The Flip Side (20 page)

I give him a pointed look.

He shrugs. “Maybe it's a little bit your fault, since I have a feeling you weren't supposed to be here. Otherwise I would have known ahead of time that you'd be here.”

“You weren't supposed to be here?” Bobby asks.

I shake my head dejectedly. “My mom didn't think it would be a good idea. But I wanted to come. That's why I had you pick me up at Gwen's.”

“You got Gwen involved?” Josh asks. “Man, Coach Chris—”

“Josh,” I say in a low, threatening voice.

He slams his mouth closed. Clearly confused, everyone darts their gazes between him and me.

“Look, I don't want to mess up everyone's night. I'll call a cab.”

“I'm taking you home,” Bobby says yet again. “We're paying for the limo whether it's sitting out there or driving around. We might as well use it. I'll come back for Michael and Zoe.”

“Okay.”

Before I can even move, he lifts me into his arms again.

“I can walk,” I insist.

“You can't walk. You can hobble.”

This would be truly romantic if my ankle weren't throbbing and I weren't getting a good deal of unwanted attention. I bury my face in Bobby's shoulder.

“I'm really sorry,” I say.

“You should be, for putting the idea into that guy's head that he could skate through a group of dancers.”

I jerk my head up. Bobby gives me an ironic smile. “You have nothing to apologize for. It's not your fault this happened.”

Bobby finds our limo, settles me onto the seat, and then joins me. Once we're under way, Bobby asks, “Why didn't you tell me that you weren't supposed to go to prom?”

“Because it had nothing to do with you, and I didn't want you to think it did.”

“What did it have to do with?”

I shake my head. “Mom just didn't think it would be a good idea.”

“Why was your brother making a big deal about Gwen and some coach?”

I grimace. So he heard that. I wish I'd cut Josh off sooner.

“Gwen is an elite gymnast. Coach Chris trains her. He wants her to stay focused.”

He studies me intently. “I'm not stupid, Charlotte. There's more to it than that. Your ankle is messed up, and Josh is panicking like it's the end of the world.”

I sigh with resignation. “Coach Chris is also my gymnastics coach.”

“I didn't think you competed anymore,” Bobby says, clearly confused.

“I—I still do. It's complicated.”

“Why didn't you just tell me that? I'm going on about watching what I eat. You must do the same.”

“Because I don't talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't want people to know.”

He shakes his head. “I don't understand. Why not? Being a competitive gymnast is incredibly cool.”

Trying to explain this to Bobby, who is also an athlete, makes me feel foolish. “I need someplace where I can just be Charlotte. Where I don't have the pressure of people having expectations about me making the Olympic team.”

“Wait.” He pauses like he can't register what I just said. “You're hoping to go to the Olympics?”

I don't blame him for being surprised, for sounding almost doubtful. “Yeah. The Olympic trials are next weekend. That's why my mom didn't want me going to prom. She wanted me to stay focused on my goals.”

“And that's the reason Josh was freaking out. Because you're hurt.”

I blow out a puff of air. “Pretty much.”

“You're
that
good?” he asks.

“I'm going to find out in another week.” If my ankle isn't totally messed up. It's throbbing with pain right now.

He looks out the window. “I still don't understand why you didn't tell me.”

“To be honest, I don't know either.”

He moves across to the other seat so that he's facing me squarely. “You didn't trust me.”

“It's not that.” But even as I say the words, I know it couldn't have been anything else. I didn't trust him not to be different around me. But I don't tell him that, because I know he'd be insulted. He has every right to feel that way.

“I thought we had something,” he says quietly.

“Bobby—”

The limo pulls to a stop.

“I don't know what to say to all this, Charlotte.”

“ ‘Charlie,' ” I say sadly. “Charlie is the real me. I didn't go by ‘Charlotte' until I started back at public school. I just wanted my school life to be separate from my gymnastics life.”

“I told you ‘Charlie' suited you better.”

“So maybe I wasn't able to hide everything from you.”

