“There was nothing you could have done to stop her. You’re doing your best, kid. Just keep being there for her. Keep being you.”
His words are simple, yet they make me feel so much lighter. When we hang up a few minutes later, I make my way up and over the bridge again. I hear the steady cracking of my ankles, the quiet soundtrack under the wind.
MATT CLAPS. “GATHER around, ladies. Make her as uncomfortable as possible.”
The little ones giggle and squeeze next to each other on the high beam. Their skinny legs kick back and forth like they’re sitting on a swing. And yes, I’m nervous. Failure’s embarrassing enough, let alone in front of children. It’s like watching them realize Santa isn’t real. I’ve been enjoying their hero worship, hearing their applause ring out whenever I get an old skill back. They don’t know anything about my life outside of here or why I left, really. To them, I’m just Savannah, the older girl with a brace that’s almost as large as some of them.
I raise my arms straight above my head in a salute. It’s required to do this at the beginning and end of your routine. If there were judges here, they would give me a token smile. As it is, I’m looking straight at Vanessa, who already does not seem impressed. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” she says.
I start my routine as the girls hiss and shush each other. They are silent as I hold the handstand. A few clap as I lower myself to the beam. I am awesome, I tell myself, the way Matt always advised. I am beyond awesome. I am so–
Slippery.
My left hand slides over the beam. I crash down on my armpit, then nose, and wind up dangling underneath, still clinging to the beam with my right hand.
Gasps.
Then:
“Oh, my God, that was, like, so cool,” says Tiana. “Can you do that again?”
“Coach Matt, can that be in my routine?” asks another little one.
“No fair!” a third chimes in. “I was gonna ask that!”
It will leave a bruise. My nose tingles and my shoulder and neck don’t feel so great, not to mention the armpit, which has left a minor sweat mark on the beam. Delicious.
Matt makes a motion like he’s going to check up on me, but I know what to do next. I crawl my way back onto the beam and continue.
The beam is my bridge. As long as I stand on the bridge and not under it, I am awake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AT 2:33 IN the morning, Cassie calls. “I’m sorry, Savs. I was mean this afternoon.” Her voice is somber, and I wake up fully. “I promise I won’t butt in with Marcos anymore.”
“It’s okay.” I stretch my arms so far back that they crack. They’re tired, heavy, hinting how much they’ll ache when I wake up for school. “I know you’re worried.”
“I hung out with Jules and she assured me that Marcos wouldn’t do anything to put you in danger,” she says. “You know Juliana–she doesn’t pull any punches.” She pauses. “Shit, too soon?”
I grin in spite of myself. “I think the only way to properly apologize will cost one dollar and sixty-one cents.”
“Lucky for you, that’s exactly how much I have in my wallet,” she says. “Also, I’m outside.”
WE LINGER IN Cassie’s car, listening to some truly awful men on guitars while the harsh lights of 7-Eleven illuminate the dashboard. “Cats in heat sound better than this,” I say.
She takes a noisy slurp through the straw before handing the drink back to me. “My roommate at the hospital said they’re the shit, so I gave them a whirl. You’re right, though. They’re just shit.”
She punches off the radio, and the car plunges into silence. “Am I allowed to ask if you want to talk about anything?” I say as I sip the slushy blueberry concoction.
Her head rolls back against the seat. “No,” she mutters, but she’s smiling. “My doctors had a field day when I told them about us playing Manhunt as kids. They found all sorts of metaphors about me hiding from my feelings. I tried to explain that we were two weird kids who liked getting dirty and winning.”
Despite the cold drink, my heart feels warmer. “You talked about us?”
“Of course I did.” She turns to me. “You’re a hell of a lot more fun to talk about than my parents.”
“I’m honored.” Although I say it sarcastically, I mean it.
“Which way?” she asks when she pulls out of the parking lot.
I should say home. The Slurpee has cooled my better judgment, though. “Right,” I decide.
