Stick the Landing
Page 19
“Jake, I….” Corey paused to wriggle into his uniform. Then he turned toward Jake and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re my best friend. I love you like a brother. And I know how hard you work. I’d be willing to bet there is no single gymnast on Planet Earth, not even your sister, who trains as hard as you do, who puts in as many hours as you do. That’s why you’re the best in the world. But it’s also why you’ve been really lonely. You never talk about it, but I know it. I see it. If this guy brings you happiness, even if it’s only for a few days, I think you should grab on to it. Live your life. Have a crazy week after the rest of us go home. Enjoy the spoils of victory!”
Jake laughed because he couldn’t think too hard about what Corey was saying, didn’t want to face his own loneliness. “Spoils of victory?”
Corey rolled his eyes and stepped back toward his own locker. “You know what I mean. Don’t make fun of me. I’m trying to have a heart-to-heart moment with you here.”
“I’m sorry. Thank you. And maybe you’re right. I thought about him during the last rotation of the all-around instead of my P-bars routine. It was a strange moment.”
“Maybe Brad has the right of it. He puts himself through all this for other people in his life.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean, I could go forever without seeing another picture of that baby, but ever since he got married, he’s seemed a lot more zen. Remember what he was like when we were kids? He’s calmed down so much.”
Jake did remember. Brad had been one of those guys Jake had mentioned to Topher who had been all pent-up testosterone. But Corey was right; ever since Brad had met his wife, he’d mellowed out.
“I guess I never thought of it that way,” Jake said. “Dad and Alexei are always telling me not to get distracted, that I have to focus, so that’s what I do.”
“Coaches don’t know everything.”
Jake mulled that over as he finished changing. Corey was probably right; having something else to focus on had kept Jake out of his own head, which, in turn, had kept him from getting too insanely nervous. He was still nervous—he felt tightness creeping into his muscles now and his heart was starting to flutter in anticipation of the competition, as it always did—but he’d also already won two medals this week. He was the best gymnast in the world. Even if he fell off an apparatus now, it didn’t matter; he’d already proven himself. And Topher would be waiting for him when it was all over.
Some of the happiness he’d felt after his warm-up filled up the spaces where his competition-related anxiety usually resided.
He could do this. Hell, he had done this.
He smiled to himself. Then he closed his locker and said, “Thanks, Corey.”
“Anytime. Win some medals today, okay?”
“You too.”
“I’m gonna try.”
Jake laughed, unable to help himself now. “Do, or do not. There is no try.”
“If we’re quoting Yoda before heading to the floor, I think we’re going to be okay.”
Corey finished changing and hoisted his bag over his shoulder, so Jake did the same. They high-fived. Then they walked out to meet their destiny.
Chapter Eighteen
TOPHER WRAPPED up his work for the network. Natalie had to go call the live broadcast, and no one had anything else for him to do that day, so Topher wrangled a seat in the stands and settled in to watch Jake rake up more medals.
Jake was on parallel bars first. Topher had to sit through three other gymnasts—one of whom looked fantastic until he completely biffed the landing, nearly falling on his ass before catching himself and standing up straight—before Jake walked up and stuck his hands in the bin with the chalk. As Jake chalked up, one of his coaches came over and said something to him. Topher, of course, couldn’t hear a word they said, but it was probably some coach-y advice. Jake nodded absently, listening; then he clapped his hands together and sent a cloud of chalk into the air.
Jake stood between the parallel bars. Because of the camera angle on the Jumbotron and Topher’s position in the stands, he couldn’t see Jake’s face, but the way he squared his shoulders made him seem determined. He walked between the bars, paused for a moment, then grabbed both bars. He lifted himself right into a tuck, throwing himself over the bar and then catching himself on his upper arms.
