Finding Our Balance

by Lauren Hopkins

  “What the hell?!” I shriek. Can 15-year-olds have heart attacks? Because I definitely just did.

  “I should have known better,” Jack laughs. “I forgot about your seventh birthday when your parents threw a surprise party and you…”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “…threw up in front of every single kid in our second grade class when they screamed surprise.”

  Yep. That happened. I’ll never live it down. Nearly a decade has passed, I haven’t been in the Lynnwood public school system in years, and yet whenever I run into a former classmate, I am fondly remembered for vomiting out of fear.

  “I cherish the memory,” I moan, but grin. “Why the celebration? Thank you, by the way.”

  “Not really a celebration, I guess…just more of a good luck party for nationals. Tonight’s the last time I’ll see you before you fly out.”

  “But I don’t leave until next week! What about our Sunday marathon TV day?”

  “You don’t leave until next week, but I leave tomorrow.”

  “For?”

  “I told you, didn’t I? I’m doing this Google weekend workshop thing for high school computer science engineering nerds. I’m leaving for San Francisco in the morning.”

  “Jack, that’s amazing! I’m sorry, I must have fallen asleep when you told me, or blanked it out or something. I’m a dick. Sorry.”

  Jack smiles. “No biggie. I know how stressed you are. Believe me, the Olympics are much more of a big deal than my stupid workshop.”

  “Please, this is basically the equivalent of the Nerd Olympics for you,” I joke. “Seriously, I’m super proud. I know how hard you’ve worked and how much you love what you do, even if I don’t understand it even a little.”

  There’s a moment of awkward silence between us, which is weird. I lean down to rifle through my gym bag, and then we both speak at once.

  “I know you can’t…”

  “How long are you…”

  We laugh. We pause again. I motion for him to speak.

  “I was gonna say, I know you can’t have cupcakes or anything that actually tastes good, so more for me. But I won’t taunt you and will wait to eat them when I get home. Instead, I got you this.”

  He holds out a box wrapped in shiny purple paper. I carefully open it, using my short fingernails to peel the tape rather than ripping it open. I slide the box cover off and inside there’s a framed newspaper article from when I won my first state title at the age of eight.

  “Wow, that’s really sweet, Jack. Where did you find this?”

  “I saved it. I remember when my mom showed it to me in the paper I thought you were famous and were gonna have to move to Hollywood. I cried and cried…I cut it out so I could remember you, and I guess I could just never part with it even after I got older and realized that the Lynnwood Today wasn’t exactly Page Six.”

  I skim the article, just a tiny fluff piece describing the state championships held in Everett almost a decade ago. I can feel tears well in my eyes, so I pinch the skin between my thumb and pointer finger to stop it, a handy trick Jack actually taught me years ago.

  “Thanks. It means a lot.”

  “There’s more.” He lifts the frame from the box and underneath, there’s a flash drive. “Put it in.”

  I slide the drive into my MacBook and open the video file. “Eye of the Tiger,” my motivational music, starts to play and a second later, there’s a video of me hanging upside down from a set of uneven bars at age four, my first time in a gym.

  “Your parents gave me all the video footage,” Jack blushes. “But I put it together.”

  It’s a montage of videos from that first gym visit to me standing on the podium at the Open earlier this month. My eleven-year career reduced to four minutes of greatest hits set to the sweet sound of aggressive 80s rock.

  I can’t stop the tears this time. I wipe them with the back of my sleeve, keeping my face glued to the laptop screen so I don’t have to look at Jack.

  “I just thought…I mean, I wanted to get you this bracelet I saw at the mall but I’m broke, so I had to make you something. I hope you don’t think it’s lame.”

  “It’s awesome. For real. No one’s ever done anything like this for me before.” I give him a hug, and he pulls me close, resting his chin on my head. The hug lasts about a second too long to be a friend hug, which feels awkward and bananas. When he lets go and walks away, he avoids my eyes.

  “I need to pack,” he says, swinging his leg over the windowsill. “I’ll see you when you get back. I’ll text you. Good luck.”

  “Have a good flight,” I call as he shimmies down from the awning and drops into the grass. I don’t know what else to say. I watch him slip into his window, as always, and then grab an old meet t-shirt. I wrap the framed article carefully and place it in the front pocket of my suitcase, for good luck in Boston next week.

  My brain is soup right now. I’ve never considered Jack as anything but a friend, but then again I’ve never really looked at any boy as something more than a friend, at least until I met Max at the farm back when I thought he was cool.

