Tumbling (30 page)

“I'm one of the best gymnasts in the world. I
am
the best vaulter in the world. And it's awesome to be the best at something. So, whether or not I should be, I'm here, and while I'm here, I will enjoy it.”

“Camille—” He tried to protest again.

“No,” she said. “Not now. I have an Amanar to land.”

Camille hung up before he could say anything else. She tucked her phone into the waistband of her warm-ups and rushed back into the arena.

She was feeling better than ever when she jogged through that gray tunnel. She was running past the bars toward the beam, wishing she could keep running until
she went down the runway and catapulted herself over the vault. Out of the corner of her eye she was watching Leigh flip-flop through a dismount and then—

It was like slow motion. Leigh's body went straight up instead of up-and-out. Leigh's head plunged toward the beam. Camille tried to run. She felt like a million tiny wires were wrapped around her wrists and ankles, dragging her backward, as she fought to get to Leigh in time. She didn't know what she would do. What could she do? But she needed to get there.

“
No!
” Camille shouted. She shouted so loudly that all the spectators and gymnasts and coaches who had been watching floor routines turned to see it happen.

Leigh's head whacked into the corner of the beam. Leigh's body went stiff, then fell four feet and crashed like a baby bird on the sidewalk. A deafening
pop
rattled through the stadium. Leigh had popped.

Leigh didn't move.

Camille didn't, either. She stood stock-still between the bars and the beam. Her legs were still, one in front of the other. Her arms were frozen in front of her like her hands were trying to push the reality of the scene away from her.

“This can't be happening. This cannot be happening
again
,” she mumbled to herself. Over and over.

It was all her fault. She'd freaked Leigh out. She'd messed up the meet for Wilhelmina and for Leigh and still managed to send herself to the Olympics. This was not how it was supposed to be.

Camille saw Leigh's coach signal for more help. She saw the paramedics get her on a stretcher. She saw them carefully pass the stretcher from the podium onto the main level.

She did not move until she was in the way of Leigh and the four men who were carrying her.

She wanted to deny everything she'd said before about comebacks. Even though it was true, she wanted to take it all back and let Leigh make up her own mind.

She wanted to apologize.

She wanted to clutch Leigh while they talked about how hard it is to give up the one and only thing that defined your entire childhood.

“Where are you taking her?” Camille yelled out once they were almost past her.

One of the paramedics shouted, “Johns Hopkins.”

Camille had to get there. Fast.

WILHELMINA

The arena was freezing. As if when they carried Leigh out through the gray tunnel under the bleachers, she took all the warmth with her. No one was moving. No one was on floor. Wilhelmina was not on beam. The coaches were not walking toward their gymnasts. The gymnasts had not turned their heads. The stands above them were still, because none of the forty-five thousand spectators were thinking about the bathroom
or the snack bar or even calling out to their own beloved gymnast.

Instead, ninety thousand eyes stared at the black hole through which Leigh the Gymnast had disappeared.

Wilhelmina wasn't sure if it was seconds or minutes or hours or days before she started to feel the energy shift back into the room. Some of the people in the seats wiggled or sneezed or whispered to each other or answered their phones. Some of the gymnasts shook their heads. Some of the coaches put an arm around their athletes.

Wilhelmina didn't move.

She could see the gym in front of her, technically. She could see Annie climb the floor podium and slowly step toward the chalk. She could feel Kerry's hands touch her shoulders lightly.

But the image of Leigh's head snapping back with the force of the beam blocked everything out. Leigh's neck about to crack and her skull about to roll across the floor. Leigh's leg folded under her hips at a grotesque angle when she landed. Leigh's toes still pointed even when she was being transferred to the stretcher, unconscious. All Wilhelmina could hear was the sound that ripped through the stadium when Leigh's skull hit the wood of the balance beam.

She could have died.

Wilhelmina knew she didn't. But still.

“It's your turn,” Kerry said softly in Wilhelmina's ear. “Get your nine-point-five.”

Wilhelmina looked at Kerry. Was she serious? Did they really think Wilhelmina could climb onto the beam right now like nothing happened? Would Wilhelmina be expected to perform even if her fellow gymnast
had
died?

But somehow, making her jaw work—asking Kerry how she could expect Wilhelmina to get up on that tiny four-foot-high platform and be powerful and beautiful and perfect right after another girl's entire world had shattered—seemed even more impossible than flipping and spinning.

So Wilhelmina took a step toward the chalk. She was surprised her body knew how to move.

Grace was standing next to the chalk bowl. She might have been the only person in the stadium who had stayed still longer than Wilhelmina.

