Return to You (Letters to Nowhere Part 3)

by Julie Cross

  “What’s up?” I ask, unable to hide the weariness in my voice. There’s only one reason I can think of for her to be out of camp attire.

  She picks up her speed and jogs toward me, clutching her purse in one hand. “I thought you could use some company.”

  I shake my head. “It’s probably going to be boring as hell. It’s afternoon, so I bet they’re running way behind like every other doctor’s office I’ve been in.”

  She shrugs and heads for the passenger door. “Nina gave us the afternoon off. There’s a special exhibition in our usual practice gym.”

  “Really? Nina actually canceled a practice.” I force a smile. “All the more reason for you to stick around and have some fun.”

  Karen leans against the car, arms folded across her chest. “Jordan, I’m not an idiot. I know there’s something going on with you and whatever it is, I’m not letting you deal with it alone. Even if you really want to. You’d do the same for me.”

  My jaw clenches, but I don’t have any argument that will send her back to camp. “Fine.”

  She pushes off the car and turns around to open the door. My feelings bounce between anger, frustration, and fear as I plug the address into the GPS and back the car out to begin the fifteen-minute drive into town.

  The whole way there, Karen attempts to make small talk, but I can barely hear her or process what she’s saying over the loud thud of my heart. My palms are sweating, too. I want to ask her if this is what a panic attack feels like, but I can’t without cluing her in on everything else. And based on my reaction right now, I bet I’d been subconsciously way more than fifty percent sure that I was going to ditch this appointment.

  And now I can’t.

  The office is a small brown building that looks like it could be a house. The name Dr. Julia Jacobs is on the sign outside. There’re only four chairs in the front room and all of them are empty. So much for my “long wait” theory.

  The receptionist greets me by name and I know that I’m not gonna have to wait. Which basically means that I have no time to calm down and get my shit together. She hands me a clipboard with paperwork to fill out. I walk away and fall into the chair closest to the exit. Karen takes the seat right beside me and pretends to read a paperback book she had crammed in her purse, while my knee bounces uncontrollably, my hand trembles, and the pen taps out an uneven rhythm.

  After several minutes of writing in my personal information and insurance policy numbers, my fidgeting must have become noticeable to Karen, because she reaches out a hand and rests it on my thigh, calming the bouncing movement. Both of us glance sideways, our gaze meeting and for a split second I’m lost in the memory of her in my bed last week. Her in only a pair of panties curled up against me. I would sell my soul to be in that moment again right now.

  “Jordan?”

  I jump and the clipboard flies off my lap and onto the floor. Karen stands to pick it up and both of us take in the older woman in a white coat, a stethoscope around her neck. I reluctantly stand and accept the clipboard from Karen’s hands and turn to her to say something about being right back, but I’m interrupted by Dr. Julia Jacobs.

  “You can both come back if you’d like,” she says, likes it’s not completely ruining all my plans.

  “That’s okay,” I start to say at the same time Karen says, “Thanks,” and pushes ahead of me.

  What’s up with this aggressive, have-to-get-my-way Karen?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ~KAREN~

  “Jordan,” I call after him, from the receptionist’s desk, but he doesn’t turn around and pushes the door open, heading out the exit. “Jordan!”

  My head swarms with information overload, but I turn to the woman behind the desk. “I guess he’ll call for his follow-up. Do you have a—”

  The lady gives me a warm smile and hands over a business card with the office phone number. My heart is pounding and my face is definitely red. Dr. Jacobs comes up behind the desk and holds out a stack of informational papers. “Jordan left these in the exam room.”

  I glance in the direction of the door. “Yeah… he, um, had a phone call.” After taking the papers from her hands, I backpedal toward the exit myself. “Thanks, Doctor Jacobs.”

  “Make sure he talks to his parents soon,” she calls after me.

  Parent. Not parents.

