“Part of me wants to slap you but weirdly, I also want to hug you. And don’t worry, that was the 6. I wanted to upgrade to the 6S anyway.”
Ruby smiles. “We got your back, Em. Now take a bath, watch a terrible Lifetime movie, and go to bed. Remember, I was leading yesterday. You have a lot of tenths to make up if you want to beat me tomorrow.”
“Just chill,” I agree. “Remember when you forced me to do hot yoga against my will? Center yourself. Tomorrow’s too important to throw away.”
“Thanks guys, for real. I promise, I’ll be fine by morning.”
I follow Ruby out into the hallway and to our room. “Still wanna watch the men’s meet?” she asks, turning the TV on once we’re inside.
“Nah. I think I just wanna take a bath. Let me know if Max falls a lot. I think that’ll boost my mood.”
“You really don’t like him, do you?” she asks with a smirk.
“Nope. Aside from his cuteness, he’s kind of the worst.”
“Well, I’m glad you realized it before you did something stupid, unlike every other girl who has ever met him.”
I laugh. “I know there are guys out there who are both cute and sweet.” I start to blush, and though I want to tell her about my newfound feelings for Jack, I decide it’s not worth adding even more insanity to our already messy scenario. One distraction at a time.
I make a cup of chamomile tea, climb into the bath, and slide down into the bubbly water until I’m covered up to my chin. I do some deep breathing, feel my muscles melt, and try to clear my mind of absolutely everything but tomorrow.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
62 days left
Ruby and I opt for breakfast in our room the next morning, aiming to make this day as low-key as humanly possible, and that unfortunately means avoiding Emerson. We do meet up with her and our coaches at lunch, though, and she tells us straight out that she doesn’t want Sergei to know.
“I’m fine,” she whispers before we sit down. “I know Sergei will just stress me out more than I already am, asking me about how I feel and blah, blah, blah.”
“Sorry again about your phone,” Ruby says.
“No, really, I needed that. I kept getting texts from her but would have cut my thumb if I tried to swipe. I did get the sim card out…I’ll just wait to get a new one when we get back to Seattle.”
“Did you read any of the texts?” I ask.
“No. I told myself I’m not letting this mess with my gymnastics. If anything, I’ll be better than ever. I’m going to absolutely destroy everyone tonight. Even you, Ruby. Sorry in advance.”
“We’ll see about that,” Ruby laughs. “Don’t think I’m gonna take it easy on you and let you win. And what about you, Miss 7.0 beam start value?”
“7.1, actually, and same. I’ll be unstoppable.”
“People are assholes,” Ruby mutters. “Seriously. It’s not like my own mother is trying to sabotage me, I can’t imagine what special hell that is, but remember the press last year when I had a bad first day at nationals and they basically stalked me around the hotel trying to get me to snap?”
“Seriously,” Emerson echoes. “But please, I don’t even wanna talk about it. It’s just gonna mess with my head, and I don’t want the coaches asking questions.”
“Coaches asking questions about what?” Natasha butts in, practically on cue.
“My phone,” Emerson blurts. “I was taking picture of my view and dropped it out the window. It shattered into a billion pieces.” Emerson is a fantastic liar. Even I believe her and I was there when Ruby smashed it.
“Yikes,” Natasha says, totally oblivious. “At least it was the phone and not you!”
“She could have tumbled her way down and probably stuck the landing,” Ruby laughs.
“Actually, some Dutch guy did that,” Sergei adds. “We were at a party after a friendly meet back when I was competing, he was drunk, and he fell out of our hotel window three stories up. Did a couple of front tucks and landed on his feet. Walked away with a sprained ankle.”
“Not surprising,” Ruby shrugs. “Gymnasts are ninjas.”
After Emerson’s successful deflection of the conversation, Natasha gets serious. “I wanted to chat with you all a bit before you start getting ready to compete. Today’s a big day.”
“Most obvious statement ever made by a human being,” Ruby grins.
“Shush. All three of you are going to make Olympic Trials no matter what,” Natasha starts. “It’s nice to have a national title but don’t push yourselves past your breaking point. If something goes wrong, run with it. Don’t stress. Move on and have fun. That’s the best way to keep a small problem from turning into a catastrophe. I’ve been there. I’ve lost my mind in front of a huge crowd. It happens, and the more frustrated you get, the more you continue to implode. But if something happens, just think, like, ‘I won’t win the title or won’t make the podium, but this competition isn’t the big picture.’ Because it’s not. In five years, no one will remember who the medalists were at nationals. I’m sure we all know what the big picture actually is, what people will actually remember. I know you know this. I know you understand how to compete. But I also know that once you get this close to the Olympics, it becomes super easy to forget everything you know, no matter how good you are and no matter how many times you’ve competed before. So don’t forget it.”