Because this was the event finals, there was only one apparatus in use at a time, and everyone’s attention was trained on the parallel bars. Jake made a series of what looked, to Topher’s untrained eye, like long, smooth movements, handstands that easily transitioned into somersaults and flips Jake caught as if doing them was the easiest thing in the world. On the sidelines, the other athletes—and not even just the Americans—cried out “Yeah!” and “Come on, Jake!” whenever Jake did a trick well. The audience oohed and ahhed, everyone on the edges of their seats. Jake launched himself into the air, flipping over the bars, and then he caught himself, shifted his arms, and did it again. The height he got over the bars was nothing short of astonishing—and explained all those muscles on Jake’s arms—and it was absolutely beautiful to watch. Then Jake did one last flip, hurled his body over the side of the bars, and landed just to the left. His arms did kind of a pinwheel thing after he landed, but his feet didn’t move once they hit the mat. Jake stood up, posed for the judges, then clapped once and ran off the mat.
He’d nailed it, as far as Topher could tell.
The score was high, but Topher still had to watch four more athletes, wondering the whole time if any of them could top Jake’s monster score. A gymnast from Japan was basically perfect and took first; then a British gymnast came along and there was a nail-biting moment before his score was posted and he pushed Jake down to third.
Still, a bronze medal was no joke, and Jake had to have been happy with his performance. He’d earned a huge score, he hadn’t made any major mistakes, and he still had a few more opportunities to earn gold.
A dais was immediately rolled out and the top three gymnasts were herded over to it. Topher stood as the Japanese national anthem played and watched as Jake stood with a bronze medal around his neck, staring at the flags as if he didn’t know where he was.
Then he was sent over to the vault.
As Topher had just explained to a camera, each finalist had to do two vaults in different styles, which Topher understood to mean that they couldn’t do the same tricks. Hayden Croft from the American team was also in the vault final. He and Jake conferred with each other on the sidelines, and the men’s team coach, Viktor, walked over to speak with them also.
The vault final was over in a blink. Each vaulter ran down the… runway and flipped over the vault table twice. Hayden, it turned out, was the one to beat; he vaulted second, got huge height off the table, and stuck both of his landings. The other finalists chased his score the entire event. Jake was up seventh, and his first vault was beautiful, but in the second, he hopped big enough for Topher to see it from the stands.
So when, again, the dais was wheeled out, the American anthem played, with Hayden standing on top of the podium and Jake with another bronze medal. This time Topher stood and hummed along with the anthem.
Jake got to sit the rings final out, but Corey O’Bannon was up. Corey posted a very high score early in the competition but got edged out by a gymnast from Ukraine in the end, winning silver.
Topher couldn’t help but marvel at how well this team was doing. He’d learned a lot about the usual fate of US men’s gymnastics. He knew the athletes had a reputation for choking at the Olympics. Jake’s concussion during World Championships hadn’t helped it. And Natalie had mentioned, when they talked about the floor exercise for the cameras, that Brad had the most difficult routine but often lost points by tumbling out of bounds. It said something about how much this team had trained and how badly they wanted it that Brad only stepped out of bounds once during the floor final but was otherwise perfect as far as Topher could tell, putting him in silver medal position.
But here came J
ake again.
Topher wanted him to rake in medals, to earn everything he’d been working his whole life for but that his body had denied him. And suddenly Topher was mentally at his last Olympics, after having done a perfect short program, feeling strong and confident before the long program. He’d landed that quad jump a hundred times in practice. He’d been landing it all week. He’d landed it in the warm-up.
And then his toe pick had hit the ice on his way into the air and he’d completely lost control of the jump. Before he knew what was happening, he’d landed on his ass on the ice.
And then here was Jake, running across the floor, throwing his body into a tumbling pass, then doing some little dance moves across the apparatus, getting the audience really into it. There wasn’t music—not like there was for the women’s competition—but clearly some song played in Jake’s head.
Topher relaxed. Floor seemed pretty safe. Nothing high to fall off of, no handstands on narrow bars; all Jake had to do was tumble and stay in bounds.