We wind up the hill. Fog dampens the windshield and her wipers slide against it. Once we’ve reached the apex, she kills the lights and we stare past a tremendous mansion to the black water below. Under the crescent moon, the foam rolls in thin lines beneath the distant bridge.
I’d called her crying the night after she passed her road test. “Please come get me.”
She showed up at the curb two minutes later and asked the only question that mattered: “Where to?”
“The beach,” I’d said, and she’d blasted my favorite song as she drove so quickly up the bridge, it felt like we would take flight. She’d stood beside me as my feet sank into the smooth sand at the shoreline.
“We were talking to him on Skype and the connection cut out,” I’d said. I didn’t have to tell her who “he” was. “My mom turned on the news. There was an insurgent attack.”
Her arm had locked around me. “He’s fine,” she’d said confidently.
“How do you know?” My voice had cracked.
“Richard probably had all of their countermoves memorized before they even knew what they were going to do,” she’d said. “The government will make a special exception for him to be commander in chief.”
I’d blown my running nose on my sleeve.
“I bet,” she’d added, “that he doesn’t even have a speck of sand on his uniform.”
Her description of my overachieving brother had made me smile, and sure enough, when she dropped me off, Richard was back on Skype alive and well. She’d turned the unthinkable into the bearable, and, somehow, her confidence had made it reality.
Cassie’s voice breaks the quiet. “I’m gonna miss this when we’re in the city.” Her eyes are on the stars. “As much as this place sucks, you can’t beat that view.”
I don’t want to fight about this by bringing up Providence or another college city, so I just nod. Sitting up here above the fog and under the stars feels right.
WHEN THE LOUDSPEAKER announces another assembly, I freeze. Around me, everyone talks and laughs at the normal pitch, and I remind myself that it’s not low tide. It’s not a disaster.
“Yay, Diversity Discussion Day. Can’t wait to learn about how we all need to love one another.” Cassie yawns, leaning against me. “I could use the nap. These damn pills make me feel like passing out all of the time.”
At 3:00 this morning, she was clicking through the pictures she and Juliana had taken in Southampton. When she’d dropped me off, the radio was on a dance music station. Six hours later, she’s blinking and rubbing her eyes. “You should go to the nurse,” I say.
That’s enough to earn a smile that turns into another yawn. “She’s going to ask if I have pink eye, give me a rice cake, and tell me to lie down.” True; this is the typical medical response at Ponquogue High School.
Andreas slams into the lockers ahead of us.
I almost laugh–a stunt to make the girls roll their eyes at him and giggle, of course–until he rebounds, face red, and shouts, “Is that the best you can do?”
I catch a glimpse of Tommy Brown’s freckled face, eyes narrowed and cheeks flushed, and then everyone swarms at once and he’s blocked from my view. There’s no mistaking the slamming of skin on skin. Bodies move in and others push back, fast and hard, until a shoulder drives into mine and rushes forward.
I catch the tips of his T-shirt but can’t hold on long enough. “Marcos, stop!” I call.
There’s no use.
He yanks Andreas back, but Andreas, disoriented and sho
uting, swings at him and connects with his cheek. Marcos stumbles and pins Andreas to the floor, the crowd jumping back as they fall, and then Dimitri shoves into the middle, picking up Max Pfeiffer by the collar. “You mess with my friends, you mess with me,” he yells in Max’s face.
Right then, the crowd parts on an unspoken cue. Every motion ceases as Mr. Riley strides in. People back away until it’s just Dimitri in the center, sweat dripping from his pale shaved head, panting like he just made a drive down the soccer field. Slowly, he releases Max from his grip. Max slumps to the floor and groans.
“Who would like to tell me what happened here?” Mr. Riley’s voice is pure iron, but there’s something else in his eyes. Real fights don’t break out in the halls of Ponquogue. Maybe some push and shove, a single punch until someone pulls the two parties apart. Nothing like this.
“It was–” Andreas begins, rubbing his jaw.
“Me,” Dimitri interrupts. “I’m sorry, Mr. Riley. This jerk said a racial slur to my friend, and I got carried away.” He looks down at his long blue sneakers.
