough speed on your takeoff.”
She glances over at me, her face falling before she jogs away toward the uneven bars.
Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me? I close my eyes and take a deep, calming breath, pushing away all of Zoey’s accusations. I’m not a bitch. I was trying to be helpful.
I open my eyes, my stomach twisting. I nod at Coach Vicks, and she signals for a girl nearby to hit play.
The music starts as a low hum, but rises soon thereafter and the beat kicks in. I smile, that same blinding, toothy, fake smile I always use, as I raise my arms and flash them back and forth. Ever since I saw Bring it On I’ve wanted to refer to them as jazz hands, but that’s silly.
A moment later, I rock back and then accelerate forward in a burst of speed, flying across the floor. A cartwheel turns into a handspring turns into a back tuck, and I’m spinning in the air.
I land easily. It’s a combination I’ve done since the third grade. But it still makes my adrenaline spike, still gives me that surge of triumph.
I’m on top of the world.
I cartwheel into splits and throw in a bit of showmanship,
smiling and rocking to the beat. I roll backward, then I’m on my feet again. My hands flutter back and forth with the rhythm of the music and I pick it up with my hips, too, periodically pointing my toes. In competition, I need these moments to catch my breath and recenter myself before the big tumbling run.
I make my way back to the corner, then turn, rake in a deep breath, and take off again.
Cartwheel, handspring, back tuck, twist …
And I miss.
Down I go, slamming into the ground with so much force that I don’t stop there. My body tumbles one more turn, until I land face down.
And even though the wind has been knocked from my lungs, all I can think of is …
I failed.
Damn it.
I failed.
“Olivia!”
The voice is enough to make me squeeze my eyes shut. It’s the tone, really. The disappointment, laced with a tinge of anger.
A tone I’ve heard all my life.
I rake in another desperate breath as the burn in my lungs ebbs, and then I pull my knees under my body and stand up. Like I didn’t just slam into the floor at a million miles an hour.
“Yeah?”
“What’s with you?”
“I know,” I say, groaning under my breath. “I was short.”
“You were beyond short.”
I bite my tongue and nod. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t sleep well last night—”
“No excuses. You were off all last week, too. You want your spot on this team, you gotta earn it.”
My chest is still heaving as I try to catch my breath. Gymnastics has been a part of me since I was five. She can’t boot me. “I know, Coach.”
“Do you want it?”
I grit my teeth to keep from snapping at her. Jesus, of course I want it. I wouldn’t put myself through all this otherwise. “Yes,” I answer automatically.
“Then show me,” she grinds out. “Again.”
“Yes, Coach.”
And so I return to the corner.
And I start over. My smile is even more plastic this time, and I want to just skip to the end. I want to try that final tumbling run again and again and again, until I get it right and this burning anger and frustration in my gut goes away.
This time, as I reach the pivotal moment, I rake in the deepest breath I can and stare across the floor with a laser-guided focus. And then I explode. From my hips, my feet … I fly into the cartwheel.
And in that very first touch of my fingers to the floor, I know.
I know I’m about to nail it.
My body twists, turns, spins … and as the final rotation ends, as my legs extend, I’m not surprised to find the floor kissing my toes.
I’m not surprised to find my balance centered as my arms fling upward, as I finish with a grin. A real one this time. I just nailed the hardest routine of my life.
For the first time in a long time, triumph races through my veins, and I’m happy.
Zoey
I feel stupid as shit as I wait for Liam outside Dorky’s, picking the flaking purple paint off my nails. It’s Carolyn’s polish, some crappy two dollar bottle I bought her for her birthday a year ago. I had no idea how much it sucked until now.
Not like I painted my nails just for Liam. That would be stupid. I was just bored, really.
Luckily, the nail polish turned out to be a two-step boredom cure: ten minutes of painting, thirty minutes peeling it off.
We agreed to six o’clock, and it’s six twenty now and I’m starting to look like an idiot. I’m so pissed that I let myself believe he’d be here. Stupid. No one is ever there when they’re supposed to be. And I don’t normally give them the chance to disappoint me.
Stupid stupid stupid.
I push off the brick wall I’ve been leaning on and yank the strap of my messenger bag over my head. Liam Reynolds let me down. SHOCKER. The guy seems to get everything he wants, and I bet he has a lot of options. He probably ditched me in favor of some perfect girl from Stadium High with huge knockers and way less baggage.
I would literally kick myself if I could. For a second, back at Burgerville, I believed he was interested, and that was a dumb thing to do.
I stride down the sidewalk, not looking up until I’m at the corner. And when I do look up, there’s someone walking toward me, halfway through the crosswalk.
Liam.
Not gone, not forgotten. Here.
“Sorry,” he begins. And he actually looks sheepish, his full lips getting all puppy-dog frowny. “I was running late, and maybe I was a little excited to see you. So I may have been speeding. And gotten pulled over.”
“Bullshit,” I say, my guard still up. “That’s got to be one of the oldest excuses in the book.”
He digs into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out an amber-colored slip of paper that he thrusts at me. “Seriously. Those cops down on Ruston Way are not into apologies.”
I narrow my eyes, then yank the slip out of his fingertips. I unravel the paper, scanning over it.
Fifty in a thirty-five. One hundred ninety-two dollars, courtesy of Officer Glassman.
He’s not lying.
And I hate the warmth I feel in my gut as I hand the paper back to him, smiling for the first time in hours. “I don’t think I’m worth two hundred bucks.”
“I think you are,” he counters, shoving the ticket back into his pocket. Briefly,
I wonder what it must be like to shrug off a two-hundred-dollar expense. “And it’s my mission to make you believe it.”
“Riiiiiight,” I say, smiling flirtatiously. This … whatever we have … it’s okay, as long as I don’t get too invested. Let the rich boy take me out on a few dates, wine and dine me or however that saying goes.
“But I guess that’ll have to wait, seeing as I’ve made us late for a game of Donkey Kong.”
“A pity,” I say, not shrugging his arm off as he settles it around his shoulders. It’s warm and protective and feels stupidly nice. I forgot what it was to be wanted.
He steers me back in the direction of Dorky’s and soon we’re inside, assaulted by the sounds of dozens and dozens of video games.
“Want anything to eat?”
“I’m okay,” I say. “I had dinner with my sister.”
“I didn’t know you had one.”
He stops next to the change machine, feeding in a twenty dollar bill. The cup overflows with quarters, which he scoops up and hands to me, filling my palms.
“Yeah. Carolyn,” I say, shifting my hands so I don’t drop any of the coins. “She’s ten.”
He feeds in a ten dollar bill, then scoops up another handful of quarters and drops them into his own pockets. “Is she at Annie Wright with you?”
“No, Hilltop,” I say, before I realize it.
Shit.
He cringes. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. We, uh, live up there.”
“Why didn’t you invite her here with us?”
I study his face, my fingers still curled around the quarters, trying to figure out if this is some kind of pity offer. If he’s suddenly realized I’m legit poor and feels sorry for us. I can handle a friend, but I don’t need some guy rescuing me.
“Um, she was busy,” I lie. Carolyn would have loved to join us. Maybe I can save half these quarters for her, bring her down tomorrow.
“Oh. Okay. Uh, let’s go play. I bet we can beat the Simpsons game.”
I follow him, trying to shove all the quarters into my pockets without dropping any, wondering how it is that someone like Liam ended up in my life.