These Battered Hands

by Laurel Ulen Curtis

  There wasn’t enough time for me to have a meltdown and do what I was supposed to do—which meant I needed to pick one.

  We had a week to get to know one another, to mesh and jive in a way where our support was unconditional. We were used to competing against each other, but we’d be expected to be cohesive in the team competition and lift each other up.

  But I didn’t even want to be in the gym anymore, each day feeling like nothing more than a rigorous chore rather than the absolute privilege it was.

  I thought again to the country-long line of muscular, vertically challenged individuals.

  A ridiculous amount of girls would have traded all of their worldly possessions to be here, and I couldn’t even find it in me to be thankful.

  That kind of selfishness disgusted me even as I couldn’t stop it.

  “What’s going on with you?” Jillian asked when I slammed my hand into the chalk bucket for the fourteenth time.

  I hadn’t exactly been a Chatty Cathy with any of the girls, but Jillian was the first to cross that dreaded line into crazy person territory. There was only one current resident.

  And that was me.

  My head dropped forward and pulled at my shoulders. Eyes clenched closed tightly, I took a minute to take a deep breath so that I wouldn’t snap at her.

  “Is it that obvious?” I asked her, looking up from the chalk into her twenty-one year old face and the blond hair that surrounded it. Her hair was in a messy bun on top of her head and pieces fell out from the gathering, splaying and curving down each side of her face.

  A smirk pulled at her lips, skewing her features to one side and immediately cluing me in to what kind of person she was.

  “Only if you’re the chalk bowl. Or watching you. Or in the same building. Or, I guess,” she shrugged, “alive.”

  A smart ass. She was a total smart ass.

  For the first time all week, I smiled, the sound of someone poking fun at me like music to my ears.

  I laughed. “I just…have some stuff going on in my personal life.”

  I wanted to talk to someone about it, but I knew I couldn’t tell her. The very last thing I could do was tell anyone.

  “You have a personal life?” she scoffed as her body went back on a step as though I’d shoved her.

  A startled laugh nearly turned into a chortle before I got control of it. She’d somehow hit the nail on the head without actually knowing any real information at all.

  “Wow. I guess you’re right. The problem is sort of in wanting one.”

  Her gray eyes narrowed, and I could practically see the wheels turn in her head as she calculated.

  “Well, today’s almost over. You should probably just give up,” she suggested, ripping off the velcro of her grips and tucking them into one another. “I’ll give up with you. We can go condition instead.”

  I turned to face her fully, smiling with my eyes and letting one corner of my lips pull up in solidarity.

  “I don’t think, in all the speeches I’ve ever received, anyone’s ever suggested that giving up is the answer.”

  She waved it off with both hands. “They obviously haven’t seen you in this state.”

  I shook my head and looked to the other end of the gym where Coach Banning worked individually with one of the other girls. The decision didn’t seem possible, the fact that I was already walking a pretty thin line with the coach and committee weighing heavily on my mind, but in the end Jillian made it for me. She packed her grips away and gestured that I should do mine, and then began the walk over to the floor.

  She pulled a mat over, crab walking it from side to side in order to be able to manage it herself, and slammed it down, the crack echoing and rippling through the gym until everyone looked on. She ignored them beautifully.

  I needed her to teach me how to not care what people thought.

  I was constantly considering what my parents and coaches and the media would think, often going beyond consideration and caving as a means for cohesion. And when you let people grow accustomed to compliance, it’s virtually impossible to escape that expectation when you finally decide to have a mind of your own.

  I was learning that the hard way.

  Gesturing for me to go on one side, she went on the other.

  “Come on,” she demanded with a wave of her arm, sinking into an oversplit with ease.

  I smiled again, a small bubble of laughter just peeking out from the opening of my lips. “You’re demanding.”

  “I’m your friend.”

  Nik’s words rang soundly in my head, the idea of giving in to Jillian and her friendship kind of the same as the way he told me to think about love.

  Calmly, I sank down on the other side, settling into the splits both figuratively and literally, and this time I didn’t feel the need to go slow.

  Because I’d been warming the muscles for a while now, and the stretch didn’t seem to burn nearly as much.

  I could have a friend here. I could have Nik at home.

  For the first time at camp, I felt like that might be true.

  For the first time here, I didn’t feel so—

  Alone.

  I’d spent way more time than this in way more isolated situations.

  And yet, with Callie away at camp, I was literally feeling like I’d never been on my own before. Eating meals felt like a chore and tumbling at night wasn’t even an option. Normally, that was one of the things that helped me. Helped me piece together philosophical meanings and distinguish right from wrong.

  Greased the wheels of my emotional discord and made my whole system work again.

  In this case, I wasn’t sure what was cause and what was effect. I felt mixed up and emotionally incomplete without Callie around to prove to me what felt right and what felt wrong. I would have used tumbling as a way to sort all of that out in the past.

  But tumbling nights weren’t my thing anymore. Not since she snuck around to watch me, and certainly not since we’d made love on that very floor.

