by Lucia Franco
This was another last-minute change from Elena. I only knew this because I'd had the same passes for almost a year. They were just a little more difficult, especially on my endurance and lack of kidney function. I tried to remain calm as I drew air into my lungs, but they were so tight that it caused me to breathe harder. I stomped in chalk and powdered some on my palms. Kova reached the other corner and it was my turn again. I waited, watching his eyes, then he turned to me and waved.
I swallowed back my nerves and sprinted halfway across the floor. I hurdled into a front handspring, flipping over and punching my feet together into the floor to rebound into a hand-free roundoff, then finally double twisting backwards to land. My feet pounded into the spring floor and I felt the impact grind down my spine. Kova was right there to catch my chest from leaning forward too much. A gush of air rushed from me and I started coughing.
"Are you okay?" he asked, a slight shadow of concern in his eyes.
"I'm fine," I said out of breath. I winced and grabbed the inside of my elbow. I knew vault was going to make it hurt. "I'm just a little out of breath. I'll be good."
Kova's eyes were fixated on mine. I shook my arm out like it didn't faze me, but the truth was, there was a burning pain shooting up my arm. "Okay, because you will need to add a front tuck to the end of the pass for bonus. You will also switch your first tumbling pass."
This time I returned the concerned look. He was adding a bonus front flip and changing my tumbling pass. I waited for him to tell me which new tumbling pass I would do.
"Coach Elena believes that after she watched the other countries perform, if we increase our difficulty right now, it could push us to first."
Thirty-Three
The four of us stood in a circle with our hands in the middle again.
Each coach told us what to do and where we needed to make small tweaks to our routines. Some coaches even suggested pointers to the others. We knew the risks involved with a last-minute change even though we were still prepared if it came to this. Stepping out of bounds, twisting an ankle, over rotating. Anything was possible if your body is out of sync for even a millisecond. We came together and discussed what we had to do in order to take gold.
"Ready, girlies," the smallest one said with the brightest eyes. She sounded like she still hadn't reached puberty even though she was fifteen. "On the count of three."
"One… Two… Three."
"Phenomenal Four!"
We split up and I stood to the side, cheering on my teammate. I was third to go in this rotation.
The music started and I watched as she began, holding my breath when she executed her first tumbling pass like it was second nature to her. I could breathe.
There was something about seeing someone else do a trick first that brought a sense of relief to me. Now I knew I could do it too. Seeing her skip and leap across the floor to the other corner and then complete another extremely difficult tumbling pass, one that even I couldn't do, made me feel even better the second time. I was eager to get out there and perform.
"Is it true?" one of my teammates asked. "Do you really need a kidney?"
I blinked, confused for a moment until I remembered that the world knew about my secret now.
I nodded hesitantly. "It's true. After the Games are over, I'm on a flight back home to start dialysis immediately."
Her eyes softened, but not with pity like I expected. There was a sparkle of admiration that caught me by surprise. My head tilted to the side.
"Wow," she whispered. "You're, like, really tough."
My cheeks warmed and I laughed, feeling slightly embarrassed. "I wouldn't say I'm tough, just hardheaded."
"Do you hurt? Like are you in pain now? You don't look like you are."
"Not really right this minute, but once I sit down and unwind is when I’ll start to feel the side effects. Everything tenses up and the pain sets in. It makes me feel like I'm an eighty-seven-year-old and strips me of me. Doing gymnastics numbs that feeling. It makes me feel like nothing is wrong with me."
She stared at me for a long minute like she was trying to figure me out. "When I heard the news, I didn't believe it. I honestly thought it was a hoax to drive attention. There was no way, not after I saw how hard you trained at camp with everyone. And then seeing you here? I still didn't believe it even though I'd read about it numerous times. Sorry if I'm being rude, but I had to ask. You just seem so…normal."
I am normal, I wanted to say.