  Jordan’s already in the driver’s seat, engine puttering. His face is tense, but mostly impassive. I can’t read his mood. I take a deep breath before opening the passenger door and climbing in. I wait for him to explain the abrupt departure, but all he does is shoot me a sideways glance, remove the papers from my lap, and toss them into the backseat.

  And it’s not a gentle toss either. More like a “these are destined for the dumpster” toss. I give him five minutes of driving in silence before speaking up. “You should call your dad.”

  Finally, emotion breaks through again. It’s like he’s been made of stone for the past forty-five minutes. He shakes his head. “Please don’t say anything, Karen. Please.”

  “But—”

  He glances at me quickly, but I don’t miss the desperate pleading in his eyes. “Just this once I need you to choose me over him.”

  When have I not chosen him over Coach Bentley? Maybe Jordan’s never put me in a position to have to choose.

  “It’s not that bad,” I say, trying to rationalize the news he’s just gotten. “There’s time for you to recover before school starts…”

  Jordan doesn’t respond, his gaze remains on the road, both hands gripping the steering wheel. The rest of the drive back to camp, the only sound inside the car is our breathing. When we finally pull into the parking lot, Jordan cuts the engine and turns to me. “I need to figure this out on my own, okay? I need you to let me figure this out on my own.”

  I refuse to agree to anything but silence right then.

  “I’m eighteen,” Jordan says. “That information is confidential. I never asked you to come with me today.”

  He’s scared. I know that’s why he’s saying things he normally wouldn’t, but that doesn’t make the words hurt any less. I fling the door open and set my feet on the gravel parking lot. “Fine. Whatever you want, Jordan.”

  “Hey…” He reaches out for my hand, but I pull it away and jump out of the car, shutting the door a little too hard.

  I need some space. Some wide open space.

  chapter nine

  ~jordan~

  “What’s up with you and Campbell?”

  I glance up from my spot on the bleachers where I’m catching the last hour of Karen’s practice before we start morning warm-ups with the campers. TJ’s climbing the steps, preparing to plop down beside me. “What do you mean?”

  He rolls his eyes and snorts back a laugh. “What I mean is, I haven’t caught you two making out, sneaking off on Jet Skis, or whatever for at least a week.”

  My gaze stays focused on Karen, who’s chalking up for a bar routine. “She’s training for Nationals. There’re only—”

  “Twenty-two days left until the competition,” TJ recites, mimicking Nina’s lecture voice. “Believe me, that’s been drilled into my head, too, since the gym-Nazi has me working for her.”

  Karen’s going through her bar routine, nailing her release moves, hitting all the handstands. But after she catches her last release, before her dismount, she slows her swing and drops from the bar. I don’t think anything of it at first. They don’t always train full routines, but then Nina throws her hands up in frustration and turns her back to Karen. The tension seems to sweep through the gym, all the girls tightening up their faces, dropping their eyes to the floor, not wanting to be in the caught in the warpath.

  “What’s going on with her bar routine?” I ask TJ.

  “Dude, you really are having girlfriend issues, aren’t you?” he says.

  Well over a week later and it finally hits me. “She’s been having trouble with this dismount since she fell nearly two weeks ago?”

/>   “Yep, you are so on the verge of separation.”

  I shoot a glare at TJ. It’s not like I haven’t talked to or hung out with Karen over the past week, but it’s been more distant and impersonal than anything else. Still, I’ve snuck into the gym early a bunch of times to watch parts of her workouts and she looks great.

  “You’d have to actually attempt a dismount to be considered struggling, right?” TJ says.

  Shit. This is bad. Really bad.

  Karen walks away from the bars, shrugging off two of the other girls who tried to console her. I leap down the bleachers and head into the gym, crossing the floor to where Karen is sitting by her gym bag, tearing at the prewrap that had been under her grips.

  I squat down in front of her and keep my voice low. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Jordan.” She’s too busy tucking her grips into her bag to even look at me. “Nina’s probably five seconds away from yanking you by the ear out of the gym.”