An immediate flurry of whispers.
Mr. Riley gives all of us a long, hard look. Everyone around me steps back, eyes down. “Alvarez, Brown, Pfeiffer, Bondarenko, Castillo. My office, now. Everyone else, get to the auditorium. Diversity Discussion Day is starting immediately.”
Marcos looks at me as he follows the assistant principal. I stare back at him. I don’t know what to think. He bailed out Andreas again, and what’s it going to cost him? Suspension? Worse?
Under the whispers, I hear hushed comments from voices too low to be recognized. “That’s what happens when you let dirty Mexicans into this country.”
Cassie stiffens beside me. Her mouth twitches like she’s about to say something. I wait for her to let them have it, the way she unleashed her fire on Marcos, on Beth.
Instead, she stays quiet until the crowd disperses. Juliana keeps casting nervous looks in the direction of the office. “They’re going to get suspended,” she says. “There’s no way Riley’s going to believe it was only Dimitri.”
A suspension will jeopardize Marcos’s shot at the Suffolk scholarship, if not ruin it altogether. Frustration burns in my chest. He should have let Andreas handle it, yelled out to Mr. Riley himself, something. Whatever nonsense Tommy and Max said to set Andreas off isn’t worth risking his future for.
I finally find my voice. “Why did Dimitri take the fall?”
“His mom’s on the school board,” Juliana says. “He’ll get out of it. Everyone else, I don’t know.”
When I turn back to Cassie, her chapped lips form one big O. The bell rings, but none of us makes a move toward the auditorium. “You see what I mean?” she says finally.
I do. Unfortunately.
We stand in the back as the speaker talks in earnest about mutual respect and open dialogue. Throughout the whole presentation, there’s the rumble of whispers, of fingers typing text messages, of teachers muttering to each other about what happened earlier.
The thing is, I don’t believe that one assembly with good intentions will be enough to change anyone’s mind. Even Cassie, the most fearless person I know, looks at me and shakes her head.
If it happened once, what’s to stop it from happening again? And what’s Marcos going to do next time?
DURING SIXTH PERIOD, Marcos is still missing along with the rest of the crew taken down to Mr. Riley’s office. I turn into enemy territory: the math and science wing.
My father looks up from grading when I drop my bag on a free desk. His eyebrows lift in surprise that I’ve chosen to visit him during our mutual free period. This has happened a total of…never. As soon as the surprise shows, it’s replaced with the Smirk. “What college was that coach from, by the way?” he says.
“New Hampshire,” I say. “They just signed Emery.” The truth of the latter statement keeps my ears from burning.
“Wow.” He looks impressed. “Did you give them your contact information?”
I’m not doing so hot on that front. Coach Barry has been quiet, and Coach Englehardt has yet to reply to my e-mail. I’ve considered resending it, imagining it got lost in a spam folder somewhere. “Can I ask you a question?” I say instead.
He shuts the laptop. “Shoot.”
“There was a fight earlier today,” I begin.
He nods. “If I’m not mistaken, your boyfriend was involved.” His expression is unreadable, which is about as good as I can hope for.
“There are problems between guys on the soccer team.” This is hard. Since the injury and the end of discussions about my future and which programs would be the best fit for me, I’m out of practice when it comes to having real conversations with my father. I clear my throat. “One of the guys has been making racist comments to Andreas Alvarez, and it reached a breaking point today.”
“Right.” Again, unreadable.
“I wanted to…get your perspective, I guess.” My palms sweat. “What do you think about all of this?”
Dad’s hazel eyes scrutinize me, analyzing the question. The longer he pauses, the more my heart rate accelerates. I’m afraid he’s going to say something that aligns with the guy sitting outside of 7-Eleven, holding his Secure Our Borders sign, something that means my timeline of having Marcos meet Dad will change from “ninety years from now” to “never.”
“It’s complicated,” he says finally, and I let out a tiny breath. “I won’t lie when I say that the influx of immigrant students has put a huge financial strain on the district. It means more staff and more space is needed, and of course that means finding money in the budget.”
