Return to Sender (Letters to Nowhere Part 2)

by Julie Cross

  “You?” Karen supplies, laughing a little, but it’s a nervous laugh, which makes me nervous.

  “Yeah, and you know… the house. Is it all finished?” I hate that I wasn’t there for her when she went back in there. For both selfish and unselfish reasons. I guess on some level, I like that she needs me. I like that no one else in her life understands what she’s going through.

  “It’s finished.” She looks away from me and seems to be done with the subject.

  “Okay, and the part where you and your grandma gossiped about me… ?”

  “We did not gossip about you.” She chews on her lower lip, causing me to think about kissing her.

  I shake my head and continue walking. “You’re keeping secrets from me. I can tell.”

  She exhales, stops, and leans against a tree just outside of the entrance to gym three. “She thinks it’s… it’s not appropriate for me to stay with you and your dad. She wants me to get my own apartment near the gym.”

  I’ve never met Karen’s grandma, but from the bits and pieces I’ve learned about her, she’s not a lady I’m particularly fond of. Then again, it sounds like things might be improving on that front. “You’re only seventeen. Isn’t living on your own kind of extreme?”

  She shrugs, but there’s stress in the way her shoulders ride up toward her neck. “I’m seventeen and a half now. I drive myself to gym every day, to all my therapy sessions. I do my own shopping now. I’m done with high school. I was totally against the idea at first.” Her gaze drops to her hands. “But Blair said something yesterday that got me thinking.”

  “What?”

  “She said that I’m going to get a lot more media attention and if gets out that you and I are together, that I live with my male coach and it’s gonna be just the two of us pretty soon…”

  Okay, I see where this is going.

  “It’s not me I’m worried about,” Karen rushes to say, finally meeting my gaze. “It’s your dad. He doesn’t deserve to be raked over the coals for something he did out of kindness. I don’t even think that would happen, but rumors suck and those will most definitely happen. What do you think?”

  Oh boy. Not exactly the kind of advice I’m qualified to give. “I don’t know. I see both sides to the argument, I guess.” I touch her cheek, tracing over the new freckles with my index finger. “Maybe take a couple weeks to decide. You’re here now, so it’s not really an issue at the moment.”

  Finally, she smiles at me and pushes off the tree. “You’re right. I have time to think about it.”

  I’m not sure I like the idea of her living alone. That seems a bit extreme, especially with everything she’s going through. But it’s also not my decision to make, so I’ll have to bite my tongue on this one.

  We’ve basically had no good make-out sessions in what feels like an eternity, not that we’ve had make-out sessions—we haven’t had any. Period. Seizing the opportunity seems like the best plan for the moment. I lean down and kiss her on the mouth and wait for her to press herself closer to me. It only takes a few seconds and Karen’s hand is on the back of my neck, tugging us together. There’s an urgency in her kiss, especially after our lips part and my tongue slips inside her mouth. Something I haven’t felt from Karen before. Something that says she’s working hard to slow herself down. That’s usually my position.

  My heart speeds up, my lips traveling down her neck as her fingers slide under the back of my shirt. I barely register the approaching footsteps at first, but when I do, I grab Karen around the waist and pull her behind the tree. She looks at me, eyes wide with confusion. I turn her head to the side just enough for her to see who is heading for the gym doors.

  “Nina,” Karen whispers, then rests her head against the tree closing her eyes and releasing a sigh.

  I can’t help smiling. She’s all flushed and showing clear signs of… “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re like completely sexually frustrated.”

  She opens her eyes, but focuses on something over my shoulder. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “You do, too.” I place my hands on either side of her head, pinning her in. “You were like sixty seconds from stripping me naked.”

  “Yeah right.” She rolls her eyes and attempts to duck under my arms. Her face is bright red.

  I keep my arms firmly planted, not allowing her to escape just yet. Sometimes I miss the way things were before we became “Jaren,” as Stevie and Blair like to call us. We would have been able to talk about this with more ease. “You can just tell me whatever you want to do, Karen. It won’t scare me off. I’m up for anything as long as it’s with you.”