  “I work here.” I set a finger under her chin and force her to look at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  There’s a great deal of aggression to her movement as she tosses more items into her bag, pulls out her beam shoes, and then yanks the zipper closed. “I have beam now.”

  I slide my hand down her arm. “Have you told my dad? Maybe there’s something he can—-”

  She jerks away from me and jumps to her feet. “I can’t believe you. You’re such a hypocrite.”

  I stand up in front of her, a little shocked by the name-calling. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Karen speak so directly. I get why she’s upset, I really do. But I can’t take back the fact that she was in the appointment with me and I’m not ready to deal with it. “It’s not the same.”

  Her eyes meet mine, the angry energy practically rolling off of her in giant waves. “How is it not the same?!”

  I can feel several pairs of eyes on us now. “Because he can actually help you,” I say, keeping my voice much lower than Karen’s.

  She smoothes her expression and looks directly at me. “This is something that I need to deal with on my own. I’m sure you can understand that, right?” She spins and stomps off, heading toward the balance beams.

  I squeeze my hands open and closed a few times, releasing the tension. My nostrils are practically flaring. Karen isn’t the only one pissed off, but unlike her, I haven’t figured out who I’m angry with.

  Nina shoots daggers at me, so I head back over to the bleachers. TJ’s clearly making a great effort to keep his mouth shut, but I can tell he’s got some sarcastic, “I told you so” response for me. And he’s a hundred percent right. We are on the verge of separation.

  I sit there for several minutes, allowing my anger to settle down a few notches. Karen, on the other hand, is attacking the balance beam with such aggression, she doesn’t even give away the slightest wobble.

  After she nails her newest beam skill, a full twisting back flip, landing with her chest high and a loud thud, TJ mutters, “Damn, she’s pissed.”

  I scrub my hands over my face and sigh.

  “So call up your dad and tell him to get his ass over here or on the phone with her and bark at her until she does the fucking dismount,” TJ says.

  The concern is evident in his voice and I wonder if he still feels responsible for Karen falling. “He wouldn’t yell at her,” I say.

  “What would he do, then?”

  I sift through hundreds of conversations with Karen over the last six or seven months, plus the hours I’ve observed her practices while coaching in the gym. “He’d make her do drills, lead-up skills, anything that broke the skill down into parts.”

  “Like doing it into the pit and stacking mats up?” TJ asks.

  I lift my head and nod, feeling a tiny surge of hope. Maybe he can suggest these things and she’ll try it if it’s not coming from me. “Yeah, like that.”

  TJ shakes his head. “Already tried all that shit. She won’t let go, even in the pit.”

  The pit will provide a soft landing, but it won’t keep her from smacking her head on the bar. Maybe that’s the problem. And this fearful Karen is like the complete opposite of the badass (and angry) Karen we’re watching right now.

  “Call him,” TJ says again, “maybe he’s got another trick up his sleeve.”

  “I can’t,” I admit, knowing it’s true. I’d be a hypocrite if I did. “Not if Nina or Karen or Stevie haven’t said anything to him.” And I can pretty much guarantee they haven’t—or at least not more than mentioning a minor struggle—otherwise he’d have called me and told me to keep an eye on her like he did before.

  “Why not?” TJ’s got no barriers when it comes to getting answers. “She’s already pissed at you, could it really get much worse?”

  Yes, if she retaliates by spilling my secrets to him. God, this is so incredibly selfish. “I just can’t, okay?”

  “Whatever.” He shakes his head, clearly disappointed in me. Hell, I’m disappointed in me. We both watch stick her double pike dismount off beam so hard she leaves imprints in the landing mat. Without taking even a second to enjoy the accomplishment of such a kick-ass routine, she jumps back up and starts the routine over again.

  “I’ve got an idea,” TJ says, his eyes glued on Karen.

  I tear my gaze from Karen and look at him. “What?”

  He holds a hand up to stop me, like he’s deep in thought, and then he’s trampling down the bleachers heading out of the gym.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ~KAREN~

  I’m jerked awake, not by a nightmare today, but by a very bright flashlight beaming against my eyelids. “Jordan?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Campbell.”

