The Accident

by Devyn Forrest

  The next morning was our first practice at the Seattle Eyser Athletic Academy. Chloe could sense how distracted I was, even at five in the morning, as I gathered my things for my gym bag and hobbled out the hotel door. “Maybe you won’t even see him,” she said.

  “I hope not. I need to stay focused,” I told her.

  “It’s totally understandable that he’s in your head,” Chloe said. “He might be your fucking dad and he’s just a few miles away for the first time ever.”

  The shuttle bus awaited at the far end of the parking lot. We dipped out beneath the overhang outside the hotel, and rain scattered itself across our heads. We leaped onto the bus, which was already filled with groggy Denver Athletics students. The Brotherhood lurked in the back. I locked eyes with Theo, and he gave me a firm nod. I wondered if this was just acknowledgment, or if it was a sign of something better, a switch in his thoughts.

  Maybe everything wasn’t so final, after all.

  The Seattle Eyser Athletic Academy had a similar structure to our school. It was stitched a bit higher into the mountains than the rest of Seattle, with a view of the city down below. This was almost ominous to me, the idea that you could lurk up there atop the mountain and see the sprawl of a city—but never feel a part of it. You would always hold the idea of the city at a distance.

  The school had been a university that had been abandoned, and then Rudy had started it back up as an athletic, academic high school. The moment I dropped out of the bus, I half-expected the skies to open up with lightning and thunder, and the ground to shake.

  Rudy Eyser, your daughter, is here.

  But nothing like that happened. I was just an ordinary, seventeen-year-old girl with sleepy eyes and an aching back. I said goodbye to Chloe, who ducked off to the swimming pool, while I followed Coach Jonathon, Mallory, Coach Jeremy, and Poppy to the gymnastics area.

  As we dressed in the locker room, Poppy cast me this horrible look. Mallory whistled to herself, probably conscious of the tense air, yet not willing to say anything and make it real. She knew she could get hurt in the process. Frankly, Mallory was such a lackluster gymnast, when compared to Poppy and I that she seemed just grateful to be there. She yanked the last of her bright red leotard over her shoulders and leaped out of the locker room like someone was chasing her.

  “You and Chloe had better fucking leave me out of your little fantasies,” Poppy blurted then.

  I arched my brow. “What are you talking about?”

  “Whatever you and Chloe said on the plane yesterday.” Poppy stepped a bit closer to me.

  Every single muscle on my body grew taut with panic, but I didn’t want to retreat. I lifted my chin. “We just wanted to check on you.”

  “Well, don’t,” Poppy spat. “I’m fine.”

  My heart pumped. I sensed her fake facade instantly. She drew her hands together and cracked her knuckles like she was prepping to fight me.

  “Regardless of what’s happening with the coach and I— I do know that I’m the better gymnast, Rooney. I can see it in your eyes. You’re trying to fuck with my head, aren’t you? You’ve decided to drop just exactly this low. It’s pathetic,” she spat and then shot out of the locker room with her ponytail like a violent rope behind her.

  When I reached the blue mat, I dropped my bag to the side. Coach Jonathon cut up beside me and muttered, “Poppy looks really strong and focused today. Do you want it more than she does, Rooney? Or is she going to rip it out of your hands?”

  I turned to answer him, but as I moved to the side, my eyes found a large framed photograph of Rudy Eyser hanging over the top of the glassed-in area where they stored gold medals and other school awards. In the photograph, Rudy Eyser wore his gymnastics uniform from the Olympics. He gazed out at the entire gymnasium with this immense pride, a young and powerful gymnast, his body toned and strong in the professional photographer’s lights.

  “She’s not going to rip anything out of my hands,” I replied to Jonathon.

  “That’s my girl. Now, go kick some ass.”

  I shot him a confident look that said I was so ready to do this. After a moment, I swept around him and padded over to the large framed portrait. The photograph was blown up and about ten feet tall. Down below, I just blinked up at it with this ache in the pit of my gut. You’re him. You’re the one who left me. And here I am, in your fucking world.

  I didn’t linger. There wasn’t time to just swim in my thoughts and emotions. I hopped back to the blue mat focused on the prize at hand, stretched out, and trained with Coach Jonathon for the next hour. As I leaped atop the balance beam, some workers came in and stretched out an enormous banner over the top of the gymnasium.

  It read: “NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS.”

  I looked up at it as my heart thumped harder in my chest. Everything just got real!

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Everything about that practice, and the one after it, and the one after that seemed to simmer with electricity. Now that we had finally reached the year-end competition, up against the very best athletes across the country, we had complete focus. We met for dinner that night in a side room at the hotel—a delicious feast of pasta, shrimp and bread, anything to give us that final boost of energy prior to the big event.

  The swimmers’ races were held the following day, that Friday, and that night, Chloe looked like she might keel over and vomit from the side of her dinner chair. I squeezed her arm and said, “You know I’m going to take breaks to come to see you race. I’ll be right there in the audience, screaming out your name. You’ll be deep underwater, but you’ll be able to hear me.”