  Now they were our thing.

  And so it seemed the solution had become a part of the problem. A stalemate of sorts where the only key was miles and miles away at Olympic training camp.

  I’d considered sending her an email or a message, desperate for some kind of contact, but in the end thought better of it.

  She’d asked me for space before she left.

  The least I could do was respect it.

  I’d been coaching some of the younger kids while she was away, and they were fun and dedicated to the sport. Talkative and loud and not at all flirty.

  Which was a very good thing.

  Adaptable to change and altogether amenable to all of my instruction, they made my job easy.

  I was thrilled to know that Callie was coming back tomorrow.

  Besides missing her challenge in the gym, I’d just missed her period.

  Somewhat manic in my excitement, I searched for something to do. Something that made me think of her but left out the whole knife twisting in the chest. Motorcycle rides and trips to the beach considered and quickly rejected, I finally ended up here.

  A swirling red and white pole twisted outside, and bad fluorescent lighting buzzed and hummed overhead.

  A hipster-looking guy approached the chair behind me, unfolding a piece of fabric and looking me in the eyes through the aid of the mirror.

  The plain black cape ruffled and rustled roughly in front of me as he shook it out, floating onto my lap and settling like a blanket over my body.

  Around my neck it tightened, the feel of hands hooking it at the back of my neck and the way they had to weed through the hair making it even more obvious what I was there to do.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed when the barber asked what I was after again. “Short.”

  A decision made on a whim out of boredom and loneliness, I knew the results wouldn’t go unnoticed.

  And assuming that notice came from the right person, there was a definite appeal.


  “Been growing it out?” he asked, finger combing through it with curiosity but keeping his opinion tucked well beneath the belt.

  I looked at the long clumps of hair, the way they clung to the side and the front and did it in large numbers.

  I remembered Callie admitting how stupid she thought it looked, and how she’d somehow managed to make me feel like that was a good thing.

  “Not on purpose,” I admitted and justified all at once. I’d never been conscious of its appearance before, but Callie made me that way.

  It wasn’t about vanity though. It was something more. It was about a combination of laziness and escape, hiding behind the hair and the curtain it provided for my protection from the outside world. I got less attention with it long and loose and stupid looking.

  Cutting it off was like opening up an invitation to the wolves and admitting that I was ready to handle whatever happened as a consequence.

  It was a good analogy for the way I’d handled my relationship with Callie, hiding and settling and accepting both milestones and rejections as they came.

  But I wanted to be done with the rejections, even if that meant my belief and tenacity had to live inside my mind and heart temporarily.

  I watched as he cut and combed, hacking at some sections with what seemed like a machete and selectively trimming at the very ends of others.

  A transformation took shape, the grieving kid my parents left behind falling away to reveal the son my mom was proud to have.

  All at once it felt like more than the hair, spiky and neat and unobtrusive in its positioning.

  Out of my face and eyes, it cleared my vision in more ways than one. I could see what I needed and wanted, staring me in the face and demanding to be taken.

  I didn’t feel inhibited by obstacles. I felt free.

  Free to take what I wanted whether her universe wanted me to or not.

  When Callie came home, she wouldn’t just be on her way back to the gym and her family and a coach who cared about her enough to let go.

  She’d be coming home to a guy who loved her enough to hold on.

  And I’d do my best not to—

  Let go.

  Camp finally behind me, I had the opportunity to move on—go in a direction I wanted if only for a little while.

  And the direction was clear.

  I was homeward bound.

  An already normally welcome concept, today’s version had me damn near beside myself.

  I couldn’t wait to see Nik even if the way we’d left it was awkward. I couldn’t wait to hug him even if as I was leaving I’d pretty much told him not to. And I couldn’t wait to bask in him and his affection for as long as I could get it.

  I’d worried briefly that he wouldn’t forgive me or give me the opportunity to make up for my mistakes, but the truth was, that wasn’t Nik. He wasn’t the kind of guy who held grudges.

  What he was, was the kind of guy who understood me inside and out, even when the things he had to accept were my misgivings and transgressions.

  And I was fully committed to making it up to him. I planned to do my best to show him how I felt without holding back and questioning motives and calculating consequences at every turn.

  I didn’t expect that I’d be perfect right out of the gate, but I had no doubts Nik would both recognize and appreciate an effort.

  My mom had been pretty set in the notion that a month without him would be nothing. But after a little over a week, I knew with utter certainty that I disagreed.

  I missed his smile and the lips that created it.

  I missed his lively blue eyes and all the ways they told me what he was feeling or what he hoped to get from me.

  I missed the way he poked at me and then harnessed the anger he’d created in order to use it for our passion.

  And I missed the way he talked to me like everything I felt, no matter how ridiculous, wasn’t, in fact, wrong, but instead couldn’t be more right.

  My eyes searched the gym, expecting to find him somewhere on the floor.

  His motorcycle sat in the parking lot, shining in the sun and confirming his presence before I ever went inside.

