by Julie Cross
I turn my attention back to TJ. “My hands are off the bar so much because my release moves are so freakin’ high.”
TJ snorts back a laugh. He does that a lot in the gym, I’ve noticed. “Prove it. I’ve seen lots of letting go but not much catching. I may not be a ‘real gymnast,’ but I’m pretty sure the goal is to the catch the bar.”
If there weren’t a hundred children nearby I’d totally stick my tongue out at him right now.
“Come on, Karen,” Stevie says. She’s standing in front of the low bar, chalking it up for me. She wants to see TJ shocked. So do I, but I’m not sure that’s possible today.
I place my fingers back through the holes in my grips and tighten the buckles at my wrists. My entire bar routine seems like such a daunting task, so I only allow myself to think about the very next skill and nothing more. I make it through my mount, circling skills on the low bar and my Shaposhnikova, which is a release that shoots you from low bar to high bar.
“Look at that,” TJ says, from beside the bars. “She can catch the bar.”
His comments only fire me up more, giving me energy I didn’t have seconds ago. My Hindorff release is super high and I manage to catch the bar this time, and then follow it up by hitting my transition back to low bar. Right before my layout Jaeger release, I hear TJ say, “You’re barely getting any air time, Campbell.”
I’m practically laughing inside my head as I fly way above the bar and then catch it perfectly. This is the routine I’ve been busting my ass all morning to get.
During my full pirouette on high bar, TJ’s commentary is limited to, “Girlie move.”
I’m one dismount away from the uneven bar routine of my life. I twist into a blind change, prepping for my dismount—a double front with a half turn.
“I bet Mommy and Daddy bribe you with new cars and shit like that for every routine you make.”
My stomach sinks and I miss a beat holding the high bar far too long. My momentum is headed inward and there’s not even a millisecond to process what’s happened before my forehead smacks hard against the high bar, my body is headed at a funky angle toward the mats underneath the bars. My arm is sticking out. Sensing a broken limb in the very near future, I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing myself for the fall.
But the hit never comes.
A soft arm wraps around my waist, and the body attached to it is forced down to the ground with me, but breaks my fall.
My heart is beating like a caged wild animal. I’m dizzy from the blow to my head. I’m humiliated by the fact that I should be on my feet and yet I’m sprawled out on the mats. Again. But none of those feelings are what causes me to break down. The hollowness in my chest, the sensation of being punched in the gut is what’s causing tears to spring to my eyes.
TJ is the one sprawled out beside me. He’s wide-eyed now, both of us sitting up, and him taking in my shaking hands and legs, the tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Shit,” he mutters. “Holy shit, you gave me a freakin’ heart attack.”
Both Jordan and Stevie are now in front of me. And yes, there’s a throbbing in my head but that’s not why I can’t breathe, why I’m suddenly sobbing so hard I can’t speak.
“What’s wrong?” TJ says, panicking. “Are you hurt?”
“She hit her head, you idiot,” Stevie snaps, “Of course she’s hurt.”
I clutch my chest trying to breathe. I’m shoving all of them back, attempting to get out of here. Jordan grasps me by the shoulders. “Sit down, Karen.”
I move too quickly for him to maintain his hold on me. “I’m not hurt,” I manage to say. “My head’s fine.”
Then I’m pushing my way out the gym doors, gasping for air.
chapter three
~jordan~
“Karen!” I sprint out of the gym, down the path, following the red ponytail. My heart is still lodged in my throat after watching that ugly fall. “Karen, stop!”
She halts, back to me, hands resting on her knees and shoulders shaking. I finally reach her and steer her in the direction of a nearby bench, forcing her to sit down. I get a good look at her face, not only the tears but ghostly white color, the cold sweat trickling down. I’ve seen Karen like this before, after one of her nightmares. She’s gasping for air, chest heaving. I kneel in front of her, pushing the hair off her face.
“I’m not… hurt,” she manages to say between sobbing and hyperventilating.
“I heard what TJ said.” I rest my hands on her upper arms, rubbing them gently. I’m starting to panic myself, worried Karen’s about to pass out. It’s happened to her before.
Her fingers grab at the material on the front of her leotard, pulling it away from her skin. “How come I can be completely fine… and then… and then one little thing… it feels like someone carved out my chest.”