When Wilhelmina dipped her hands into the bleach-white chalk, Grace turned her head to look at her. Wilhelmina was shocked to see tears dancing in her eyes.

Grace opened her mouth.

But before she could say anything—before Grace could yell at Wilhelmina for thinking more about gymnastics and competition than Leigh's life—Wilhelmina spit out the words, “I don't want to hear it. It should have been you.”

For a second they were both shocked. It was so unlike Wilhelmina to stoop to mean comments in the middle of a meet, at least outside her head. But she hadn't intended the words to be cruel. It
could
have been Grace.
It could have
more easily
been Grace. Grace was starving herself into nothing when she could have been the best in the world. It made Wilhelmina hot-angry.

Even more surprising, Grace nodded. “I know,” she said. “I'm a terrible friend.”

Wilhelmina was too mad for the pity party. She wiped her chalky hands on her thighs, leaving white streaks on her muscles. “That's not what I meant. I know, okay? You haven't been eating. It's so stupid, Grace. Do you want to get hurt? Do you want to make sure you'll never be as good as you used to be? You can't survive in this sport if you don't eat.”

Grace had tears in her eyes. But she didn't yell. She said, “Use it.”

“Huh?” Wilhelmina forced the syllable out of her mouth.

Grace said, “Use it. Use your anger. Leigh would. Leigh would use it.”

So Wilhelmina nodded. Gymnastics had been unfair to Leigh, too. She finally wasn't alone. Leigh had been minutes away from winning the Olympic trials, and now she was, at the very best, disqualified. And Wilhelmina had been handed the massive job of performing right after her.

She took a big, shaky breath and climbed the stairs to the podium.

She looked up into the stands, hoping to find Davion. Hoping he could give her a wink or a smile. Something to build her up.

But her eyes landed instead on Katja. And the woman very carefully stared at Wilhelmina and shook her head back and forth, back and forth. As if she was telling Wilhelmina not to do well on beam.

And Wilhelmina didn't care. She knew she wouldn't go to the Olympics for this woman, no matter what. Even if she did make the team now that Grace seemed broken and Leigh had fallen, she wouldn't get to bask in the glory of it. She'd have to deal with Katja constantly putting her down, telling the media and anyone who would listen that Wilhelmina was only an alternate promoted too soon.

Wilhelmina deserved to go to the Olympics honestly. Like a star. With her country behind her. Katja would never let that happen, even if Wilhelmina won the meet today.

So this was it. Two more routines. Then she was through.

She squinted at the balance beam until the images of the past few minutes were blocked from her vision. And she mounted.

STANDINGS
AFTER THE SEVENTH ROTATION

Eighth Rotation

LEIGH

I'm lucky to be alive
, Leigh told herself.

It doesn't matter
, Leigh told herself.

Her body felt exhausted between the too-starched, too-white sheets of her hospital bed; her muscles were too tired to remember they were in pain. An hour ago she'd been planning to flip and twist and contort this body in ways that would delight the judges and the Olympic selection committee. Now Leigh couldn't imagine turning her head to tell her mother, who was trying not to weep at Leigh's bedside, that she was squeezing her hand too tightly.

She wanted to ask her mother why she was crying—was it about the Olympics? Or was it the residual fear from Leigh's fall? Or was it because Leigh's whole life up to now had been pointless? Was she crying because they'd moved to Virginia? Because Leigh had given up flute and soccer and every possible after-school activity to end up in this hospital bed?

Leigh wanted her to be quiet already.

There was a knock on the door and Leigh was
suddenly able to move her head. She swung it to look at the door and ignored the way a stabbing pain fired through her forehead. She was hoping for the doctor to come into the room and finally end the waiting.

She was hoping for good news.

The pain in her head was a good sign. If it was a concussion . . .

Stop
, she told herself.
You're lucky to be alive.

It was only Leigh's dad. He handed her mom a cup of coffee and she stared at it, spacey.

“How ya feeling, Leigh-bee?” he asked. He put his hand on her cheek.

“Okay,” she said. “I feel okay now.”

It was true. Other than the top of her eye, which still felt like it was being rammed with a sword, she felt usual, like she had just finished a meet. Her muscles were tired but that was probably only because of the way they stiffened before she passed out. There were currents of pain zipping back and forth under her left knee cap, but that was normal. That was why gymnasts walked around with bags of ice taped to their torsos and shins and elbows and wrists and back. Zipping pain was an athlete's silent reality.

“I feel okay,” she repeated again.
I feel like a gymnast.