I wasn't sure whether to smile or not, and that was because I wasn't sure how to feel. She wasn't pitying me, she wasn't being cruel about my illness, she was genuinely curious and somewhat in awe. It was kind of a…normal conversation.
I glanced at my chalky toes and allowed the smile I wore to hide the imperfections and sins of my personal life tug into a real one. I looked back at her.
"You're not being rude. I was just caught by surprise is all. I've kept it a secret for what felt like forever and then suddenly everyone knows overnight."
Her eyes widened. "Yeah, I can see that now." She began to frown.
"Don't feel bad," I said, trying to reassure her. "Really, I don't mind."
"You seemed out of breath when we were practicing earlier."
My cheeks warmed again. "I was. The shortness of breath is daily for me and kind of annoying. I'm missing like seventy percent of my kidney function which means I'm depleting all my stored energy and oxygen at a much quicker rate. Sometimes it's hard for me to catch my breath when I'm in the zone, my chest gets all tight and sometimes I get nervous thinking I'm going to have a panic attack from it."
She stared at me, a little disturbed. I averted my gaze to the floor where a gymnast was completing her final pass. "Well, that escalated quickly." We both laughed. "As you can see, I don't talk to people a lot about this."
I was so awkward about it. I'd have to work on my rambling if I was going to respond to questions from others.
"It's all good in the neighborhood."
"When I crash tonight in the room with a pillow over my head, don't worry. I can breathe just fine, so don't pick it up. I'll be recharged by tomorrow, well, ah…" I hesitated. "If I make it that far."
She gave me the thumbs up and smiled. "Done. And you totally are, at least for vault anyway."
The classical music we all performed to ended with a round of applause.
"Wish me luck." She smiled over her shoulder.
"Good luck," I said enthusiastically.
Just before her routine ended, Kova strode over to me. His arms were crossed in front of his chest as he watched. She'd completed her last-minute adjustments with ease and perfection too. I was next.
"Excited to watch me?" I asked, the implication was obvious. I was in a really good mood.
Kova tried not to look at me, but I could tell it was a challenge by the squint in his eye. I knew Kova liked to watch me perform on the floor. He dropped his arms behind his back and grabbed his wrist.
"You think changing the tumbling passes will really help?"
He wavered back and forth on his toes and heels. "I do. USA is very close to being first. We may not make it there in this rotation, but with everyone's upgraded skills, I believe we will in the last event." He paused for a moment, then lifted one shoulder. "Well, I am sure we all here believe that," he said more to himself.
I cracked my knuckles. The floor music ended and my heart beat spiked. Butterflies swirled in my stomach and I inhaled slowly. I loved floor, but it'd always caused me a little trepidation. There were many risks involved in doing gymnastics, but I didn't really ever feel like I could become paralyzed on the other events as easily as I could with floor.
"This is for you, Kova," I said, and stepped up the stairs to the floor. I saluted the judges then walked to the center of the floor, taking my stance. I positioned my arms like a delicate swan out to my sides and exhaled before I bent over and dropped my head dramatically.
Five seconds later, I began. I lost myself
in my element, flouncing from one corner to the next in a sequence of whimsical leaps and delicate jumps. There was no faking the smile on my face—I truly loved performing on the floor. I danced the way I felt, so alive and free. As I made my way to the corner for my first tumbling pass, I took a deep breath and turned around, counting the music in my head. My heels met the edge of the tape and I brought my hands down and rose up on my toes. With my last-minute change, Kova stood in the corner that I was running to simply for peace of mind.
I turned over my roundoff, punching my feet out of the wide back handspring and set the first flip, rotating in a snug twist. I decided midair I wasn't going to add the bonus leap like Coach Elena wanted.
Spotting the ground, I landed with the force of ten times my weight into a graceful lunge and smiled from ear to ear. Or, as Kova had once put it, "Become a gentle ripple in the ocean when you lunge." I’d made fun of him for that one.