  I’ve known Jack since we were in diapers. Our parents used to joke that we’d get married someday. When we were five, we were forced to go as dates to our neighbor’s wedding. Everyone thought it was adorable, but that’s about where our love affair ended. With my obsession with gymnastics and his own obsession with technology, neither of us never really saw the other as anything more than a best friend.

  But now I’m wondering if maybe he’s had more-than-friend feelings for me that I’ve been completely oblivious to? Or am I just being a silly girl for assuming he’s in love with me just because he did something nice? This gift is more than nice, though, no joke. Meanwhile, I didn’t even have the common decency to listen to him about his Google thing when he first told me. Like, hello, could I be more self-involved?

  I sigh, long and hard, and then curl up on top of my bed. After humiliating Max in New York and the asshat at school, I assumed I was a natural-born man-repeller, but now I can’t help feeling my heart twitch when I picture Jack’s shy smile, his lanky arms and legs, his bushy eyebrows. He’s the exact opposite of frat boy Max and the assholes at school. He’s perfect.

  I position my laptop so it’s inches from my face, open the video again, and press play. But while my eyes watch a younger me stick dismounts and show off my medals, my mind is only on Jack.

  Saturday, May 28, 2016

  69 days left

  “Last practice before nationals!” Ruby announces when she bursts into the gym early Saturday morning while Emerson and I stretch. “Ooh, I just realized we get to see Maaaaaaax in Boston!”

  Until this second, I’d completely forgotten that nationals and the Olympic Trials are mixed, unlike the Open, which is just for the gals. In Boston, the guys will compete on Friday and Sunday while we compete on Thursday and Saturday. We’re so busy, we won’t get to see much of them, but they’ll be there and that’s more than enough to get some of the boy-starved younger girls excited.

  “Why do you care about seeing Max?” Emerson says on her way back to the locker room for her hoodie. “He’s disgusting.”

  “I don’t,” Ruby shrugs. “But Mal might. She’s totally in love with him.”

  “What?” It’s now that I remember Ruby has no idea what happened between me and Max in New York. “Ew, no I’m not.”

  “I thought you were obsessed with him after you talked to him at the farm.”

  “Yeah, for five seconds.”

  “Please, I left you two alone for 20 minutes in New York and when I came back, there were 50 Shades of Grey levels of sexual tension in that room,” Ruby continues to tease.

  “Shut up!” I laugh, trying to mask my annoyance. “I pretty much told him to go to hell, actually. The tension was more American Psycho than 50 Shades. In that Max totally wanted to murder me.”

  “Yeah, right,” she says, shaking her head. “I bet you a hundred buck
s you’ll be chasing him down at nationals. You looooooooove him!”

  Her habit of saying whatever she wants is normally a frustrating, yet endearing quirk. Not today. Today is the last day my dad is home before moving to Mabton and my life stops being the same it’s been for almost 16 years. Today is two days away from our flight to nationals. Today I am exhausted from staying up all night cramming for the final exams I’ll have to take after nationals. Today, Ruby is on my last nerve.

  “Not as much as you love Sergei,” I whisper, so Emerson can’t hear.

  Oh. Fu…dge. Balls. Fudgeballs. Why, why, why.

  Ruby reddens, coughs, and rage-whispers, “what are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Sergei sneaking out of our hotel room in San Diego,” I hiss. “And the obnoxious flirting every chance you get, which you think is adorable but is actually nauseating. He’s like 30.”

  “He’s 26, but thanks. And I’m almost 19. Not that there is anything going on,” she’s quick to add. “But if there was, it’s not like it’d be gross.”

  “It’s gross because he’s a coach and works for our gym now, technically. There are rules about that.”

  “Fantastic. Where would I be without you constantly reminding me of the rules? Rules that have nothing to do with me because nothing is going on between us. We’re friends. He gets me. We’ve been through similar shit. Jesus, Amalia.”

  “Jesus Amalia?” Sergei would happen to walk into the room right at this moment. “Is this an official name change?”

  I look at Ruby, who gives me a “don’t you dare” glare. “Yes,” I say, standing up. “I’m on my way to the court right now.”

  “Let’s get through routines first, okay?”

  I toss him a super fake smile which turns into an eye roll as I glare back at Ruby, who is trying to look impassive. If there was nothing going on, wouldn’t she – the girl who never misses an opportunity to make herself heard – say something like, “oh my gawd, Sergei, you’ll never believe what Amalia just said!” The fact that she is silent makes it pretty clear that my accusation is legit.

  Emerson bounds back out of the locker room and the two of us use a set of uneven bars to do some pull-ups and leg lifts. I’m huffing a bit more than usual, I guess, because in between sets she asks what’s up.