We sit in silence for a moment, trying to fully absorb the power of Natasha’s words.
“Thanks, coach,” Ruby finally says. She gets up and gives her a hug. Emerson and I follow suit.
“You still have a couple of hours to chill before you need to start getting ready, so I’ll leave you to it. But for what it’s worth, I think you’re all gonna be brilliant. Don’t let anything make you think otherwise.”
She doesn’t know a thing about our hidden little drama, and yet her words are exactly what all three of us need to hear.
***
Our rotation group begins on floor tonight. Personally, I’m thrilled to get it out of the way early. The arena has this crazy tense energy, and it’s making things weird. Normally during warm-ups there’s a sense of camaraderie among the athletes; even though we know we’re each other’s competition, even with how tense it’s been all week, we’ve still behaved like normal people.
Tonight it’s way different. No one spoke above a whisper during general stretch. When a newbie fell out of a pirouette and stepped within two feet of Maddy practicing leaps, she totally lost it. Even the coaches were on edge, angrily yelling corrections across the floor instead of taking their gymnasts aside.
Thankfully, Ruby, Emerson, and I have had zero issues all afternoon. Our warm-up session is excellent, and I’m really thriving on the momentum from day one. Especially in terms of my confidence levels. I feel like an upperclassman walking the halls in a school full of freshmen, despite being a freshman myself.
I sit back with my iPod, eyes closed, when the rotation gets started. I’m fifth to go on floor, and with each exercise and judging period lasting about three or four minutes, I have at least 15 minutes to kill before I go. I’ll just transport myself to another world until Natasha taps me to go on deck.
But I feel a tap only about ten seconds after the bell rings. I open my eyes and take out my earbuds. It’s Leah.
“What?” I hiss, annoyed.
She looks visibly shaken. “Bailey. On vault.”
I notice the arena is dead silent. I stand up and turn to face toward the end of the vault runway, on the opposite side of the arena. A gymnast in hot pink is on her back, one leg elevated, with several coaches and medical staff crowded around her.
It’s Bailey Dawson. She does an Amanar and is usually great at it. It’s the sole reason why she was on last year’s worlds team.
“What happened?” I ask, my face pale.
“She tried a triple,” Leah answers. “A triple freaking Yurchenko. She landed short and was still twisting as she hit the ground.”
I put my earbuds back in and close my eyes, trying to drown out the deafening silence that comes with such a devastating injury. That’ll be it for Bailey. She’ll have a dislocation, a meniscus injury, an ACL or MCL tear…or some combination of these that will end her season, and probably her Olympic dream entirely. Years of back-breaking work and everything’s over in a flash.
It’s the same thing that happened to Ruby four years earlier, though it was the Achilles for her. I glance over to see how she’s doing, and she’s just shaking her head. She’s up third on floor and is trying to stay warm as she waits. I don’t think this will mess with her own performance, but I know I won’t be able to watch.
Eventually Bailey is wheeled out of the arena, and I retreat back to my world to try to forget. I can still hear the floor music slightly over my own music, so I know when Ruby’s up and I also know that she finishes when I hear the insane applause. I smile. Good. Nothing will faze her.
Leah’s music starts, so I get up and start jumping up and down to get my muscles ready. I give Ruby a big hug, congratulate her even though I didn’t see anything she did, and wait my turn, standing by the steps that lead up to the podium, head down, hands on my hips.
Finally, it’s my turn. And because the human brain loves nothing more than sabotaging the person in which it lives, I have a flash of me on my back clutching my own knee on floor. Seriously, brain? While I wait for the green light, I imagine myself sticking everything, and mentally give the finger to my mind.
Green light, music starts, salute and smile. This is it.
My first pass, the double arabian, soars. I feel my legs glued together as I tumble forward, my hands grasping the backs of my knees. The landing on this skill is blind, meaning I don’t have a view of the floor and have to rely on muscle memory to ensure I stick, but I do. And because my landing is so clean, I’m able to rebound back up into a wolf jump for the bonus tenth. I typically miss that connection, so I’m already doing better than usual.
The triple full is a tiny bit under-rotated and I have to take a step out to the side so I can steady the landing, but my leaps are superb, my triple pirouette gets applause, and I hit the double pike and double tuck with only the most minor of form issues. I still have a bit of choreography after the last pass, but I can’t help grinning ear to ear as I finish up.
I not only hit, but had one of my best elite floor routines and I know the score will be great.
