by Julie Cross
“Well, that’s the truth, isn’t it?”
He peeled his eyes from the road and looked at me for a second before picking up my hand and playing with my fingers. “That’s the truth for sure, but the truth is sometimes the hardest thing for people to believe.”
“Like it might be easier to believe that the coach’s son took advantage of an innocent young girl?” I asked.
Even in the dark I could see his jaw tighten. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“I’d never let that happen, Jordan.”
“I know.” He flashed me a grin. “And I really do need that list of all my potential screwups.”
“I’ll get right on that.” I relaxed back into the seat and closed my eyes. “That was a great first date. Really great.”
His fingers touched the back of my neck, rubbing it gently. “You look so tired. Want me to ask my dad to go a little easier on you?”
“Why? So I can look like a loser in Chicago? No way.”
He laughed. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”
When we pulled into the town house complex parking lot, I could see a large figure sitting on the front steps. “Who—?” I started to say as Jordan cut the engine, eyes squinting into the dark.
“Tony,” he answered, letting out a frustrated breath.
“You don’t want to see him?” I asked, wondering if he’d had a fight with him or something or if my talking to Tony alone at that party last weekend bothered Jordan more than he let on. I grabbed his arm to stop him from getting out of the car. “Jordan?”
He turned to face me, looking distracted, his gaze darting sideways toward the front stoop. “Yeah?”
“I asked Tony to find out from his mom where my parents’ accident happened,” I blurted out before I could change my mind. “That’s what we were talking about at his house last weekend.”
Jordan looked completely bewildered, like he was processing too many things at once. “It’s not that. Tony’s just dealing with some shit at home and if he’s here at nearly midnight, it’s not a good sign.”
Now it was my turn to be surprised. “Oh, well, I’ll go hide out in my room so you guys can talk.”
Jordan nodded but didn’t say anything. And when we got close enough to really see Tony, his red–rimmed eyes were the first thing I noticed. I immediately squirmed, if only on the inside. It seemed out of place and awkward for a big guy like Tony to be crying.
Jordan just stepped around him and unlocked the door, letting me pass through first. “You staying over, man?”
“Yeah.”
Even though I wanted nothing to do with watching Tony shed another tear, I was still pretty curious about his drama. Not that I knew him all that well, but so far I had gotten the impression that he was one of those people who was happy all the time. Maybe it was girl drama? But Jordan had said he was dealing with stuff at home. Like family drama. Obviously recurring family drama, if Jordan already knew what was wrong.
Bentley sat on the couch, a stack of papers piled on the coffee table along with his laptop. “Tony,” he said, giving the big guy a nod. “Oh! Hey, Jordy, can you give me that formula again for the budget spreadsheet?”
Jordan turned around slowly, his eyebrows lifted. “You used my spreadsheet? Is it working?”
“Uh–huh,” Bentley said, hitting keys on his laptop. “Well, it was, until I accidently deleted a column.”
I almost smiled at the look on Jordan’s face, a cross between shock and pride. He sat down beside Bentley on the couch and pulled the laptop toward him.
Bentley paused to glance up at me and Tony. “There’s lasagna in the fridge from Mrs. Garrett if either of you are hungry.”
“Sweet!” Tony said, thumping across the wood floors toward the kitchen.
I left all of them alone to have their different bonding time and put on my PJs and got into bed. I could hear Jordan and Tony playing video games in the living room right before I fell asleep a little after midnight.
Jordan,
Here’s your list:
Potential Ways You Can Screw Up Jaren
Stop saying and doing things that make me like you more every day.
I’m not even sure #1 is applicable because I already like you enough to keep me going for a very long time.
I refuse to list any typical boyfriend screwups or human screwups in general (cheating, murder, becoming a sociopath, etc.…) because we are beyond that. Not that those things are forgivable, but I already know you well enough to know that you won’t do anything like that.
We really don’t need this list at all.
Love, Karen
P.S. Everybody screws up sometimes. Mistakes aren’t always deal–breakers.
P.P.S Did you tell Liberty you loved her? Have you ever told anyone that before?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I woke up with a start, having felt and heard myself mumbling the same words over and over…don’t look at me, please don’t look at me… It was my dad’s rolling head again, and it wasn’t nearly as bad if I could keep myself from seeing the part where he opened his eyes and looked at me. When I finally talked my subconscious into moving over and letting my conscious brain take over, my alarm was buzzing loudly right in my ear, and Jordan and Bentley were standing in my bedroom doorway, looking more than a little concerned.
I sat up in bed and felt my face flush. “I’m up. I’m fine,” I mumbled, sliding out of bed and jumping to my feet. Both of them stood there for a few seconds, then turned around and left after it was obvious that I wasn’t going to say anything else.
March 30
Mom and Dad,
I take back what I said before about not wanting you to answer my letters for fear of a concrete reason to believe in ghosts. At this point, seeing a ghost can’t be worse than these nightmares. So, please, please find a way tell me what happened the night of your accident?
Love, Karen
***
“I still can’t believe Olivia survived a whole week without Stacey’s boobs,” Blair said as we walked out of the locker room for morning workout.
