These Battered Hands

by Laurel Ulen Curtis

  Climbing the steps to the elevated performance platform, I looked to the apparatus rather than the crowd, the dull roar of its patrons sounding like the waves of the ocean. Louder it would roll in and softer out, over and over again as gymnasts around me set off their reaction with the biggest performances or mistakes of their lives.

  Floor music started up in the background, a melodic beat chosen by someone else to accompany and showcase their gymnastics. But I did as I always did, using it as my own and transforming my body to match its tempo and rhythm. The mood would change mine, but only in the artistic sense of my routine.

  Timing of a Beam routine is important, a predetermined length set and policed by the judges at each and every competition. That’s what marveled me about my method, moving at different speeds on every occasion, even from last night to tonight, all based on the background music. And yet, I somehow managed to adjust and recalibrate each move to meld into the other, making my end come at a reliably uniform pace.

  I greeted the judges with a salute and smile, stepping directly to the Beam in preparation for my mount and letting my hands hover. Once you touched the Beam your time started, and for me, a deep breath before that came to fruition was all important.

  I closed my eyes briefly and shut out everything else, settling both open palms on to the top and simultaneously opening them again.

  My feet left the ground courtesy of my arms, my press mount a perfect test of strength and body control in one.

  The slightly roughened brown of the Beam stood out between my hands as it was dotted with white, the remnants of chalk from gymnasts past telling a story of its own. Legs and feet and hands all touched that surface at separate times on purpose and by mistake, a grip to avoid a fall and scrunch of an unsure foot’s toe.

  With one squeeze of my fingers I lowered back to sitting, swinging one leg through the other and using a one handed back walkover to stand.

  Flourish and pizazz ended my movements by a flick of each hand, and my chin pressed high toward the ceiling. It’s one of the hardest things for a new gymnast to learn, not looking down at a narrow piece of footing that all but screams at you to.

  But that wasn’t the way to succeed, the way to feel steady and at home. The key was moving on four inches just as you would on the forty foot floor.

  I danced my way to the end up the line and pulled my feet together and my arms over my head. With one breath and swing, I set back into my back handspring layout layout series.

  Each skill ended with my feet resolutely on the surface, no bobbles or balance checks to speak of. The routine flew by, each moment blurring into the next as if I was performing it in my own gym for Nik’s eyes alone.

  With only the dismount left, I tapped a foot to the end of the Beam behind me and gulped one breath. Roughly sixteen feet extended out in front of me, waiting to be eaten up by precision and skill and a blind-eye type of courage.

  One foot in front of the other I moved into my round off back handspring combination and sprang off the end, looking to the sky in thanks when both feet landed on the ground and didn’t move.

  A sense of accomplishment rained down on me along with the noise of the crowd, but what stood out more than anything was the sound of Nik’s ecstatic voice.

  “Yes! Hell yes, Cal!”

  I caught the sight of another fist pump as I rounded the Beam to the stairs, launching myself off of them and into his waiting arms. He hugged me big before letting me go and looking excitedly into my eyes.

  “You did it,” he said simply.

  “We don’t know the score yet,” I reasoned, knowing that anything was possible and that feeling didn’t always translate into score. And the feeling had been nearly legendary. Knowing Nik was watching me, knowing he was invested in my success and happiness and everything that came from the two together, I had totally peacocked the shit out of it.

  But Nik was insistent, arguing, “You didn’t see what I just saw, Cal. I know the goddamn score.”

  I looked to the score strip as I heard my name called over the loudspeaker, the flash of the fifteen point four nearly bringing me to the floor.

  I knew my total score for the two days prior to this event, and I knew the standings of all the other gymnasts around me. A fifteen point four meant I had placed second overall.

  Disbelief buoyed my heart and leadened my brain, the discrepancy between what I thought was possible and what was making me nearly come out of my skin.

  Adrenaline surged when I accepted it, and I couldn’t help but squeal as it all set in.

  “Oh my God,” I shrieked.

  Nik nodded, a smile practically reshaping the features of his face.

  I wanted to stay in that moment and take it in, but a flurry of activity separated us, pulling me toward the center of the arena and the ceremony that ultimately named me as an Olympic Team member.

  I searched for Nik as it was happening, eager to see his face some more and share in the news, but the crowd swallowed him up and completely thwarted my efforts.

  It amazed me how two things could go hand in hand so well together and at the same time be the cause of one of the most monstrous internal wars of my life.

  The Coach and The Career.

  Two things destined to go together.

  But the way I wanted it wasn’t as intended.

  Two weeks back in the gym with Nik passed like the speed of light, and the eve of leaving for camp came before I knew it.

  I tried my best to rush through every day in the gym just to get to the nights. Time when Nik and I would tumble together like always, touches and kisses in between, and flirting all the way through.

  Every day I felt a burn, a fire that ate at everything I knew, setting it ablaze and threatening to make me rebuild.

  I thought I would be scared of the flames, the memories sure to burn down, trapped in place that couldn’t get out or be saved. I thought the heat of it as it encroached would make me cower in fear, that the change would feel unwelcome and cumbersome in an effort to start over.

