After a few minutes I find my mom in the crowd, her face ecstatic as she mingles with the other parents. Happiness suffuses me; it’s been so long since she’s come to watch me compete, my joy is almost childlike. I can’t wait to show my mom what I’ve accomplished, what I can do now.
My eyes avert to the large body next to her. As my gaze roams over him, cataloging the brawn and mass of him, my eyes flick up to his. To find that Spence is staring right back at me, a small smile ghosting his lips.
He was watching me check him out, I realize, and even I can feel the blush tinting my cheeks. Spence tilts his head and lifts a brow, as if to say, “I caught you.”
I tilt mine back, flirting with my body language. I can’t help it … he always did bring out the sassy side in me. Spence lifts his hands, two thumbs up shooting right at me. My heart jumps into my throat; he’s always been my biggest supporter, always wanted me to do my best.
I love him. It mixes through my body, wrapping around the adrenaline and high I’m getting from the audience. The love warms my chest, healing every last crack that splintered when Spence left.
“Let’s do this!” I nod to the other girls, smacking them on the backs, all of us stripping down to only our leotards. The red, white and blue sparkles emblazoned on our bodies shine, pinging rays of light around the arena.
We start on vault, our scores having qualified the U.S. as the number one seed. Thus, the Fearless Five were awarded the best rotation at the 2016 Olympic Games.
Sometimes people think the team event at a meet is secondary, but in the Olympics, it’s the thing that brings the most national pride. In what is typically an individual sport, the team competition is actually kind of fun … for once we’re competing with each other and not against. Well, at least not against the other Americans. While five gymnasts are selected for the team, only three compete on each event, and all three scores count towards the team total. Twelve scores, twelve chances. That’s all you get, and you have to nail each one for a shot at gold. It didn’t use to be like that, but the International Gymnastics Federation, or FIG, changed the requirements after the 2008 Olympics.
“Julia, Quinn, Grace … get ready to go.” Novak sweeps by, a cloud of negativity following him.
Of all the things that could bring us down today, he’s it. I gather the girls in close.
“Listen up. You can all do this, you’ve been training your entire lives for this day. Nothing that I say will help you any further. But do this … don’t let anything stand in your way. Not the other competitors, not mental games, not even Novak. Block it all out. Do this for you, do this for us. And ladies? Don’t forget to have fun. After all, that’s why we love gymnastics.”
“Hands in, USA on three!” Grace thrusts her hand into the circle and we all follow.
Julia counts us in. “One, two, three … USA!”
We carry the momentum through vault, scoring a whopping forty-eight points from the three who compete on the event. Julia and Quinn perform beautifully, soaring through the air with just a tiny step on their landings. But it’s Grace who rocks it out, exploding like a rocket only to come down and stick her landing, earning an astronomical sixteen-point-three.
Vault is the only event I won’t be competing on in the team finals, my history and scores just not good enough for what we need to succeed. So by the time it becomes my turn to compete last on bars in the second rotation, I’m so keyed up it’s a miracle I’m not twitching from head to toe.
Quinn and Anna slaughtered their routines ahead of me, earning huge numbers and setting me up for an even bigger score as the last competitor. As soon as the judge salutes I’m off, rotating and soaring, coming as close to flying as one human can. By the time my feet make contact with the mat, chalk flying up around me, the smile on my face sends cramps through my cheeks.
“Yes, Nat! Yes!” The girls are jumping up and down, pulling me into one giant hug as I step from the podium.
“Natalia Grekov, bar routine … fifteen-point-eight five.” The announcer booms.
The crowd goes wild, and I turn to locate my mom. She has tears streaming down her face, blowing kisses at me and jumping up and down as she hugs Spence. He hangs on, a goofy grin melting me straight down to the core as he supports my emotional mother.
We’re at the top of the leader board going into the third rotation.
But with beam, as always, comes trouble. Judges always score beam more harshly, critiquing every bent leg and wobble. Julia even falls.
“I’m so sorry, guys …” She’s pulling at her scalp, guilt clouding her features.
“Hey, stop that. We don’t want any of that here. This lands on all of our shoulders … Anna and I could have put up better scores as well.”
Quinn rubs Julia’s back and straps on her own Tiger Paws for floor. “Yeah, stop beating yourself up. You still scored a fourteen-point-three, that’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination.”
Julia nods into her lap, an errant tear dropping onto her thigh.
“No! No crying in gymnastics. We’re only five tenths behind Russia. Floor is our best event; Anna, Quinn and Natalia are going to pummel this event.” Grace, the youngest of the bunch, hypes us up.
Julia sniffles and chins up, shaking off her bad performance. “I’ll be screaming at the top of my lungs for you.”
She directs her comment at me, a silent acknowledgement running between us that this is on my shoulders now. And she knows how the cheering psyches me up.
I don’t check the scores going into our last rotation, I never do. I don’t want to know what I need to score to win us this meet. The team finals at the Olympics, one of the two biggest meets of my entire life.
So when it comes time for me to ascend those platform steps, to present to the judges and take my opening pose on floor, I tune it all out. I let my mind wander as I dance along to the music that the Phantom and Christine fell in love to. I smile and swagger through the difficult jumps, pound my limbs into the carpet as I spiral through my tumbling passes. All I do is feel … feel everything that I’ve always loved about gymnastics.