“Right,” I say. “Isn’t the budget always a problem?” He smiles a little. “This is true. It’s also a problem in Galway Beach, Southampton, East Hampton, the rest of Long Island, Texas, California–you ask ten different people and they’re going to give you ten different answers about what they think the federal response should be.”
“What’s your answer?” Without meaning to, I’m wringing my hands like Mom waiting for Richard to call.
He doesn’t hesitate. “As an educator,” he says, “my goal is to help all of my students be the best they can be, regardless of where they’re from and how they got here. I understand the difference between choices that their parents made and choices that their kids make. Not everyone in this building feels the same way. That’s my philosophy, though, and I’m sticking with it.”
I consider running over to my father and hugging him. A tiny freshman knocks tentatively on the doorframe, though, so I just offer up a sincere, “Thank you, Dad.”
“You’re welcome. Also,” he says on my way out, “when are you going to let me meet this guy?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NO SUSPENSION, THANK God, Marcos texts me as I walk into the gym. I almost cried. Dimitri is a saint.
The fight is still on my mind as Emery and I heave mats into the pit. Every step and tug plunges me deeper amid the blue and red foam blocks. The little kids “help” by running, jumping, and sliding down the mats into the foam.
“If you don’t get out in the next three seconds, you have one hundred push-ups!” Vanessa calls. “Three, two–” Children scramble and an errant pit block flies up, hitting me in the nose.
Emery, the twins, and I mark our spots for tumbling. Nicola goes first, running down the strip of floor, taking off, and landing on the stack of mats. She has so much power that she bounces off the mat and rolls into the foam, earning a round of applause.
Okay, I can do this. The landing will be squishy, easy to absorb.
“You can go first,” I tell Erica, who’s whispering to herself as she draws her arms close to her chest and twists. If you’re prone to overthinking, gymnastics is an excellent athletic pursuit.
“You can go next,” I say to Emery, who’s in the middle of fixing her hair. She blows a stray chunk out of her eyes and takes off.
“Nic, did you want to go again?”
“Sava
nnah,” Matt calls. “Sometime today?”
Dammit.
I step forward to my mark, take a breath, and stare down the next twenty feet or so of my future.
Just a warm-up, I remind myself. One skill at a time. Except as I start running, my mind’s skipping ahead already: single full, double full, two-and-a-half, knee snapping upon landing–
I run onto the mats.
“Do you want a spot?” asks Matt without sarcasm, which makes me feel like more of a wimp.
“You got this, Savannah!” Emery calls too loudly as I resume my starting position, and the rest of them take up the chant. The little girls stand on the beams and face me, eager to watch this train wreck.
The day I performed my beam routine in front of them, I felt confident again. The old competitive Savannah who would fight her damnedest to stay on was back. The one who, no matter how much she liked her teammates, would set her jaw and do her utmost to beat them. Today, that Savannah’s hiding in the pit as my palms sweat copious amounts.
Enough’s enough. I extend my arms, point my left foot forward, and take the first step.
I feel better the instant I move forward. Stronger, powerful, not a shadow of myself but the same girl I was.
Do it.
Hands down for the round-off, feet snap together fast, back handspring, punch–
You got it–
My foot crumbles.
The pain is sharp, sudden, and I’ve rolled enough ankles to know that this isn’t anything worse; it’ll be fine in a couple of days.
Doesn’t make it sting less, though.
“Do you need ice?” someone calls, and when footsteps thud toward me, I think for a moment that one of them is about to land on me. Instead it’s Emery racing over with an icepack, Matt following close behind. Emery’s green eyes are worried as she sits down next to me, something that our coaches never condone. “Get back to work,” they’ll tell the other gymnasts when someone goes down with an injury. The message is clear–maintain focus, even when things are crumbling around you. Matt says nothing to her now, which means he must think something’s really wrong. Great. I swallow back the anxiety rising up my throat. I could be wrong; after all, I’d thought I was okay at the Springfield hospital with my knee, hadn’t I?
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