  Chloe rolled her eyes. She had a drip of pasta sauce on her bottom lip, but it wasn’t the time to tell her. “I got a text from my mom. They’re just so excited for me,” she whispered, just loud enough that I could hear her in the crowded room. “I don’t want to disappoint them.”

  “You won’t,” I murmured. “Whatever happens, you’re going to kill it out there. It’s everything you’ve worked for all year long.”

  The moment I said it, I locked eyes with Clinton across the table. Since he was our top male swimmer, his three races were the following day, as well. His black eyes glittered as he stabbed his fork through his pasta. I met his gaze for a long time and mouthed, Good luck. My heart pounded at the thought of fooling around with the guys. I had to get my head out of the gutter for Christ's sake. Now was not the time to even think about that shit. I had to keep my focus on the prize.

  It didn’t matter—just like it didn’t matter that my potential father lurked somewhere around The Seattle Eyser Athletic Academy grounds. Nothing did except my brief minutes on the mat, and on the balance beam. Nothing mattered except the points I could rack up, in support of my career and the Olympics.

  Despite what I said aloud to Chloe, I was overwhelmed with panic for my Saturday meet, which meant that every syllable I spoke and every breath I took, every moment that passed seemed outside of time. There was also the added panic of Poppy. She had eased up since the previous fall, but she had been the reason that I had gotten a concussion and had to take several weeks off of gymnastics. She could have something up her sleeve, although it seemed that Coach Jeremy didn’t give her an inch. She had little time to do anything but come up with the odd insult. Either way, I didn’t trust as far as I could throw her.

  On Friday morning, I mapped out the schedule for Chloe’s races and shared them with Jonathon. “I have to be at the pool during these blocks of time,” I explained, looking up at him.

  I passed him my notepad and he nodded, with flat and somber eyes. “Are you sure about this, Rooney? Any minute you’re not here is a minute that you aren’t putting your goals in front of everything else.”

  “I have to be there to support her. It’s important. At least for the first one.” I pressed my palms together like I prayed.

  “Then go now. Her first race starts in twenty minutes. The backstroke.” Jonathon palmed his neck and blinked up to find
Mallory, in the midst of a stretch by the balance beam. “Mallory! Get ready. It’s just you and me for the next forty minutes or so.” Jonathon cut his eyes back toward me. They were filled with panic. “If you’re not back here in forty minutes, I will chop that ponytail right off your head. Do you understand?”

  I nodded and let out a laugh at his warning. I grabbed my tracksuit and swept it over my frame and then rushed out the door. The path from the gymnastics auditorium to the swimming pool was a rugged, busted-pavement path through thick pine trees. My tennis shoes crunched on old leaves and pine cones. Half-way through, I burst into a jog and hustled toward the door. When I reached it, I heard the pad of feet behind me and whirled around to find Zed. His grin was enormous. Had I noticed his facial hair before? Perhaps he had recently grown it. He looked older and rugged, there beneath the pine trees, and when I spotted him, I leaped forward, with every bit of adrenaline I had, and hugged him hard.

  “I saw you running here and I wanted to catch up,” Zed said. He broke the hug and wrapped his hands at the base of my back, just inches above my ass. This tender touch thrilled me, made me soft and supple. I tilted my head, but then immediately remembered—it was nearly time for Chloe’s race.

  “We have to go! Come on,” I said and grabbed Zed’s hand. I whipped us into the lobby of the swimming building a few seconds later. “We’re going to miss Chloe, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

  The moment we entered, we nearly stumbled headlong into a middle-aged man. I bucked back, my hand still wrapped tightly around Zed’s, and then gazed up into the eyes of the only man I hadn’t wanted to see that day.

  Rudy Eyser stood before me. He was early-forties, with black, curly hair, almond-shaped eyes that still seemed youthful and just as hopeful as they had in the Olympic photo I’d seen earlier. He was still broad and powerful. And when he blinked down at me, a confused smile crept across his face.

  “So sorry, sir,” Zed offered.

  He tugged me after him, but I held strong, kept myself there and considered what this was, what this meant. My father, Rudy Eyser. And his confusion, probably at how alike I was to his dead wife, was palpable.

  Sometimes, I just can’t help myself.

  “You must be Rudy Eyser, aren’t you?” I asked, almost gaping at him. I stuck out my hand, and he shook it on instinct. I wanted there to be some kind of leap in my belly, some affirmation. But it was just a normal handshake with a very important man.

  “That’s right. And you’re obviously from Denver Athletics. They must talk about me a lot there,” he said in a deep baritone voice. He glanced down at our tracksuits and beamed. “It was a great school to be a part of, all those years ago. It’s part of the reason I started this one. Couldn’t stick around Denver, you know—I wanted the ocean!”

  “Ah. You wanted the ocean,” I echoed, like an idiot in a trance. My voice was just a little too cold when my words left my lips, and Zed arched his brow at me—like, Why the fuck are you making fun of this really important member of the world of gymnastics? Which was a valid question. “Well, thank you for hosting Nationals.”

  I stalked after Zed. But Rudy called from the door and said, “I didn’t catch your name, by the way? You must be a gymnast. I can tell from the shoulders.”