My arms spread out as I danced to the next corner like a feather billowing through the air, my toes hardly touching the floor. I could see Kova from the corner of my eye make his way to the opposite corner to spot me again. It was silly, if I really thought about it. The comfort of a coach triggered bravery for the athlete to attempt something outright intimidating. A lot of gymnasts chose to have their coach nearby. It was the psychological part of the sport. Kova couldn't step onto the floor, but just knowing he was there made all the difference.
Kova dipped his chin once. I counted the music beats in my head and hurdled into the center of the floor to do the front flipping tumbling pass I warmed up earlier. Forward flipping was more terrifying for me, not to mention, exhausting. It took a lot of energy out of me. I stepped into a front handspring and dug deep. I pushed away any type of mental and physical fatigue and ran on autopilot, releasing every ounce of energy I had left in me. I knew this series of flips were worth more if executed properly. It was why I didn't do the bonus jump a few seconds ago. I wanted to conserve my energy for this tumbling pass.
My figure breezed through the air, defying gravity with completely straight body twists every three seconds until I reached the corner. I paid attention to the tightness of my muscles and centered my hips in rotation. Feet punching the ground in the blue spring floor, I immediately rebounded with the bonus jump and then stepped into another front handspring without taking a breath and into a roundoff, a full twisting layout, and then flipped to the other corner in a series of back handsprings to complete a double layout.
Rippling like a wave, I smiled and let out a huge gush of air as my fingers fluttered for effect. I could faintly hear the crowd clapping and cheering, but I wasn't sure for who. My lunge was completed with finesse and ease and then I was skipping around the floor until my last tumbling pass came. It was a simple one, a double twisting double back.
Counting down the beats, I drew in a breath and leaped to the center of the floor to finish my floor routine with a flare from the ground, my body contorted like a pretzel. My heart was racing so hard my chest physically hurt.
As the music came to an end. I exhaled and held my position, then I was standing up to salute the judges twice.
Panting, I spun around and clapped my hands excitedly as I exited the floor. Coach Elena was waving her flag in the air. Her excitement was contagious and I found myself smiling in return. Guess she wasn't too mad I skipped out on the extra points. All those around her watched her cheer with the crowd, her pride obvious. Floor was always so much fun to watch.
I stepped down right into Kova's arms and pulled my feet up behind me. The smell of his cologne lured me closer to his neck. I wished I could give him a little kiss on the lips to the ending of a great routine. I'd performed my heart out for him and I could tell by the way his fingers pressed into me that he was indebted by the gesture. He hugged me tight to him as he took a few steps. He said something in my ear, but I didn't catch it.
Kova released me and my teammates came running. As much as I loved training at World Cup, it would've been nice to have camaraderie like this when we competed together. The girls got dressed to rotate to the final event, but my body was too warm to put clothes on just yet.
My breathing labored a bit. I took huge breaths when I knew I shouldn't because I just couldn't help myself. I paced the floor waiting for my score while holding my neck. Time always slowed waiting for the numbers to populate. Inhaling, I could feel the low-pitched wheezing sounds in my chest as I struggled to pull air into my lungs.
I stared at the screen and I didn't blink. Goose bumps broke out over my body as the black, bold letters finally appeared.
My lips parted. I held first place for vault, and now I was in third highest overall for floor too. Now I had medals for two of the four events.
A sated smile split across my face. Now that I had the third highest floor score of the entire meet, Team USA was only five tenths of a point away from gold.
Easy peasy.
Maybe Kova had been telling me the truth all this time. Maybe I do work really well under pressure.
Thirty-Four
Once we rotated, I sat down on the floor to remove the tape from my ankles just as Kova squatted in front of me.
He didn't speak. He was waiting to wrap my wrists for me. After I balled up the tape from my ankles and dropped it into my bag, I glanced down at my hands and my brows furrowed. Kova reached for my fingers and turned my wrists over. He inspected them the way I had. He pressed gently and flexed a digit back. They were much more swollen than normal, and my fingers were puffy. This could've easily been from how much of an impact my bones took today, though.