The minute the music stops, the ending chords of “The Point of No Return,” the roar from the arena sends my soul bounding. The girls don’t even wait until I walk off the floor, they come sprinting at me, tackling me in a giant team hug.
“You did it! You have to have done it!” Julia screeches in my ear.
We’re whisked off the floor by officials, all of us holding hands as we huddle together, our eyes pinned to the overhead jumbotron.
“Natalia Grekov, floor routine … sixteen.”
I don’t even have time to pump my fists in the air before the girls are engulfing each other again, our bodies one buzzing, joyous unit.
“And your 2016 Women’s Gymnastics Olympic Champions, with a combined score of one hundred eighty-two point-forty-five points, are the athletes from the United States of America!” Tim Daggett yells for the camera just feet away.
My body is so overwhelmed that I almost don’t feel the fat teardrops rolling down my cheeks as they hang the gold medal around my neck.
Thirty-Four
Spencer
The women’s team is swept into interviews and festivities for an entire twenty-four hours after their triumphant win, and we all know that this hype won’t end for months. I don’t have the chance to congratulate Nat or even pull her aside for a quick hug because she’s surrounded by everyone trying to get a piece of her.
She should have some downtime this morning, which is why I’m on my way to her dorm with a colorful bouquet of Brazilian flowers in my hands. I know they’re not as good as a gold medal, but girls love flowers and hearts and shit.
What I don’t expect to see as I stroll up to the U.S. gymnasts building though are medical staff rolling a stretcher into one of the rooms. My gut rolls, panic swamping me. My eyes are frantic, searching the small crowd that’s gathered outside the building. When they catch on a familiar blond ponytail, I�
�m running before I even realize it.
“Natalia!” My voice pierces the air, and then blue eyes are turning towards mine.
“Spencer!” My name cracks in her throat as she throws herself into my arms, a sob escaping her.
“What the hell is going on?” My arms circle her, pressing her lithe body to my chest.
“It’s Grace … they found her unconscious. Anna couldn’t shake her awake this morning. They’re taking her to the hospital building.” Her cries are muffled into my shirt.
I look up to see the medical staff rolling an unmoving Grace out of the dorm, her skin white as a sheet. I keep Nat’s face tucked into my shoulder, not wanting her to see her youngest teammate in such a bad state.
As they roll her into an enclosed golf cart, a tiny woman in an impeccable black suit steps forward. “I’d like to meet with all of the gymnasts from the U.S. team. Immediately.”
I rub Nat’s arms, gently pushing her off of me a little. “They need you, baby.”
She doesn’t look like herself, her expression gaunt and far away. “I don’t want to. Can I … can I stay with you?”
I lower my head so that our eyes are at the exact same level. “I’ll be right here, I’ll be waiting for you until you get back. Okay?”
Nat nods, tentatively stepping away from me and towards the woman in the suit. Julia hooks an arm through Nat’s elbow, and I silently beg her to take care of my girl. I see the imperceptible tilt of Julia’s head in acknowledgement.
And then I sit on the bench outside of their dorm, wringing my hands and waiting for Natalia to return.
The girls walk hand in hand up the pavement towards their dorm and the bench I’m seated on. Checking the time on my phone, it’s been nearly five hours since they left with the woman from the International Olympic Committee. Each of them has a variation of sadness, grief and emptiness etched into their faces.
Standing, I wait until they get closer to hold my arms open for Natalia, and she moves to me freely. She nuzzles into my chest, the feeling of her there making the world spin on the right axis again.
“So what happened?” I ask the group.
Julia wipes her hand down her face. “Grace is in a coma. Was so malnourished and vitamin deficient that her body just couldn’t take it anymore.”
Anna begins to silently cry. “I didn’t know, I thought she was fine …”
Quinn rubs her shoulder. “We know, there was no way of knowing.” She directs her next sentence at me. “They think the adrenaline and the excitement of being here jacked her up enough to keep her body running. But after winning last night and coming home to relax, her body just couldn’t handle the crash.”
“This was him, Spence.” Nat peers up at me, her blue eyes rimmed with red. “He did this to her. Starving her, getting inside her head to make sure she thought food was the enemy.”
“Those fucking pieces of shit!” I want to throttle Novak. Grace could have died. She still wasn’t out of the woods. A coma?! She was sixteen. “What the fuck is being done about them? They need to answer for this!”
Julia nods in agreement. “Something is being done. The IOC has suspended Novak after our testimony on what we’d seen and heard. He won’t be able to coach anyone for the remainder of this Olympics. Maybe ever.”
“Thank God my coach from Alabama is here for the individual finals.” Quinn makes an idle comment.
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I have no coach.” Nat runs her hands through her hair.
“My coach from home will represent you, too. Don’t worry, the committee will understand.” Julia soothes her. “Come on girls, let’s go get some rest.”
The rest of the girls move around us, Nat still clinging to me as we stood on the pavement.
“I saw it, Spence. I knew she was having some issues, and probably an eating disorder, I should have done something …” Nat fists her hands in her hair.