Stacey had ended up going with Ellen to Australia for the junior meet and had just returned last night. Ellen was back in the gym this morning, sporting two new junior titles to go with her already flourishing gymnastics career. Nina Jones was all about winning on someone else’s turf.
Once Stevie, Blair, and I heard about Ellen’s big win, we’d all started counting down the days to Chicago, knowing Ellen’s giant head would crowd the gym once she got back. It wasn’t that she was egotistical, just young and hadn’t had a huge setback yet. I’d spent more than enough time not winning, so my ego had always stayed normal–sized.
“You guys won’t believe how weird the bars are in Aussie,” Ellen squealed. “It’s like you’re in a box. I was so freaked out during the podium training, but I totally nailed my set on the first day of competition.”
“Yeah, we heard you were a star,” Stevie said, raising an eyebrow for only me and Blair to see.
“Ellen!” Bentley called, waving her over from the lobby. A man and a woman stood beside him.
Ellen turned to us, grinning really big. “I’m getting interviewed for the St. Louis Chronicle!”
She bounced over to Bentley and Ellen’s mom entered the picture, immediately fussing with her hair and whispering things in her ear. My mind wandered to my own mother and missing her. If it had been me in this situation, my mom would have stood back, not saying much, but she would have put on something extra special and fixed her hair so people might mistake her for my sister instead of the woman who gave birth to me.
Bentley stayed with Ellen and the interviewers while the rest of us ran around the floor. Stacey had the day off to catch up on breastfeeding Olivia.
“How’s Jaren?” Blair asked. It was her favorite question these past few weeks. “Are you guys seriously still keeping up the ‘no touching in the house’ policy? Because I find that really hard to believe.”
&nb
sp; “I’m a very disciplined person. But we can’t avoid accidental contact.”
Like yesterday, when I was pulling my laundry from the dryer and Jordan was tossing clothes into the washer and my hip kept bumping into his. Otherwise, we kept to our rules, and I hadn’t lied to Bentley about where I was going since the night we had claimed to be at the movies. There always seemed to be something we could do together—grocery shopping or picking up something at the mall, grabbing dinner after Jordan got done coaching and I got done with practice. Especially on days when Bentley wasn’t home until late. Last weekend we even watched a baseball game at Ellen’s house with her parents and younger brother and Blair and Stevie. Of course, there wasn’t any touching, but we hung out.
“We’re starting on vault today,” Bentley said when he and Ellen finally joined us midway through stretching.
I sat up straighter in my left leg splits and looked up at him. “How many Yurchenko doubles do I need today to work the two and a half on the regular mat?”
Bentley’s system was becoming so ingrained in me that I knew how to jump into the conversation and avoid the first couple steps of questioning where I asked him about working on the new skill and he’d go through the pros and cons, deciding on a number of the older, safer skills.
He stared at me for a long moment before answering. “Five clean doubles and then you can move on. Five clean ones in a row.”
I suppressed a groan and flashed him a judges smile. “Sounds good.”
By the time I got through my five required vaults in a row, Stevie had already nailed five of the much more difficult two and a half twisting vaults. In only a few weeks of working on them again, she was getting more height and more consistent landings, and I was behind because today was my first time not landing in the pit with mats stacked up.
The first attempt at the more difficult vault sent me into a giant dive forward roll because I’d been training it with four mats stacked on top of the pit and now I had way too much power. The Amanar vault (aka—the Yurchenko two and a half) was a blind landing. You couldn’t see the ground before hitting it like you could with my regular vault, the Yurchenko double full.
“Slow down that flip, Karen,” Bentley said. “Keep the height. The height is good.”
When I took my next turn, I knew I couldn’t over–rotate again or Bentley would send me back to doing drills. I needed to nail it, or at least make a different mistake. This time I came close to sticking but was just a tiny bit short of rotation. My feet slid out from under me and I ended up on my butt.
Bentley gave me a nod and said nothing, so I knew I was on the right track. Neither of us had brought up the subject of me competing this vault in Chicago, but he hadn’t been fighting me on it like he had with the other skills.
“I’m sticking the next one,” Stevie said while we both stood at the end of the runway, waiting for Blair to vault on the other runway. She had just been cleared to vault and tumble again, but Bentley wanted her to have a whole week of landing on mats in the pit before trying the hard competition landing mats.
“Me, too,” I said, staring straight ahead.
“My back’s a little sore. That’s why I haven’t gone for the stick yet.”
“Me, too.”
Stevie waited for Bentley to watch Blair’s Yurchenko double vault, then she took off. My eyes zoomed in on her from the run all the way to the medium–sized hop forward on her landing. I glanced down at the tape measure to make sure I was at eighty feet and I felt myself smiling at the floor. Stevie’s vault wasn’t quite a stick.
I can beat her.
I took off and had a great hurdle and an awesome block off the vault table, but had to take a big step slightly to the side which I knew would hurt my score a lot. The judges taped lines down the landing mat and took major points off if you stepped sideways outside of the tape.
“Very good, Karen,” Bentley said.
“I want to stick it,” I said more to myself than to him as I let out a frustrated groan.