  But I didn’t see him among the sea of other people. A rainbow of leotards faded and rolled into itself, mixing and matching and swinging across the spectrum as I scanned from one side of the warehouse to the other.

  Disappointment sank my shoulders momentarily until the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

  “Hey, Cal,” his smooth, rich voice whispered behind me, pulling my body toward his with the force of a flesh-sensitive magnet.

  Ripples of sensation returned to my long-since numb chest and spread to my limbs, making my skin tingle and crackle with life and excitement.

  A week-long trip to Olympic training camp, and the thing that sparked my mental and sensory pleasure was an everyday voice.

  I turned to face it quickly, nearly tripping one foot over the other in the process.

  My eyes bugged out, nearly all the way out of my head, the sight of his hair shorn to nearly an inch short surprising me enough to make me curse.

  “Fuck.”

  “Shhh.”

  A laugh burst all the way from his chest as he urged me to quiet, the little ears and prying eyes of our meeting spot not even remotely appropriate company for a dirty mouth.

  I’d gone over it in my head all week and all night and all the way home. I’d listed each thing at the sight of his bike and the swing of the front door as I’d entered.

  I’d even gone over it again as I’d searched the gym for his face.

  But as I stood there facing him, the list of things I’d missed was obviously one short.

  “I never expected to miss your stupid hair,” I said quietly.

  He grinned, the change in his face turning him into one of the most handsome guys I’d ever seen. His voice was a whisper and his being nothing but a vessel of affection. “I knew I’d miss you.”

  His words touched me even as his hands didn’t, but I’d had enough.

  I knew I shouldn’t and all the reasons I couldn’t, but nothing could have stopped me from wrapping my arms around his shoulders in that moment.

  Not anything.

  He hugged me back without reproach, squeezing and breathing me in with ease and comfort and a face devoid of regret.

  But he’d never cared about the consequences of our feelings. Not for himself anyway. His concern was almost always solely for me.

  “Cal,” he whispered into my hair, his arms cinching around me just a little bit tighter.

  For once, I didn’t have the willpower to let go, the dream of having him and everything that meant taking over my mind and outweighing any form of structured thinking.

  Nik took the lead, pulling me away from him, but keeping his hands on the upper half of my arms.

  My smile was goofy—I could feel it—and the cool skin of my arms heated through the fabric of my shirt at his touch.

  “How was it?” he asked, genuinely happy for me and my accomplishments. I could tell in the size of his eyes and the way they pulled me in as if on the business end of a lasso.

  I shrugged my answer because that’s all I could do.

  It hadn’t been bad, and it hadn’t been good. It’d been pretty damn neutral.

  “I made a friend,” I offered, hoping to touch on something positive rather than dampening the conversation.

  “You?” he fake-scoffed, shaking a hand out in front of him and squinting one eye. “Friendly?”

  “Stop,” I told him with a playful shove. “I’m all kinds of friendly.”

  He raised just one skeptical eyebrow.

  “Okay, so I actually made a friend by being the direct opposite of friendly.”

  His eyebrow descended to normal and then pulled in nice and tight, his confusion understandable.

  “Jillian—”

  “Kristone?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. She’s a real pain in the ass. Kind of like you. Poking and prodd
ing and making fun of me every chance she gets.”

  He smiled and I mirrored it.

  “So she was awesome?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, my smile growing with each bounce of my nod. “She reminded me of you. Less philosophical speeches though.”

  “You love my speeches,” he insisted and I did.

  Not necessarily at the time he was giving them, but eventually.

  “Nik—” I started as a fidget took residence in his body. His hands came together and apart and his feet bounced just slightly up onto his toes. His eyes were pleading and demanding, the way they always were when he really wanted me to listen.

  “Tell me we don’t have to stay here today, Cal,” he breathed out finally, looking from me to the gym floor and back again. “I just want a few hours of you and me and nothing else in between. I don’t want it to be about gymnastics or your parents or the things we want or don’t want or can't have. I just want it to be me and you.”

  His hands tightened into fists as he forced out another breath. “But I understand if the answer is no, okay? I know you want time and distance until you finish this…maybe even after. I don’t know. And I know how important this is for you—”

  But it wasn’t.

  I’d made him feel that, even amidst the confusion and unknowns and fear and freak-outs, but the truth was, I realized in the scheme of things, a third Olympics wasn’t all that important to me at all.

  It was important to my dad and my mom and all of the gymnasts who looked up to me in the world. It was important to the media because my age made me a sensationalized story, and it was important to my National teammates.

  But the only part important about it to me was finishing what I started and giving it the best I had to give.

  By my standards, I was allowed a few hours to myself.

  And in my mind now, anything that included me, included Nik too.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I broke in, sparing him the expense of telling me everything was okay that wasn’t.

  Happiness overtook his face, all of the lines and curves of its structure so much more exposed now that he’d gotten rid of the hair.

  Short spikes shot up from the top, and the sides were clipped tight to the frame of his trim face.