  Instead, the danger felt like opportunity, a chance to burn it all down and start over in a way that rarely existed.

  Sure, material memories would be gone and my routine would change, but the world I created might have a chance to be bigger and better and all-together more well-built from the beginning.

  Gymnastics was the old house, and Nik was the new. Both felt like home in some ways, but while gymnastics was built on opportunity and the dreams of my parents, my feelings for Nik felt mined straight from the deepest tunnels within me.

  So when he asked me to go to the beach with him that night, I knew there was nothing I’d rather do.

  Not pack for camp or spend time with my parents. Not dream about the coaches and gymnasts I would meet or the opportunities I would be given.

  That night, all I wanted was him.

  My hands sank deeper into the cotton covered flesh of his abdomen, and the muscles tightened noticeably in reaction.

  His hand cracked the throttle to slow us as we pulled off on to the path and made our way to the back of the dune.

  I pressed my cheek harder into his back and inhaled his scent mixed with ocean like a drug. The sea and the salt clung to my skin and his, and the humidity of the night made my clothes feel sticky.

  Nik helped me from the bike before pulling my hand to his chest. “I can’t believe you leave for camp tomorrow.”

  His words were congratulatory but sullen, the mix sounding funny to my ears. I understood perfectly though, the very feeling swimming and swirling in my own gut at ten times the power.

  I didn’t know how to make choices or decisions, and part of me felt like it should be easy to have both.

  And if it had just been me and Nik in the world, it probably would have been. But it wasn’t just us, the circus that was everyone else hanging out conveniently just on the periphery.

  Nik helped me climb to the top of the dune, standing patiently in silence as my brain ran c
ircles around itself for long minutes. When I made no move to touch, no move to speak, no move to engage whatsoever, he finally sought to find out why.

  “What’s going on, my little Pea?”

  I shook my head at the nickname but smiled at the affection behind it.

  “I just…I don’t know. I can’t shake all of this inner turmoil, I guess.”

  “What’s bothering you?” he asked softly, pulling me to sit down next to him.

  Lightning bugs danced peacefully in front of us, and the sound of the ocean sang out a lullaby.

  I sank into the comfort of it and him, leaning over to rest my head on my shoulder as I spoke.

  “Everything,” I answered truthfully. I hadn’t only become this torn up recently. I’d always struggled with indecision and the demons in my mind. I’d just been covering it up a hell of a lot better.

  “Can you describe it?”

  He didn’t scoff or tease or make me feel like a statement so broad was a joke.

  He greased the path and eased the way, and he made talking about something I’d never even considered talking about before feel like the most natural thing in the world.

  He made me feel open.

  Scared the moment would pass, I forced myself to get it all out fast, practically piling one word on top of another until I got to the end.

  “I don’t take deep, heavy breaths just before sleep pulls me under. I think deep, heavy thoughts that cloud my dreams, awaken my mind, and muddy the blood in my veins. I feel insecure and unworthy and cyclically self-deprecating. Who am I to complain? Who am I to get trapped in the confines of my own head? I’m unbelievably blessed.”

  Picking up my hand, he laced our fingers and laid the back of it on his thigh. With a finger and thumb, he pulled my chin to him so I could see directly into his eyes.

  “Blessed and blissful are two very different ideas. Things don’t make you happy. Inner peace and bolstered self-worth do.”

  Understanding and acceptance swirled and swelled in the expression of his face, and the very same well-rounded nature that’d made me feel comfortable before made me snap.

  I just couldn’t wrap my mind around how he managed his thoughts and accepted my own as completely plausible no matter if they agreed with his or not. He didn’t have to feel it himself to get it, and I envied the ability.

  “How in the fuck are you so well-adjusted with two dead parents, and I’m fucked up while mine are very much alive?”

  He cringed slightly, and my own reaction didn’t take long to follow.

  “Jesus.” I dropped my head into the cover of my one free hand, lifting it and meeting his eyes again a few seconds later to apologize. “That was a terrible thing to say. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” He shrugged. “And it just is what it is. Internal battles aren’t always dependent on the external. If that was the case, all kids from broken homes would lead broken lives, and every nurtured child would flourish.” He shook his head. “That’s not how it works.”

  “But a broken past makes it more understandable.”

  “Nah,” he denied with a smile. “Just predictable and boring.”

  “I just feel like I’m sucked up in a tornado, spinning and spinning and hoping with all that I am that I’m gonna land somewhere soft.”

  He shrugged again, studying the rips of my hands and pulling them even tighter into his body.

  “I know you feel mixed up and abused. I know you can’t tell what direction is what, let alone which of them is right. But I think it’s just because you need to slow down and take everything one step at a time.”

  He smiled. “Love is like over splits. You can’t expect to give into it all in one sitting. But if you work at it, warm the muscles gradually, your body will eventually accept it as normal.” The bulk of his shoulder nudged my much smaller one lightly. “It might even feel good.”

  Love?