Her parents looked at her doubtfully.

“You know what's going on, right, Leigh-bee? What being here means?” her dad said.

Leigh sighed. “Yeah. It doesn't really matter how I'm feeling.”

His eyebrows jumped. They hated when she said things like this. Things that made it seem like she was all gymnast and nothing else.

“I mean it doesn't matter what the doctor says. I'm out no matter what. When I left the Metroplex, I disqualified myself for the team. That's what they said in our meeting before the meet started.”

Her parents nodded, looking relieved. But Leigh clutched hope to her chest. Maybe it was only a concussion. If it was, they'd change the rules for her. The USAG changed rules constantly. They changed the rules so much that it was impossible to remember them all, to predict what would happen one year based on the last year, to determine how many gymnasts would be on a team or how many would qualify for the all-around or how many would automatically qualify based on the trials. Nothing ever stayed the same. Everyone felt like victims of the USAG's and FIG's shifting policies, but where there were victims of circumstances, weren't there always the opposite? Wasn't there always someone for whom the unfairness bore advantage?

Well, that would be Leigh. They wouldn't let a silly concussion keep America from winning team gold. Surely, they'd want Leigh on the team once she was cleared to compete.

They'd announce five gymnasts tonight. Grace, for sure. Wilhelmina, now. Camille and Samantha and Georgette. Then, once they learned that Leigh had
nothing more than a concussion, that after a day or so of rest she'd be completely fine, they'd put her back on the team.

She'd been winning when she nose-dived into the beam, after all. They wouldn't punish her for leaving the Metroplex. Not on a stretcher.

“Let's talk about what we'll do when we get home,” her dad said, forcing a smile. “There are so many things you haven't gotten a chance to try. We'll find new activities that you can enjoy.”

He was endlessly cheerful, annoyingly optimistic. This is probably how Grace often felt about her, but now, when she was in a hospital bed awaiting the verdict on whether all her sacrifices had been smacked out of relevance eye-socket-first, the optimism was grating. Or it was wrong.

Leigh was optimistic, too. She would be a gymnast again. Next week or the day after tomorrow she'd be back to conditioning and spinning around the bars and twisting over the vault.

“What'll be your first meal when you're free from the nutrition plan?” her dad asked. “Ice cream?”

“Pancakes?” her mom added, sniffling.

“I'm tired,” Leigh said.

She shut her eyes. She imagined herself in an Olympic leo, climbing to the top of the podium as they played the American national anthem because she had won the women's all-around.

“Leigh,” her father said. “We know you want to go
back, honey. We're hoping for good news for you, too. But . . . it'll be easier to be . . . to be yourself . . . if it's not so public.”

Her mother squeezed her hand even harder. Leigh was worried it would be even more injured than her knee.

“It's true,” her mom said. “You might be able to come out in school, you know? If you have to be out of the gym for a while. You can do it quietly, right? Maybe date a few girls.”

For a second, Leigh let the picture drift in her mind. Herself and a cute girl from her school all dressed up for the next dance. A nice girl who messaged her the way Dylan had last night. A hot girl who kissed her like—

But no.

Phil said it was all about focus. She would focus now. She would focus so hard it would fix whatever might be but probably wasn't wrong with her body. She'd be like Grace. She'd use her mind to put her body back together.

A knock at the door, and her eyes flew open.

The doctor came in, her sandy-brown hair falling across her face so Leigh couldn't even see her eyes. She studied a clipboard, which rested against her middle, between the flaps of her white lab coat. She didn't even bother to look up at Leigh when she said it. She didn't even think about the words as they left her mouth.

“The good news is you'll walk again,” she said. Flat. Unfeeling. Hardly even negative. Like she was telling
Leigh that the light blue of her hospital gown was the wrong color on her.

“Walk again?” Her mother gasped.

The doctor nodded curtly. “You will. And without surgery. We were concerned based on the swelling of your knee when you came in that you might have torn your ACL, but it turns out you only subluxed the kneecap.”

Only
, Leigh thought. She said
only.
Only was good. Only meant it wouldn't change her life too much.

Leigh had done it. She'd focused hard enough.

As if the doctor could hear her, she said, “You'll recover. This should not affect you long-term.”

Leigh's heart was doing a jig in her chest, she was so happy.

“We want to take an X-ray in the morning, once the swelling goes down, to be sure the tendons heal. And you have a bad concussion, so we're going to keep you overnight.”

The doctor turned to go.

“Wait!” Leigh called out.

The doctor turned back around. Leigh tried not to see how she was tapping her thigh impatiently.