I took my hands back and shook them out. I looked ahead, acting like it was normal, then gave Kova my wrists again with steadiness this time.
Kova ripped a piece of tape with his teeth. I asked, "What did you say to me when I got off the floor? I didn't catch it."
He was quiet for a moment. Kova didn't raise his head to look at me, he just kept winding fresh white tape around my wrists.
"What did you say?" I asked again, leaning closer to him.
"Nothing."
"Yes, you did. I heard you."
His nostrils flared. "It was nothing."
Now wasn't the time to push, but I had another idea. "What's tomorrow night?" I whispered.
"Tomorrow night," he said, more so under his breath, "is when you and I are going to be alone to finally talk."
Somewhat accepting of that response, I glanced around wondering how he was going to pull that off with my family here.
I shelved that thought for later. I was starting to get a headache from everything I’d been shelving lately.
This was the final rotation, and then we'd know if we got back what we put in. We were holding the silver, and as much as I wanted gold, I was still very pleased with second place.
"I can't believe it's almost over," I said, wonderment in my tone.
Kova's lips twitched. "It goes by fast. All that time and work for one day."
"Yeah."
He wrapped my palms up next. "How are you feeling otherwise?"
"Great," I said, and shrugged. "I'm really great."
I was really great, and happy.
I drew the chalky air into my lungs for it to revive me one last time. Kova finally lifted his eyes to mine. My thoughts were quickly forgotten when I caught view of his smile. His lips were pressed together and there was a flirtatious glow that surrounded him. I found myself giggling just as a photographer took a picture of us. There was news media everywhere we turned, but they weren't allowed to interview us or call our names. All they could do was video record and take photos.
"Why are you laughing at me?" I asked.
Kova shook his head. "The way you said that, I am not sure what I found so funny. Maybe it was the sound of your voice." He paused, then said, "Great. I'm really great," the way it sounded to him, and I erupted with laughter. "You did not respond like I expected."
My smile widened. "Oh, and how's that? Like I'm goin
g to talk about how stressed I am? We both know that. How my nerves are totally shot and I can't stop shaking on the inside. I don't want to be a broken record today."
He studied me, then he stood and held his palm out. I pulled on my cotton wrist wraps and Kova guided the grips to my ring finger and middle finger, slipping them through the little holes.
"Everyone is going to be watching you," he said, engaging in a conversation.
I was the last one to compete on the team, with my routine being the highest in difficulty. Once my score was added into the team’s final score, we'd know what place we'd finish in, but that didn't mean it was the medal we'd receive. If we did.
"I know," I said softly.
"You should be proud of what you accomplished to get here, and that your routine is the hardest one here." He nodded and spoke with his lips hardly moving. "The others who competed before you had either the same starting score as you, or were close to it. From the looks of it, the one who was in the lead, her routine was adjusted at the last minute, or she lost the difficulty points during execution. Which means, you are a full point ahead of her."
My eyes lifted to his.
"I could take the lead in bars."
Kova's hands stilled. We both understood the magnitude of this moment and didn't look away. My chest housed a wild frenzy of heartbeats at this realization. I couldn't contain the smile that started spreading on my face.
I licked my chapped lips. "I can do it. I know I can."
Kova moved onto my other hand. "I do not want you to think when you are out there. I just want you to let your body take over—it knows what to do, trust it. Do not overthink it. We will do our standard warm-up like always."
I glanced around his body. The other girls were warming up with their coaches. We would be up soon.
"Okay. Okay. Okay. I got this."
He looked into my wide eyes. "If you secure this event, you will be headed into the all-around tomorrow. Too many mistakes on beam from gymnasts after you that you are surprisingly still in the running for a spot tomorrow. Between vault and floor, I have a feeling bars is going to be another medal for you."