Natasha waits for me on the edge of the podium and gives me a big pat on the back. “Good job with that quick thinking on the wolf jump connection,” she praises. “I knew you’d eventually get that. Now you’ll never miss it. Your rotation on the triple was obviously off, as I’m sure you know. It looked like you were relying more on twisting quickly than on power, which can work but I’d rather you come in strong as well. Get a bit more punch out of the back handspring and twist fast. But overall, a solid routine. Keep doing it like this.”
I run back to my seat Ruby’s waiting for a high five. “Awesome. Just awesome. You are becoming fierce before our eyes.”
This is just what I need to hear. I gulp some water and then bring up Bailey. “Did you hear any news?”
“No,” she sighs. “A shame. No idea why they’d push the triple on her now. It’s not like it would make her win. And now she’ll never get to the Olympics, never get the chance to have it named for her. That’s the kind of vault you save for event finals when you have nothing to lose but an individual medal.”
I agree.
“Just try not to think about it, okay? It will not happen to you. I promise. Your skills are too solid for something like that to happen.”
“No, I’m weirdly okay. Bummed for Bailey, obviously, but I know I’ll be fine. I was more worried about you, because…well, you know.”
“Ahhh yes, the Fall That Shall Not Be Named. Don’t worry about that. That is the past, this is the now.”
We hear Emerson’s music start and turn to the podium to watch her routine. She’s luminescent, performing her dramatic music with fire in her eyes. Her tumbling is perfect, and she’s sharper than I’ve ever seen her.
“Jesus Christ,” Ruby whispers.
“She needs mama drama at every meet,” I whisper back and Ruby laughs. Emerson finishes to a standing ovation and waves to the crowd while descending the stairs to an insanely happy Sergei.
“Great, now I need to up my game,” Ruby moans. “I thought this would be smooth sailing.”
The change of rotation fanfare starts and we wait for Emerson before marching over to vault. We quickly hug and congratulate her, and then the three of us line up, looking like a badass team of champions. Because that’s exactly what we are. Squad goals.
***
I spoke too soon. Of course bars would be my downfall.
It’s not my downfall, really. It’s just a minor, fixable mistake. I could feel myself starting to rush skills in the middle of the routine and after I caught my Gienger, I knew that if I kept going into the next segment I’d run into problems.
An extra swing isn’t the end of the world. If anything, it kept me from making a big error, or worse, falling. But it is going to be a sizable deduction, and I can’t help but get mad at myself.
The rest of the routine goes smoothly. I catch the Markelov and land the double front with just a tiny step, nothing more than a tenth, which won’t matter at this point. Unless I lose out on a medal by a tenth, in which case I’ll regret that step for a very long time.
“I know you think I’m annoyed with you right now, but I’m actually proud,” Natasha says. “Quick thinking for the second time today! A few months ago you would have continued on at that horrific pace and spontaneously combusted. Are you otherwise happy with how you did?”
“Yes. I finished strong.”
“You sure did. Now just go over your beam leaps and choreo on the sidelines before this rotation ends. You’re so close, Mal. One routine closer to Olympic Trials.”
Before this event, I stuck my Amanar on vault, and with beam left I know I’m still in the running for a medal. Bars isn’t totally going to destroy me. Though I can’t help hoping that Maddy makes mistakes, just to give me a bit of security.
I go over my beam routine in the space between the bars podium and the wall twice instead of once, figuring the last-minute extra practice can’t hurt. We march over, go through the touch warm-up, and then since I’m second up, I take my spot on the side of the podium while Leah goes, keeping my eyes down because I just know she’s going to fall and I don’t want that in my head when I go up.
When it’s my turn, Natasha comes up for a pep talk. “Have fun,” is all she says, and I smile before climbing the stairs.
For such a difficult routine, I’m barely nervous. I can do this in my sleep, and sometimes dream about the sequences and connections. The first big test is the flight series, and I can feel that the layout is probably a bit piked, but I try not to let that rattle me. Bad form is bad form, but wobbles and falls show a lack of confidence and I’m reeling with self-esteem for once.
I pause for a split second longer than usual between my side aerial and Onodi, and don’t think that’ll be credited as a connection worthy of a bonus. And I don’t get the punch I need off the end of the beam to get the tucks in the double arabian all the way around without cowboying my legs, pulling the knees apart to flatten my body so that it rotates faster in the air even though the leg form is incorrect.
Mistakes on my best event, but they’re minor, and I’m still able to walk away from the podium with a smile on my face. I wave to every corner of the arena, trying not to cry from happiness. Without a doubt, I’ve made it to the Olympic Trials, just one competition away from the Olympic Games. I am so alive, and never want this feeling to go away.
Finding Our Balance Page 25