  “TJ,” I say with a groan, turning my back on him. “What do you want?”

  “Get up,” he orders.

  “Get the hell out of our room,” Stevie says from above me, her hair hanging over the side of the bed.

  “Sorry, can’t do that.” TJ clicks the flashlight on and off in a repetitive motion, making me dizzy. “I’m on Nina Jones’s orders to drag Karen out of bed.”

  I roll over and cover his flashlight with my hand. “Did she tell you to give me a seizure, too?”

  And what does Nina want from me at midnight?

  TJ plucks the question straight from my head. “Guess there’s some kind of emergency.”

  I toss the covers back and spring out of bed in my tank top and pajama shorts. “What happened? Is Jordan okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t he be?” TJ laughs. “Just get up, Campbell, before your roommate explodes in a fit of rage.”

  “Shut the hell up,” Stevie mutters, her voice muffled from the pillow. She’s already on her way to drifting back to sleep.

  With a sigh, I slip my flip-flops on and grab my own flashlight, following TJ out the cabin door. He walks so fast I can barely keep pace with him. “Where are we going?”

  “Nina said to meet her in gym two. That’s all I know.”

  But when we get to Gym II, TJ has to use a key to unlock the door. The lights are all out and there’s not another person in sight. “What is this? Some kind of prank?”

  He feels around on the wall and flips a couple light switches on, illuminating about a quarter of the gym. “That should be good enough.”

  I fold my arms across my chest, staring him down. “Where’s Nina?”

  “Not here,” he says all casual, then he bends over and pulls out a small bag from under the bleachers, tossing it to me.

  “Hey! You stole my grip bag.”

  He shrugs, grasping my shoulders and walking me out into the gym. “I’ve stolen much worse before, Campbell. That was child’s play.”

  Um… what?

  “It’s time for you to man-up and get that dismount back in working order.” He’s already at the uneven bars, adjusting the settings.

  I roll my eyes. “That’s why we’re here? Sorry, but I have a personal rule not to do bar routines when I’m half asleep.”
/>
  “I’m not an expert or anything, but I think a dismount is required to call it a routine.”

  My fingernails dig into my palms. Does he have any clue how infuriating he is?

  “I’m not kidding, Campbell, you’re not leaving until you do a dismount.”

  “Yeah, right.” I snort back a laugh and turn toward the door. “Good night, TJ.”

  I make it literally two steps and an arm hooks itself around my waist and next thing I know, I’m face down on the gymnastics carpet with TJ sitting on my back.

  “Get off me, you asshole!” I wiggle my legs, then use my hands to attempt to push myself out. “This is like, assault or something. You could go to jail for this. It’s probably kidnapping too.”

  “Not scaring me at all, considering I’ve been to jail before.”

  “Well, that explains a lot,” I grunt.

  “Okay, I lied,” TJ says, “I can’t keep you here until you do a dismount.”

  “You think?” God, this carpet smells like sweaty feet.

  “But I can do this for at least six more hours, until your posse comes in here for morning workout.”

  “My posse?” I twist a hand backward and reach for his side so I can pinch him, but he easily dodges me. “Get your ass off of me, TJ!”

  “Only if you agree to do a bar dismount,” he says calmly.

  “Okay, one dismount.”

  He hesitates, then lifts himself up to a stand. The second his weight is off of me, I take off in a sprint for the door. But this time he gets both arms around me, lifts me off the ground, walks over to pit and tosses me into the center. The lights are off above the pit, so I can’t see where I’m falling and end up with a mouthful of foam.

  My anger is hitting a boiling point, ready to spill over. The last time I felt anything close to this was the day that I read that folder Tony had swiped for me from the police station and then, in a rage, I’d thrown breakable objects all over my coach’s garage.

  TJ stands outside the pit dancing around, anticipating where I’m going to try and climb out. “There’s no point in attempting escape. You’ll wear yourself out.”