“Hey,” I tip her chin up with my finger, “Even if you had done something, it’s not something that changes overnight. Someone suffering from an eating disorder like that has to want to get help.”
She buries her face back into the crook of my chest and arm. I rub her back, the feel of her in my arms better than anything on this earth.
“I want you to coach me for individuals tomorrow night.”
Her request takes me back, my feet even stumbling a bit as I’m hit with the force of her wish. “Me? You … you trust me enough to coach you tomorrow? Are you sure?”
Nat reaches a calloused palm to my cheek, cupping my jaw. “There is no one else I’d want looking out for me on the floor tomorrow. Yes, I want you to coach me.”
Her words send my heart flipping, but it’s the look in her eyes that gets me. One of complete trust, complete faith. And that is more of an apology than I’ll ever need. There is no way two other people in the world share what we share with each other. So of course I will do this for her.
I’ll do whatever she needs me to. Forever.
Thirty-Five
Natalia
Grace’s incident puts a damper over the entire gymnastics community at the Olympics, and it even branches out as other athletes at The Games reach out to give us well wishes and condolences.
I visited her, along with the three other women, this morning. She laid there, silent and unmoving, machines breathing for her. I could barely choke down the bile that crept up my throat while I looked at her, so small and fragile, in a coma. Rage and despair warred in my blood; I wanted to wring Novak’s neck with my bare hands.
The tension and sadness was abundant in the arena, the carefree attitude that was present when we won gold just two days ago all but gone. And the thickness of competition hung heavy as well; we were no longer teammates, but opponents gunning for the same prize, the same medal.
“How you feeling?” Spence comes up behind me as I stretch out my shoulders, taking my arms in his hands and doing the motions for me.
Just having his skin in contact with the long sleeves of my leotard helped to make me feel marginally better. What was happening between us, the way he had held me and consoled me yesterday … I couldn’t dwell on it for too long. There were too many other variables in my brain right now. Focusing on the competition, worrying about Grace. It all felt too big on my thoughts right now, like an elephant was sitting on my brain. If I added Spencer in there too, well, I might just have a nervous breakdown.
So for the time being, I allowed him to be here for me, I accepted his kind words and soothing touches. I needed them.
“All right. Sad. Anxious.” It was the truth.
He massaged my shoulders, his big hands helping to relieve some of that enormous weight. “Push it all out of your mind. Take it event by event. You can’t do anything right now except go out there and have the meet of your life. You’ve earned it. So do it.”
“That’s your big speech?” I make a half-hearted attempt at a joke.
He smirks at me. “Would you rather I tell you to feel the fear and do it anyway?”
I shudder. “God, no. Just don’t give me any shitty inspirational advice. I think we’re way past that.”
“All right. I could smack your ass if you’d like, tell you how hot you are when you shimmy during your floor routine.”
Despite everything, a lick of heat zips down my spine. “Funny. Somehow, I don’t think the media would write that in a very good light.”
The announcer comes over the loudspeaker, signaling the start of the meet. I drew the short end of the stick this time for rotations, starting on floor and ending on beam. I hated ending on beam; it was the most nerve wrecking event to leave until the last performance.
Forgetting about everything else—Grace, Spencer, my crappy rotation lineup— I throw myself into floor, doing an almost identical routine of the one that won us gold. But I can feel my heart isn’t in it, and maybe the judges can too. I score a fifteen-point-six, which is still good, but it’s not the sixteen I pulled the other night.
; I score a fifteen-point-eight on bars and a fifteen-point-four on vault.
Spence envelops me into a huge hug as I descend the platform after vault. “That was awesome! A little step on the landing, but nice job.”
His strong arms lifting me into the air fills me with more confidence than any score ever could. The smile he beams at me is more of a prize than any medal could be.
“Thanks, Coach.” I wink at him, feeling better than I have in months.
Being with Spence, throwing wit at each other, flirting like we used to … I feel whole again. And as he sets me down, it hits me square in the chest, like landing on your stomach and getting the wind knocked out of you. Spencer Russell makes everything make sense. He’s the high bar to my low bar. The music to my floor routine. The dismount to my beam.
It’s on the tip of my tongue, our gazes caught up in each other’s. I need to tell him I love him, that I’ve loved him since the moment he flirted with me in the cafeteria at Filipek’s. The heat of the moment cuts us off from the world, like we’re in our own little bubble.
But then, we’re cut off by the announcer. “Gymnasts, you can now rotate to your next event.”
Spence audibly swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Come on, Champ, let’s go win some medals.”
I nod, feeling dazed from the moment that almost was. I have to wait through three other gymnasts’ routines until it’s finally my turn, the last competitor of the entire meet.
The eyes of every person in the arena follow me as I mount the beam. My routine flows through me, like paint on a canvas. I brush the beam, spreading the magic and the beauty over every inch of the leather. I turn, flip and dance, images of Spence flashing before my eyes.
Spence laughing as he lounges on a chalky mat. Spence kicking up sand in Ocean City as he shows off before diving into the water. Spence moving over me in a moonlit room with pleasure brightening his green eyes.
Blind Landing (Flipped #1) Page 18