  When I lean in to kiss her, my eyes closing, she succeeds in escaping my hold and putting several feet of distance between us. “I should go before Nina catches us and accuses us of endorsing teen pregnancy again.”

  I want to make a joke about her proving that she’d been thinking dirty thoughts, but I’m afraid to push the issue when she’s clearly uncomfortable discussing it.

  I jog to catch up and walk beside her, not taking her hand this time. “Let’s go in the gym and see if she’s got a practice schedule for you guys yet.”

  “Okay, sure.” She still can’t look at me.

  I’ll have to find a less intrusive way to really talk to her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  KAREN

  Jordan,

  Okay, so it’s not exactly your fault that my head seems to be going to new places lately. Ever since two days ago when I had my first non-nightmare dream (a huge relief), except it involved you. And me. Minus our clothes.

  I’ve never even seen you naked, so I have no idea how my subconscious conjured the image, though now that I think about it, the specific details are hazy. Like I knew you were naked but I didn’t actually process an image. Or else I can’t remember it. Or I’m traumatized by it.

  No, definitely not traumatized. What happened between us in my dream felt very good—the touching, the nakedness—and it caused my hormones to shift dramatically. Not that I’m brave enough to want that to happen in real life. Yet. I can’t even talk about it, let alone actually go through with it. Sorry if I act pissed off at you, I’m not, just confused. But if I explain that, then we have to talk about it and as I already said, that’s another roadblock for me at the moment.

  Love, Karen

  ***

  “Stronger!” Nina shouts. “Chin up! Shoulders down!”

  Adrenaline kicks up a notch and I fly into my full twisting straddle jump before prepping for my last tumbling pass—a pike double back somersault. I nail the landing, then finish with a full turn into my final pass.

  My chest is heaving from the effort of two full floor routines in a row, but I turn to Nina ready for her to yell at me to go again.

  “Where is the artistry?” she says, her eyes narrowed, arms folded over her chest. “Straight legs, pointed feet, perfect landings, good amplitude. But no artistry. I feel nothing.”

  Um… way harsh.

  I open my mouth to ask her to please explain because this isn’t the first time she’s given me that feedback with no way to fix the problem, but we’re interrupted by the gym door flying open and a shirtless muscular Hispanic guy strutting in.

  TJ.

  “Excuse me, young man,” Nina says, stalking toward the door. “We have a training session in here for two more hours.”

  TJ plasters on a smirk and he and Nina exchange words, in an intense whisper match.

  Stevie walks up beside me. “What’s going on? Is he trying to spy on our workouts?”

  I shrug, having no idea, but I do know he seemed ticked off yesterday that we were taking up gym three every morning.

  Nina turns her back on TJ, shaking her head. He’s still smirking as he walks all the way inside the gym and onto the rod floor, which is a long narrow strip of gymnastics floor, but instead of being made with springs, this one is built on top of metal rods and has a bit more bounce than a traditional gymnastic
s competition floor. Power tumblers apparently get all the good equipment. And this one is especially awesome because it leads into a giant foam pit.

  “You two!” Nina barks at me and Stevie. “Work on tumbling into the pit. Five clean landings for each run.”

  Stevie and I both shuffle over to the rod floor. We take a few minutes to pile several eight-inch-thick mats on top of foam blocks until we can see them from the end of the tumble strip. Unlike the tumble track, this strip is identical to the regular competition floor, but narrow and long instead of square-shaped. So, no trampoline benefits for us today. By the time we finish setting up our station, TJ has jumped up and down a few times on the floor, stretched his calves for like two seconds, and shaken out his arms.

  “What are you doing?” Stevie snaps at him as soon as he slides in front of her at the end of the floor.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “I don’t know, warming up for a senior citizens race,” she says. “Nice stretching routine, by the way.”