Jake stood at the corner of the apparatus and took a deep breath. He ran across half the floor, then launched into a tumbling pass, throwing his body up in the air. And then the last flip….
He lost his footing.
Seeing Jake make a mistake was such a surprise, Topher didn’t realize the full extent of what he’d seen until he realized Jake was sitting with his leg at an odd angle. The camera that fed the image to the JumboTron zoomed in on his face, and it was clear that Jake felt an immense amount of pain.
Topher’s heart fell to his stomach. Jake was clearly hurt. But how bad was it?
The American coaching staff ran at him, and after consulting with each other for a few moments, they helped him up and escorted him off the floor. There was clapping as Jake gave a gritted-teeth wave to the audience.
What the hell had happened?
The coaches helped Jake onto a bench, where he winced as he sat and gestured at his foot. A medic ran out and attended to him. All proceedings in the arena had stopped.
It wasn’t a life-threatening injury, but it likely hurt in more ways than one. Jake still had one more event final. This must be devastating for him.
The competition got back up and running, but Topher’s attention remained on Jake, who was having a heated conversation with his coaches and the medic. Then another person ran over; Topher recognized him as a TBC reporter.
Topher waited for the event to finish and for Jake to be carried toward the locker room before he texted Natalie.
Do u know is Jake ok?
Natalie texted back: We heard sprained ankle.
Well, that wasn’t so bad.
The medal ceremony for floor carried on, with Brad earning a silver medal, as did the pommel horse final, in which Jordan earned a bronze. But Topher hardly paid attention and fretted about Jake instead. Then Natalie texted again:
Jake has not withdrawn from his last final. Reporter asked if he was going to, and he said no.
Only the high bar remained. Topher responded, He could wreck his ankle in the landing.
After a beat Natalie responded, Would that stop you?
Topher took half a second to mull that over. No, it wouldn’t have. At his last Olympics, when he’d been performing at the same level Jake was? No, Topher would have gone out on the ice even if every bone in his body had been broken. Because that was what competition was like at this level. One pushed one’s body as far as it would go.
The high bar final was next. Topher scooted forward to sit on the edge of his seat.
JAKE’S ANKLE screamed. Dr. Ruiz wrapped it as Alexei spoke in rapid-fire Russian at Jake, most of it fretting but all of it boiling down to Jake’s Olympic career being over.
“It’s a sprain,” Jake said.
“On foot with torn Achilles,” Alexei argued in halting English.
Ah, yes. One of Jake’s more glorious moments. At a World Cup meet five years before, he’d pulled a Kerri Strug and torn his Achilles landing a vault at the end of the team competition. Except unlike Kerri Strug, Jake had gone down on the mat and hadn’t had the opportunity to do the vault again. Landing badly enough to tear one’s Achilles tendon was a lot of deductions, it turned out, and his injury had cost the team a medal.
Because that was Jake’s pattern, wasn’t it? He did everything perfectly until fate and his body got in the way and he fucked up. He’d been feeling too good; he should have known it was only a matter of time before his old patterns asserted themselves.
On the other hand, he’d gotten this far, hadn’t he? Four Olympic medals. One more event. Was he really going to let a stupid mistake derail the whole meet?
No. No he fucking was not.
“I don’t need my ankle for high bar.”
“You need it to land,” said Alexei.
Jake’s father ran into the locker room then. “Is it Achilles?”
Jake sighed. “I sprained my ankle. Landed that last tumbling pass on the side of my foot like an idiot.”
“You are not idiot,” said Valentin. He peered over the medic’s shoulder. “Swelling?”
“Yes,” said the random medic helping out Dr. Ruiz. “You are?”
“I’m his father. Jakob, did you withdraw from high bar?”
“No. I’m doing the modified Tkatchev.”
Valentin shook his head. “No. You are crazy.”