  The muscles in my throat seized and closed it off, shutting my mouth in a way that rarely happened anymore. I couldn’t form a response. Racing and racing, the words and sentences fluttered through my mind without making sense and with a flat-out refusal to slow down so I could make an attempt to figure it out.

  And as the moments passed, silence eerie and unavoidable, everything that was us came to a halt.

  All of Nik’s carefully placed and meaningful words—straight into the void.

  It was cowardly and immature and indirect in a way that was so unlike the two of us. When we disagreed, we did it, telling one another, schooling one another, or in my case, emphasizing the point with a slap or a shove. But I couldn’t bring myself to confront this talking point. I couldn't look at it, couldn’t listen to it, or accidentally touch it with a ten foot pole.

  I was leaving for training camp tomorrow.

  It wasn’t like I was off to war or anything, but it was a destination of isolation and distance. And it required a plentiful amount of focus that I couldn’t afford to sacrifice to thoughts and wonderings about him.

  He must have sensed my panic—it was hard to miss—and moved on without reproach or penalty.

  The more time I spent with him, the more I started to wonder if he had been to some kind of saint training.

  His patience seemed endless, the depths of its pool stretching all the way to the center of the earth.

  Wanting to give him something in return, some confirmation that he meant something to me even if I couldn’t find a way to say it, I leaned over slowly and settled my lips onto his.

  A breath left his lungs almost immediately, a mixture of relief and happiness and satisfaction.

  As much as we fought each other and as much as I fought myself, it all came down to this.

  A connection, tried and true and real in every possible sense of the word.

  Some people bring you peace and others mix it up, but what Nik showed me was that I had never really lived either.

  Safe but unsatisfied, gymnastics had been just that as the years passed—a place to be.

  I wasn’t content but I wasn’t scared either, and the combination of the two was enough to keep me there much longer than it probably should have.

  His hands moved to my neck, pulling me up and into his lap, a leg straddling each side and my lips firmly on his. He kissed and I kissed back, opening my mouth to him and allowing his tongue to take control.

  From turmoil to need, my belly shifted and coiled and begged me to give it some kind of absolution.

  Down the front of my shirt, his hands skimmed the fabric with care and reverence, hooking at the bottom of the hem and retracing their steps up when they did.

  The night was quiet and deserted, only the two of us and the sounds we made to keep us company. His groans fed my moans, and his touch mirrored the direction of mine.

  My hands went to his hips, and his followed suit, squeezing and kneading my exposed flesh with the pads of his fingertips.

  One hand left my hip to pull the shirt over his head, his skin clinging to mine with the damp of the air nearly immediately.

  We moved together and apart, friction heating the connection and making my entire body flush with need.

  He laid his shirt on the sandy ground and me on top of it, stripping my pants and panties in one smooth motion and kissing the path left exposed.

  My eyes closed as his tongue lapped between my legs, and the arch of my back stretched as though on a tightening string to the moon.

  The air around us shimmered, water droplets and lightning bugs and bright flashes of pleasure all mixing together to create one of the most impressive shows I’d ever been privy to.

  He stood, shoving his own pants down and rolling on a condom, and then settled back between the waiting space between my legs.

  His eyes held mine as he entered me slowly, his lips a scant millimeter off of the surface of mine. Our breaths mingled and mixed, concocting a new recipe of scent and sensation that I would forever associate with this moment.

  A slow burn built in my be
lly, sliding into my limbs and spreading into my chest with each thrust. In a test of flexibility he ran his hand down my leg to my calf and lifted, up and out to the side and around, until the center of that muscle settled fully onto his shoulder.

  My legs in a full split, I marveled at the feel of him, deeper and thicker and even more present in this position. I could feel his every inch, and he could feel mine, and the only thing that would have made it better was being able to admit that he was it for me.

  That the rest didn’t matter—not the things or the expectations or the people.

  He started to shake, and his lips met mine, urging me to find my pleasure faster before he found his.

  I pushed myself and fought it at the same time, wanting the ultimate high without wanting it to end.

  “Callie,” he whispered, desperately close to his climax. The seconds immediately after seemed empty, desperate to be filled with more words of declaration. Of promises, of dreams, of love.

  But I closed my eyes and let go, welcoming the freedom of my release as I orgasmed, screaming into the silence and breathing heavily into the shell of his ear.

  He groaned just as I finished, my peak driving him to his with laser like precision.

  I could feel him twitch and pulse inside me at the same time that my body held onto him and refused to let go.

  Breaths mingled as we came down, kissing and pecking and sucking at each other with gentle affection.

  His hands felt like heaven, and I’d finally gotten over the fear of using mine. They scratched and pulled at the smooth skin of his back, but he keened, relishing the feel and letting me know it.

  Brief moments turned into long minutes as he reluctantly pulled out of me and lifted his weight to the side.

  Looking into his eyes with the sky dark and glittering behind him, I felt complete.

  Until I remembered something.

  “I’ve just realized what we’ve done.”

  “You’ve just now realized?” he asked through a chuckle, smoothing the sticky hair out of my face and trying not to cover me in sand.

  “No, not that. I knew we were doing that the whole time.”