“You don’t need to worry about sticking yet.”
Why? Because I’m never competing this vault? Because I’m not good enough to stick it? “Is there a technique to sticking? Like, if everything is in place and done correctly, what makes some people step and others not step? I’m tired of just trying to stick and then hoping it happens. It feels like I’m spinning one of those wheels in Vegas, leaving it to luck that I land on the right spot.”
Bentley surprised me by laughing. “Okay, I can tell you my secret.”
He had my full and undivided attention, though I was slightly wary of getting some philosophical lesson that I’d never be able to figure out. “So, what you have to do is relax just a little as your feet hit the mat—not that you don’t have to be tight, it’s the core strength that truly gets you a good landing on vault—but if you can focus on sinking that excess energy into the floor, it might help you.” Bentley pointed to the blue landing mat. “Lie down flat on your back, raise your arms above your head.” I did as he said and he knelt down beside me, sticking his hand under my lower back. “You know this exercise very well from all the handstand work, right?”
“The one where I try to get my lower back all the way flat to the floor,” I said.
“Exactly.” He removed his hand from under me. “Now close that gap and think about what you have to do to make that happen.”
“I’m using my stomach muscles,” I answered, not sure where this was going.
“Yes, but at the same time you have to release the air from your lungs to flatten your back, and exhaling is a relaxation technique. So, think about squeezing everything on the landing, but at the same time relaxing your body into the mat the same way you just used the strength of your abs to relax your lower back to the floor.”
I stood up and Bentley did the same. “Okay, it kind of makes sense…sort of.”
As I trotted down the runway, Ellen took off for her turn and Stevie followed. I closed my eyes for a few seconds and zeroed in on sinking my body into the floor. But on my next turn, everything went so fast and there were so many new things to think about that I landed with my lungs still full of air and took two giant steps forward.
Stevie’s hops got even smaller. But neither of us could stick the vault, and honestly, it wasn’t a vault most people expected you to stick, but I wanted it bad and so did she. Our little chats got shorter and shorter throughout the morning workout while we battled each other. I had Stevie beat by a ton on bars, but she still topped me in difficulty on beam and floor, now that she had almost all her skills back again.
Ellen was dragging a little, probably from jet lag and post–meet mental exhaustion, and Blair was so excited to be working on all four events now that she was in her own world. It was pretty much the Stevie and Karen show today.
By the time eleven o’clock came around and we were sent to do cooldown stretches on the floor, I could hardly move. I collapsed onto the carpet, closing my eyes and pretending to do visualization exercises when really I was about thirty seconds from falling asleep and couldn’t even manage so much as a mental vault, let alone any stretching. I felt my conscious thoughts slipping out of reach when something hard landed right on my stomach.
My eyes opened halfway as my mental response caught up with my body’s physical reaction. Through my blurred vision, I saw a round brown object rolling off my body, and before I could take a second to process it, I screamed.
Loud.
I heard Stevie, Ellen, and Blair gasp nearby, and when I scrambled to my feet, a little girl with brown pigtails, maybe three or four years old, stood a few feet away clutching a basketball, her chubby arms barely able to wrap all the way around it. My heart was flying and I could hardly breathe. The shock of going from nearly asleep to scared as hell was too much for my body to handle.
The girl’s lip started trembling, and then a full–out wail erupted from that tiny mouth, filling the silence that had suddenly fallen on the gym. I clutched my ches
t as a woman rushed over from the lobby, snatching up the little girl in her arms and throwing a glare in my direction. I looked over at my teammates, who sat with their eyes wide, mouths hanging open.
Gymnasts don’t scream like that. Ever.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Bentley near the front desk, watching me carefully. I drew in a deep breath and then headed for the locker room, avoiding the stares from all the preschool parents.
I was yanking my stuff from my locker as fast as possible when Blair appeared behind me.
“Karen, what’s going on?”
New beads of sweat had begun to form on my forehead and my chest felt so tight. “If I tell you, can I leave without talking about it? I really need some air.”
She nodded.
I squeezed my eyes shut, spewing out the words as fast as possible. “I have nightmares. Lots of them. My parents are broken into pieces, body parts everywhere, and I keep seeing my decapitated dad’s head rolling toward me and just a minute ago I thought…” Breathe in, breathe out. “God, this sounds so stupid when I say it out loud, but in my head it’s so real.”
She put her hands on my arms, holding me in place. “Look at me, Karen.”
I opened my eyes and tried to breathe.
Her fingers tightened around my arms. “You can get through this. I know you can. It’s like a mental block. Break it down and figure it out, okay?”
I was hit with about twenty percent relief hearing her speak my language. “Thanks, Blair.”
She released me and I snuck out of the locker room and through the front doors of the gym before anyone else could stop and chat. I began to feel more and more resolve as I drove home, already forming a plan for the afternoon. I needed something. I needed information.
Some of their accident story had been public, but I couldn’t find the details on the Internet, and at the time it had happened, I hadn’t let myself hear or see any of it. I hadn’t thought it’d help at first. But Grandma had put the obituaries in my old room, which meant they might be in those boxes Jordan had put away in the garage.