  “Nothing,” I exhale as I breathe out.

  “Sure,” is her response. “Ruby looks like she wants to kill you, by the way. Trouble in paradise?”

  “It’s nothing, really. I just…assumed something. I was wrong, I guess. According to her. It’s not a big deal.”

  Emerson hops off the high bar and claps her hands, leaving a cloud of chalk dust behind her. “Sure.”

  Natasha calls us over to begin our actual training. We found out our rotation group will start on beam in Boston, so that’s where we’ve been starting in training all week. We do our regular pre-meet warm-ups on each event, just working various skills and slowly putting the pieces together, and then we move on to pressure sets.

  Lots of full routines, lots of hard landings, lots of being exhausted. If we fall, we have to start over until we get it right, which really smacks the importance of hitting into our heads.

  “Some business before we start,” Natasha says, eyes glued to her phone. “We fly out Monday at 9:10 a.m., should be in around 5:30 p.m. So tomorrow, on your day off, you need to keep your muscles happy. Get a massage…that’s an order. Do some stretching. When we get to the city, we’ll use the hotel gym to get in a mini-workout on the treadmills and bikes just to get our bodies moving after the trip.”

  “No gym-gym?” Ruby asks.

  “Just say gymnastics,” Emerson retorts.

  “We don’t have access to the training facility until Tuesday morning. Two practices on Tuesday, two on Wednesday – one with the media watching – and then a morning practice on Thursday before the juniors compete. Competition is Thursday and Saturday nights. Friday is a rest and recovery day. Sunday morning we’ll have a national team meeting – I assume all three of you will make the national team – and then we fly home in the afternoon.”

  I stress-exhale and it’s ridiculously loud. The others laugh.

  “Yes, and let’s not forget this is Amalia’s first nationals, and it’s an important one. Set a good example,” she adds, eyeing Emerson and Ruby. Especially Ruby. Ruby responds with a double thumbs up.

  “All right! Let’s have an awesome last practice so we can have an awesome day off and then an awesome meet. Sound good?”

  “Sounds awesome,” Ruby answers. Sergei stifles a laugh. I grit my teeth and breathe out through my nose. Emerson watches this series of events closely and raises an eyebrow at me, her eyes growing big. I gesture that I’m going to slit her throat if she opens her mouth; she understands.

  “Great, let’s go!” Natasha smiles, oblivious to the drama unfolding before her.

  ***

  “All packed, I see?” my dad remarks, entering my room bright and early Sunday morning. He inspects my two suitcases, backpack, and duffel bag, all stacked neatly by desk.

  “Of course.” I’m doing homework and trying to get as much studying as possible out of my system so I can focus on nothing but gym this week. “I’m assuming you are as well?”

  He smiles sadly. “I’m the one moving out but I think you have me beat, kiddo. I only have one suitcase.”

  “Is your apartment all set?”

  “Yup. They set me up in a residential suite at some local motel. The glamorous life.”

  “And you start work tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be shadowing tomorrow and for the rest of the school year, yes.”

  I sigh. “I’ll miss you so much.”

  “Hey, it’ll be nothing, at least this first week. You wouldn’t have seen me this week anyway, you being in Boston like the big-time superstar you are. And I’m taking the red-eye out to you on Friday night,” he adds, eyeing the American Open silver medal hanging from my bedpost. “So I won’t see you compete on Thursday, but I’ll watch on TV and will be there live and in person for the big finale on Saturday.”

  “I know, you’ve told me a thousand times,” I mumble, not looking up.

  “Everything good?”

  “Yes, everything is fine. I’m just super busy.”

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to annoy you.”

  I close my book. “I’m sorry. You’re not annoying me. I just have a million things to do before I go. School things. Thought you might appreciate my commitment.”

  He laughs. “You know me so well. How did practice go yesterday?”

  “Fine. Nothing went wrong, anyway. I’m doing a new skill on bars instead of that tricky one I was telling you about, the one I changed in San Diego. It’s actually looking really good, really clean. And my floor feels better. I think I can hit everything, no problem.”

  “That’s all you can ask for, right?”

  “Well, I mean, hitting no problem is one thing but a lot of girls can hit with no problem. I need to hit and show that I have something to offer the team. I need to make Vera see how important I am, how badly she needs me in August.”

  “I have no doubt you can do just that,” he says, petting my head. “I’m heading out in about ten minutes, so it’s about that time we say goodbye.”

  I choke back tears and reluctantly climb off my bed, staring down at the floor as he reaches in for a hug.