“You hid enough. And Josh wasn't being an irritating older brother when he called you ‘Charlie.' You lied about that. I have the feeling there hasn't been a lot of honesty on your part.”

The door opens. Bobby gets out and assists me, providing support as I climb out and try not to put any weight on my foot.

The front door opens. Mom and Dad rush out.

“Charlie?” Mom calls out. “What's going on?”

I'm hopping a little, trying to balance on one foot. Suddenly Bobby sweeps me up into his arms, but it's not all nice and warm like it was before. There is a stiffness to the way he's holding me. I can't blame him. I've basically been lying to him about the biggest part of my life since we met.

“We went to prom,” Bobby says as he approaches my parents. “She got hurt.”

“You went to prom?” Mom says. “Even after I told you that you couldn't go?”

“How do you get hurt at prom?” Dad asks.

Before I can answer, Bobby says, “I need to get her inside.”

He carries on, with my parents rushing after us. When he crosses the threshold, I say, “You can put me down now.”

“I'm putting you in a chair, off your feet. Otherwise there is no point in carrying you. Where should I go?”

I hear the repressed anger in his voice.

“To your left. Through that doorway.”

He carries me into the front sitting room and gently sets me down on the sofa. He turns, stops. The wall is covered with photos of me at various ages in different leotards. Sometimes I'm holding a ribbon, or a medal, or a trophy. Sometimes I'm posed like I'm about to begin or have just ended a routine. Slowly he approaches the wall, studies the photos.

“We need an explanation,” Mom says as she dashes into the room.

“The prom was at a skating rink,” I say. “Some guy decided to go skating, and he clipped me.” I pull up the hem of my gown.

Mom gasps and covers her mouth. “Oh, Charlie.” Kneeling beside me, she tenderly lifts my leg to examine it. “We have to get you to Dr. Kwan tonight.”

He specializes in treating athletes and has taken care of me whenever my ankle has acted up.

“We appreciate your bringing Charlie home,” Dad says to Bobby.

Bobby faces him. “No problem, but I need to scoot. I'm sharing the limo with some other people.” He heads for the doorway.

“Thanks for everything, Bobby,” I call out.

He stops, glances back over his shoulder at me. He looks as sad as I feel. “Good-bye, Charlotte.”

Then he's gone. And I have a feeling that his good-bye was a good-bye forever.

“What were you thinking?” Mom asks.

“You told me to embrace my crazy, and going to prom seemed like a crazy thing to do. Plus I really wanted to go. It was just one night. I couldn't see that it would do any harm.”

Mom glares at me, her mouth in a straight line of disapproval. “You went behind our backs.”

Anger flares up in me, but I remind myself that I deserve this. Mom is right. She has every right to be angry.

“I'm sorry, Mom.”

“Sorry isn't good enough, Charlie.” She paces around the living room, clearly agitated. “So your spending the night with Gwen . . . was that a complete lie?”

“No, I was going to spend the night at her house.”

“She was in on this?”

I don't want to get Gwen into trouble. “She didn't know everything.”

“No more rides or hanging out with Gwen.” She points a finger at me. “Or anyone else, for that matter. You are as grounded as we can make you with trials coming up.”

I look over at Dad. He's wearing his solidarity face. He won't contradict Mom. “We're disappointed in you, Charlie,” he says quietly.

Mom picks up the phone. “You've taken this secret-life thing too far, Charlie. When you start lying to your parents,
that's too far
. It's time for you to come out, all of you, in front of everybody.”

“I told Bobby,” I mumble. “I don't think he's ever going to talk to me again.”

Mom is quiet for a moment. “I think you have more important things to worry about.”

She's right. I still have to face Coach Chris and Gwen, not to mention everyone else who believed in me as a gymnast. All my coaches in Texas, for instance. My Facebook and Team Charlie followers. “Mom, do you think I've ruined my chances to make the Olympic team?”

Mom's expression is flat as she starts dialing. “We'll see what Dr. Kwan says.”

While she's talking to him, I take out my phone and text Gwen.