“You said I'll recover. But when? When will I recover?”

“We will send you to an orthopedist when you get back to the DC area.”

I'm not going to the DC area
, Leigh corrected her.
Rome. I'm going to Rome.

“If it turns out your knee is subluxed as we are predicting, you will need to be completely off it for about
two weeks, then we will slowly transition back into exercise with a knee brace. You'll be in a brace while exercising for a few years.”

“Years?” Her mother gasped.

“Weeks?” Leigh almost screamed.

The doctor finally looked up. “You'll live a normal life,” she said.

“But—” Leigh cut herself off before she finished. She snapped her jaw shut.

But I don't want a normal life.

“You were inches away from a much more bleak conversation,” the doctor concluded.

She had glasses perched on a tiny nose. She was tall and lanky and her nose didn't fit her body at all. She didn't look like that much, Leigh decided. She didn't look like she was always right about everything.

“And?” she said, when Leigh still hadn't said anything.

Finally, Leigh whispered, “The Olympics.”

“Oh,” the doctor said. She clicked her pen against her clipboard. “Yes. Well, there's always next time.”

MONICA

After her floor warm-up, Monica found herself sitting between her terrifying coach and her terrifying teammate. Grace hadn't warmed up at all. Almost no one seemed to care about the floor exercise anymore.

Seeing Leigh fall had cracked everyone's focus.

Monica still wanted to finish this meet up well. She still had that word running through her mind:
alternate.
But it was scary now, too. She'd never heard a human body pop before.

Grace looked at her. “You should be warming up.”

Monica shrugged.
I did warm up. YOU should warm up.

“I . . . I can't. I can't warm up,” Grace said as if she'd heard Monica's thoughts.

Monica lowered her eyebrows. “Why?”

“It's my fault,” Grace said quietly.

Ted whipped his head out of his hands. “Don't say that, Gracie,” he commanded. Then he shuddered. “It's mine.”

“Listen,” she said, her voice shaky, like she was going to cry. “I made her fall. It was me.”

Monica started to get up, feeling suddenly like she was in the middle of a family moment, but Grace put her hand on Monica's elbow and pulled her back into the chair.

Grace looked at Monica, her eyes so tense, her mouth so serious, Monica froze and stared back. “I said this awful thing last night. I totally betrayed her. I'm sure that's what Leigh was thinking about,” Grace was saying desperately. “And even worse: I wanted her to fall. I wanted to win so badly, I wanted her to fall. I
wished
for it. I think I accidentally
prayed
for it.”

Monica's eyes widened. She opened her mouth. What could she say?

“You're wrong, Gracie,” Ted's voice said behind Monica's head. He was still looking at his shoes and Grace was still staring at Monica and Monica decided to go back to being the quiet little mousy girl and try to be invisible to get through this moment. “It's my fault,” Grace's dad was saying. “Why do you think you wanted her to fall? I'm the one who taught you. Who told you all those things.
There are no friends on the gym floor.
What kind of lesson is that? What kind of coach am I?” He paused. “Or father?”

He used that word like a weapon against himself.

Monica's heart was beating so quickly. Her quiet time was negated as soon as Leigh went down, but any remnants of calm were erased by this bizarre argument she was suddenly filtering.

“You need a new coach, Grace,” Ted said. “I need to focus on being your parent. Your dad.”

Grace, shocked, finally let go of Monica's elbow. A white ring stained her skin where her teammates' fingers had been.

Suddenly Wilhelmina was in front of them. “Monica,” she said softly. “They called your name. You're up.”

She hadn't even heard her own name.

She stood. But then she turned. She wasn't afraid of them anymore. In fact, in some ways, she was smarter than them.

“You know,” she said to Grace and Ted. “Neither of you did that to Leigh. You aren't gods.”

Father and daughter stared back at her. She wasn't
sure if they heard her. But Ted reached out and put a hand on her forearm. “Don't fall, Monica, okay? Don't fall.”

Don't fall.
The words, her old goal, took on a new meaning.

Monica smiled. It was almost like she had taught Ted something.

She climbed the stairs to the floor podium, visualizing her routine on repeat in her brain. She was about to turn herself upside down seventeen times. She was about to pound her legs and her arms, her ankles and her wrists, her back and—potentially—her head.

Don't fall.

God, why did they do this to themselves? Why did she spend her entire life learning to do the tricks that could potentially keep her from ever doing them again? Why did she spend all of yesterday wanting to be Leigh when Leigh could un-Leigh herself so quickly?

Monica's floor music started and she danced into the middle of the floor.