  One side of his mouth turns up. “Oh yeah? I’d like to watch you stretch your limbs a little. We can test that flexibility of yours later if you want.”

  I bite my lip to keep from laughing.

  Stevie’s mouth falls open and her cheeks redden with anger. “You’re demented.”

  “That’s what they tell me.” He shrugs. “My room or yours?”

  “Girls! Enough talking!”

  Stevie bites back a reply, her hands balling up at her sides. TJ takes off in a run then propels himself into a round-off, tucked double backflip, two whip back somersaults, followed by a double pike, landing with a firm thud on top of our mat stack in the pit.

  TJ brushes past me on his way back and I blurt out, “Not bad.”

  Stevie shoots a glare at me before turning it on TJ. “You didn’t even warm up.”

  TJ snorts back a laugh. “That was my warm-up.”

  I take my spot much closer than TJ ran from since I’m only doing three skills, not eight. I work through my Arabian double front, then watch Stevie perform the tucked double double that she’s famous for.

  On TJ’s next turn, he does the same pass as before, except his double tuck is exchanged for a double pike and his double pike is replaced with a perfect—pencil straight body and all—and super-high double layout.

  “Nice,” I can’t help saying despite Stevie’s animosity and expectations that I take her side. Good tumbling is good tumbling. “So you’re a power tumbler? Do you compete on tramp, too?”

  He levels me with a look. “I don’t need a tramp to get high.”

  Stevie bursts out laughing. “That’s like the anti-public service poster. An anti, anti-drug campaign. Good job.”

  For a second, I could swear TJ almost looks offended, but he spins around quickly and takes another turn.

  “Hello?” Stevie says, “My turn?”

  For the next thirty minutes, the three of us work in silence, TJ studying us shamelessly. Finally, he nudges me in the shoulder. “Where’s your double double?” He nods at my teammate. “You aren’t gonna let her have the edge, are you?”

  I glance over at Nina Jones. She’s got her back to us. Before she can spot me, I take off, jumping into my hurdle and putting everything I’ve got into the new double twisting double back. I can’t conceal the triumphant smile that takes over my face when I land with my chest up, my feet firmly planted on the stacked mats in the pit.

  Stevie’s jaw tenses and as soon as I’m out of the pit, she’s sprinting in this direction, throwing her new double twisting double layout—which is practically a universe above my same skill in the tucked position. The skill Stevie has been well known for since winning the gold at World Championships a few years ago.

  “Oh!” TJ says, throwing his hands in the air. “And she just wiped the floor with you.”

  “You, too,” I point out, already annoyed with this guy’s relentless efforts to state the obvious. “She saw your double layout and raised the bar with two extra twists.”

  TJ’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh yeah? I’m not done yet, Campbell.”

  Stevie’s breathing hard by the time she gets back to the far end of the tumbling strip, but both of us are glued to TJ. He does a round-off back handspring, double layout, two whip backs, another back handspring, and then finishes with a triple back somersault.

  “Holy shit,” I mumble.

  “Who is this guy?” Stevie says, still panting.

  “Power tumbling National Team member,” Ariel, an eighteen-year-old three-time National Team member from Arizona, says from behind us. “He’s trying to make the World team this fall, too.”

  “How do you know?” I ask, turning to face her.

  She holds up her phone. “Google.”

  “Girls!” Nina shouts. “No cell phones!”

  “Sorry,” I say to Ariel, who smiles and shrugs like she’s not worried about Nina’s wrath.

  “Karen, Stevie,” Nina says, “Move on to beam.”

  Stevie and I take a quick water break and head over to the balance beams.

  “I’m totally doing the double double layout at Nationals,” she says. “It’s exactly what I need to win again.”

  I glance sideways at her and then hop up on the beam, smiling to myself. Interesting, because I’m planning on winning Nationals this year.

  chapter twelve

  Jordan

  I wake up to TJ shaking me so forcefully I’m sure he’s been doing it for the last ten minutes. My head is throbbing, the glands in my neck swollen and painful to the touch. Goddammit. I hate being sick.