I won't be coming back tonight. I got busted. Long story. I'll call you tomorrow.

Now I just have to hope that I haven't ruined things for Gwen, too.

•  •  •

Long after midnight I'm lying on my bed with my foot wrapped in a compression bandage and elevated on a pillow to reduce the swelling. Dr. Kwan was willing to see his “little Olympian” in an emergency situation late on a Saturday night. After much poking and prodding, he made his diagnosis: nothing torn, just stretched tendons. I'm so lucky, although I'm not really feeling that way. I took some pain relievers to reduce the ache still throbbing through my foot, but the medication doesn't ease the hurt I've caused for others tonight. My parents are still upset with me and disappointed in my deception. I don't blame them. It was so easy to justify before getting caught, but now I just feel guilty.

Then there's Bobby. I'm staring at my phone wishing he'd text and wondering if I should text him to let him know what Dr. Kwan said. But a part of me is afraid that he won't answer, that he won't care.

A knock sounds on my door, and it opens. Josh steps into my room, closes the door, and leans against it. “How's the ankle?”

“Swollen, hurting. Dr. Kwan says I need to stay off it as much as possible.” I point to the crutches resting against the foot of my bed. “But that's not much of an option. I'll test it Monday at practice.”

“Can't you give it more time to heal?”

Regretfully I shake my head. “I have to be at a hundred percent by next weekend. If my ankle can't support me, Coach Chris needs to know.”

“Either way he's not going to be happy.”

“Tell me about it.” There's a chance that even if my ankle can take the strain of being jolted and landed on, Coach Chris won't be willing to risk the possibility of my injuring myself further—to the extent that I'll have to have one or more surgeries or that I won't be able to recover in time for the Olympics in August. I don't want to think about how messed up everything is. “How was the rest of prom?”

“Too crowded. Morgan and I left to grab a burger. I got the third degree just now when I got home. Mom and Dad thought I knew something about you sneaking off, but I had no idea.” He walks over, moves the crutches aside, and sits on the foot of my bed. “So thanks for keeping me in the dark on that.”

He sounds a little hurt. I feel like I didn't do a single thing right in relation to prom.

“What were you thinking?” he asks.

“That I wanted to go to prom. But now I'm paying for it.”

Josh stares at me. “Why shouldn't you be able to go to prom, though? It doesn't make any sense.”

“Because I have my priorities mixed up,” I say, tears springing into my eyes. “I'm going to the Olympic trials, Josh, and here I was stumbling around in high heels. I mean, how did I think that was a good idea? When I saw that guy headed for me, I couldn't move quickly, I couldn't get out of the way. Maybe I deserve to be out of the trials. After this, when the coaches find out I'm injured, I probably will be out.”

“They're not going to sideline you for an injury. Not a sprained ankle. People sprain their ankles all the time and still compete.”

“Maybe if I got hurt during practice or a competition. But I lied to everyone and went to prom.”

“Are you serious? After all the sacrifices you've made? After everything?”

I shrug. “I messed up, Josh. It's a harsh world.”

“So you're giving up?”

I have to pause to consider my answer. Am I giving up? Am I giving in to the pain, resigning myself to losing my dream? Or do I have it in me to still fight? Fight through the pain and see what happens.

“No, I'm not giving up.”

Josh shifts on the bed. “And what does wearing heels have to do with anything? It was the idiot on the skates who sideswiped you.”

“But I shouldn't have been there to begin with.”

“Then he would have sideswiped someone else. You actually saved someone tonight, Charlie.”

I release a bubble of laughter—the last thing I expected to do anytime soon. “That seems like a stretch, Josh.”

“So is thinking that you should be punished for going to prom. Who doesn't want to go to prom?” He plucks at a thread on my comforter. “I'm sorry you didn't feel like you could confide in me, let me help you pull this off.”

“You're just sorry that you didn't get a chance to buddy up to Bobby.”

He grins. “That, too. I like the guy.”

“Would you like him if he weren't famous at our school for his wrestling prowess?”