That was about when Jake lost it. Dr. Ruiz seemed to sense what was coming, and he stood up and took a step away, motioning for the other medic to follow. Jake hopped up and stood on one foot. Addressing everyone hovering over him like mother hens, he said, “Look. Let’s face facts here. I’m getting to be old for a gymnast. This is my last Olympics. I won’t be able to live with myself if I can’t finish the competition. It’s an ankle sprain. It hurts, but I’ve sprained plenty of other things. It doesn’t hurt as bad as a torn Achilles or a broken bone or a concussion. It’ll be fine. I’m going out there to do the high bar final. This is my last shot. None of you can stop me.” He pointed toward the door to the arena to emphasize his point.
Valentin looked horrified. “You’ll break bones.”
“I won’t. Doc, put a splint on it or something, will you?” he asked Dr. Ruiz before turning back to his father. “But I’m going to go out there and win a gold medal in high bar, or else die trying.” Jake looked Valentin up and down. “Isn’t this what you want?”
“I want you to win, but not to hurt yourself.”
“You know as well as anyone that you can do a thing well a hundred times and then totally fuck it up on the hundred and first time.”
Valentin growled. “Language, Jakob.”
“I landed wrong on a tumbling pass I’ve done literally hundreds of times without error. That’s how the Olympics goes. That’s how my whole career has gone. But I’m done with that. This is my last chance to win a gold medal, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it pass me by. I’m going out there. Try and stop me.”
As Dr. Ruiz finished wrapping his foot, Jake grabbed the crutches that had been left propped up against a row of lockers. He’d had enough foot and leg injuries over the years that he had some facility with crutches, so he hurled himself back to the arena with Alexei, Viktor, and Valentin on his heels.
The audience cheered when Jake emerged.
Valentin wasn’t even supposed to be out here, since he was the women’s coach and not officially affiliated with the men’s team, but apparently security recognized him, and of course, he was Valentin Mirakovitch. Gold-medal winner. Legend. He could do whatever he wanted.
Jake was sick of the Mirakovitch shadow. He was tired of trying to prove he was as good as Valentin, as good as Chelsea. He was as good. And he would prove it, even if he could never do gymnastics again.
One of the officials ran over. In a French accent, he said, “You are withdrawing.”
“No. I’m doing my high bar routine.”
Apparently Jake’s tone was assertive enough to make the official back off.
When his turn came, he hopped on one foot over to chalk up. He spared a thought for Topher, likely sitting in the stands somewhere, hopefully watching this. Because he was about to see something spectacular.
Jake was done holding back. He was going to win this gold medal. Then he was going to make out with Topher because he could. And if anyone thought Jake’s homosexuality somehow tainted his medals, well, fuck them, because Jake was here, he was queer, and this goddamn medal was his.
He chalked up, clapped his hands together a couple of times, and hopped over to the bar.
He felt like he’d fallen into some kind of fugue state, like he’d floated out of his body. He’d done this routine a hundred times just this week. The only thing he had to think about was swapping out one of his release moves to do his modified Tkatchev instead.
He waited until Alexei ran over. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. I’m doing this. Help me up.”
Alexei grabbed his waist and lifted him up to the bar, which Jake grabbed like a lifeline. He got right into the routine. He rolled around the bar twice, then pushed up off it, flipped in the air, added the twist, jackknifed his legs, and caught the bar between his knees.
He’d nailed it. He’d done his most difficult release move cleanly. Distantly, he heard the crowd cheer.
He finished the routine on autopilot, then did an extra turn before the dismount, because suddenly he was afraid to land on his bum ankle. But then he caught Valentin watching out of the corner of his eye and was suddenly determined.
He could do this. It would hurt like hell, but he could do it.
He launched himself off the bar, stretched out his body, flipped in the air, spotted his landing, and put his fucking feet down on the fucking mat.
Boom. Stuck. Done.
As he straightened and raised his arms, pain radiated up his leg. He didn’t care.