  At the door between the steam of the swimming pool and the outer foyer, I whipped around and beamed at him. “You’re right, Rudy Eyser. My name is Zelda Parkington. It’s very nice to finally meet you.”

  I didn’t give him time to answer as I rushed into the swimming pool, yanked Zed as hard as I could across the pool and into the auditorium. That had been my spontaneous way of trying to confirm if he truly was my father or not and by the shocked looked on his face, it seemed to confirm it. When I swirled around, I spotted Rudy Eyser down below, looking desperate as his eyes scoured the crowd for me. I ducked low, my hands over my head. Zed guffawed and said, “You are normally weird, but right now, you’re being extremely weird. Who the fuck is Zelda Parkington?”

  “Is he gone?” I asked as my knees shook.

  “Yeah. He just stalked out of here. He looks like he saw a ghost or something,” Zed offered. His hand crept over my shoulder and rubbed at it, and it felt so tender, so loving. “You’re extremely tense, you know?”

  I heaved a sigh and whipped my head back up, just in time to spot Chloe on the far end of the swimming pool. She had on her black swim cap, her silver goggles, and she kicked out her legs and made her feet shake at the bottom. I swallowed and gripped Zed’s hand as hard as I could.

  I just revealed myself to my father. I just revealed myself to my father.

  Fuck, you’ve got this, Chloe. You’ve got this.

  Oh god, what have I done?

  Everything is different now.

  Chloe and the rest of the swimmers leaped into the pool and clambered up so that they gripped the little poles beneath the diving blocks. Maybe because I knew Chloe so well, I felt I could feel her intense focus, coming off her in waves.

  “On your mark—” the announcer yelled. Then, there was the crazy, ear-splitting beep, and they all burst off the wall and rushed into the blue. Immediately, Chloe was at the head of the pack. I tore up and jumped up and down with excitement as I called out her name as loudly as I could.

  The race was four laps long. It felt like it lasted both three hours and three seconds. At no point did anyone even inch toward Chloe, who eventually just swept ahead of everyone else and smashed her hand on the wall. She yanked her cap and goggles off her head and held onto the lane line and gave me a huge smile. I wrapped my arms around Zed’s chest and jumped up and down, up and down. He called Chloe’s name, also, and then turned his lips over mine and kissed me right there in the crowd. I stopped jumping and spread my hand across his chest to feel the thumping of his heart. When our kiss broke, I just stared into his green eyes for a while. They were the only safety net I currently had. I could almost feel the ferocity of Rudy Eyser, somewhere across campus, as he looked at the list of gymnast names.

  I felt pretty fucking sure that Rooney Calloway would ring a bell.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Back at the gym that late-morning and afternoon, Rudy Eyser didn’t appear at all. It was Poppy and Mallory and I’s last day of training prior to the competition, and nobody spoke except Jeremy and Jonathon, who blared so loudly that their voices took on an animal-like strength. Other schools’ gymnasts were also in the training area, and I heard accents from all over—Florida and Alabama, Maine and Connecticut, Chicago. I only knew because I asked. I had never heard such a variety before, and it shocked me that something as simple as a voice could have so many deviations. When I mentioned this to Chloe that night, over a celebratory dinner for her big win, she said, “You really didn’t watch much TV, did you?”

  I only nodded and smiled at her.

  Chloe was overjoyed. Although I hadn’t been able to make it to her other events, she said it was more than enough that I had seen her biggest win, the first one, when she had finished about six or seven feet in front of the second swimmer. “Somebody approached me about sponsoring their company!” she shrieked. “Do you know what that means, Rooney? It means money, girl. I would never have thought I would be approached so early on—like, a full year before the Olympics. Isn’t that crazy?”

  I knew that a few other students from our school had also been offered deals that paid out pretty well, due to their being featured on commercials, with sporting brands, on cereal boxes, or just on their Instagram as influencers. I was thrilled that Chloe had something like that since she was really one of the only athletes who actually needed that money.

  “We’re going to talk about how much it’ll be next week when they call me up in Denver,” Chloe affirmed. “But I can’t wait to tell my parents. If it’s enough, I’ll be able to pay off the last bit of my semester bill, you know? And they’ll be so much freer than they are now. It’ll be the biggest gift I could ever give them.”

  “You
earned it and should be so proud of yourself,” I told her. I squeezed her shoulder and beamed. I itched to tell her about what I had done earlier that day—that I had run into my father and let him know the truth, but right now, it was about her. I didn’t want to yank the light away from her day and bring it toward mine. Rather, I watched as she added another piece of pizza to her plate, while I ate my kale and chicken. She giggled and cracked jokes to Clinton and Ashley, who also sat at our table in the large dining room at the hotel.

  Just as I had suspected he would, Clinton had won all of his events. He wore three large gold medals around his neck and occasionally met my gaze across the table in this alluring, sensual, handsome way. He ate pizza just as heartily as Chloe, and teased her about her apparent rivalry with some girl from Tennessee, who had talked smack about her at the diving blocks.