  “What time is it?” I ask him.

  “Quarter after nine.”

  I toss my sheets aside and roll out of the bottom bunk. “Shit! I overslept.”

  “Your alarm was going off when I came back.” TJ looks me over. “Were you drinking last night? Up until all hours with your girl? If it’s the second one, she’s got stamina because she didn’t look even a little bit like you do this morning.”

  It bugs me that he’s already seen Karen today and I haven’t. Nina must have let him work out in their gym. It also bugs me that he’s showered and dressed for coaching. But I’m digging through my trunk for a staff polo shirt and gym shorts so I don’t bother answering. I’m in and out of the shower by 9:20 A.M., my teeth brushed and clothes on by 9:23 A.M. and then my roommate and I are hauling ass to gym two.

  “We’re practicing for today’s exhibition right after lunch,” TJ says.

  I’ve just gulped down four Advil and they’re half-lodged in my throat so all I can do is nod. This is TJ’s first exhibition for campers and from what I’ve seen of his training, he and I might be able to do some cool shit.

  If I can get my tired ass moving. I must have the world’s worst immune system.

  ***

  “I really think the guys in leotards doing the maniac routine from Flash Dance is the best idea so far,” someone says, her voice rising above the chatter in the dance gym.

  “We wore leotards two years ago,” says Joe, another coach I work with a lot here.

  “If dudes in leotards is the best idea we’ve got, then this show is gonna suck,” TJ says.

  Everyone quiets down because he’s hardly made himself stand out in two weeks. I rub my forehead and force myself to take a drink from my Gatorade bottle. I’ve haven’t eaten anything all day and it’s catching up to me. Normally, I’m all about the staff exhibition, but right now, I’m just not in the mood.

  There’s a unanimous sigh amongst the thirty or forty coaching staff the second Irina, the fifty-something-year-old dance teacher walks into the gym. She snaps her fingers and we all scramble to our feet.

  “First of all,” she says with her thick Russian accent. “No boys in girls’ clothes this year.”

  “Thank God,” TJ mumbles beside me. “I was ready to hitchhike home.”

  “Wearing a leotard isn’t that bad,” I say.

  He stares at me. “You owe me
that story and the one that involves you and the hot blonde.” He glances around the room. “Where is she, anyway?”

  “She’s a counselor, not a coach. She’s with the campers whenever we’re not coaching them.”

  “Oh right.”

  “We are doing hip-hop tonight,” Irina says, “That requires rhythmic ability. If you don’t have it, hide in the back and try to move in the same direction as everyone else. Where are my dancers? Don’t be shy, front and center.”

  Before I’m able to slink toward the back, since I don’t have the energy to meet Irina’s exceptional expectations, she’s spotted me and made eye contact.

  “Mr. Jordan Bentley, move it!” Irina orders, and she plucks another three coaches from the group.

  We only have about thirty minutes to learn the choreography and fifteen minutes into the session, Irina has fallen in love with TJ, well, his rhythmic ability, anyway, and he gets moved from the middle to the front.

  I manage to forget about my headache long enough to come up with some pretty cool stunts for me and TJ and a couple other coaches to do following the choreography. After we get done, I stop by gym three, where Karen is having her second workout of the day, but I only watch for about five minutes because Nina gives me the evil eye the entire time.

  There are a few hours until it’s time for dinner and the only thing I want to do is collapse into my bunk and take a nap.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  KAREN

  Mom and Dad,

  What do you think about Grandma’s suggestions that I should get my own apartment? Maybe I shouldn’t have sold our house? Maybe I should have moved back into it by myself and hung out in Mom’s closet all day long. No, that would not have been healthy. Grandma made a good point when she told me that I would have been living in the dorms on my own at UCLA if I hadn’t deferred my admission. I guess it’s up to me to figure these things out from now on. Why is it Jackie thinks I should keep writing these letters? I feel a little ridiculous doing it now.