Her words are like a jab to the stomach. I was much younger than Karen when I lost my mom, so the triggers were a little different—not having someone to pack my lunch before school, not having my uniform pants ironed… Missing her revolved around my selfish needs and being scared about getting through that day and maybe the next, but rarely did I think about her absence in the future, like Karen does.
But right now, I can’t talk about any of this with her because she needs to calm down. Her eyes are wide with panic, her face an even lighter shade of pale. I grip her shoulders tighter. “Look at me!”
She lifts her head enough to focus on my face.
“Breathe exactly like me,” I order, hoping her obedient gymnast nature will take over. I slow my own breathing down and keep my eyes glued to hers. “You’re okay. Just breathe.”
She nods and her shoulders deflate under my hands. She’s working hard to relax. More sweat is trickling down the sides of her face.
“Good.” I rub her shoulders and the back of her neck. “Now close your eyes… count to twenty really slowly in your head.”
I move onto the bench beside her the second her eyes flutter shut. I wrap an arm around her shoulders. She slumps over, pressing her weight against my side. I continue to rub her back and shoulders until she’s breathing normally again.
“I hate this,” she mumbles after a few minutes of silence between us. Hot tears roll down her cheeks and land on my hand. “It’s like being blindsided.”
“I know.” And I do know.
Stevie approaches us with tentative steps. “Your group is done warming up.”
Karen sits up immediately and tries to wipe her face with one arm. “Go,” she says to me.
I hesitate, open my mouth to protest but she shakes her head.
“Take her to get her head checked out,” I tell Stevie. It’s my compromise. I really don’t want to leave her like this.
Karen surprises me by laughing. “Yeah, I totally need my head checked out.”
I plant a kiss on the top of her head. “That’s not what I meant.”
After I get up, Stevie takes my spot on the bench, but I head to the gym before catching any potential conversation. I’m not sure if Karen can talk to Stevie like she can with Blair. They don’t seem to have that same close relationship, but I could be wrong.
A group of six energetic ten-year-old girls are waiting for me in front of the uneven bars. I’m rattled from the morning’s drama, but I plaster on my best coaching face and explain what we’re going to be working on for this rotation. The group is made up of all Level 3 and Level 4 gymnasts, so it’s fairly easy to set up the stations and get everyone going. A few minutes later, I’m spotting cast to handstands on the pit bar, allowing the kids to swing down on the last cast and land in the fluffy pit blocks.
TJ leaves his group on the tumbling strip doing pushups and walks over to where my group is. “Is she okay?”
I keep my focus on the kid I’m spotting while forcing my jaw to relax. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about TJ right now. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind punching him, but I can’t tell if that’s because I need to punch something or because I reall
y blame him for Karen falling on her dismount. Falling is an understatement. She nearly killed herself. She would’ve killed herself if TJ hadn’t caught her.
Another reason why I can’t decide how to feel or who to be pissed at.
“She’s all right.”
He exhales, nods, and says, “I didn’t know about her parents.”
“Well, you do now.” God, I’m being an ass. “I think she’s freaked out more than hurt.”
“Right.” He tugs at the collar of his staff polo shirt, then turns around and walks back to his group.
The girls in my first rotation are having a blast with the pit bar and I decide to let them try flyaways, which gets them to the loud squealing version of excited because who doesn’t want to try a flip off the pit bar?
I’ve moved closer to the tumble strip in order to spot the dismounts and I catch bits and pieces of TJ’s coaching.
“If you’re gonna cry, get in the back of the line,” he snaps at a girl who’s probably eleven or twelve. She covers her face and makes her way behind the other girls in her group. “No more balking. Go for the double or get out!”
Jesus Christ.
I send my girls to get a drink and climb out of the pit to stand beside TJ. “You can’t kick anyone out of the gym,” I whisper. “The counselors are in training sessions right now. There’s no one to watch the kids outside of the gym.”
He frowns like this is really putting a damper on his coaching style.
“It’s summer camp,” I remind him. “You don’t have to take them to a competition.”
“They’re paying eight hundred bucks to work on skills they already know how to do?”
I shrug. “It’s not your eight hundred bucks, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”
TJ folds his arms across his chest and turns to his group. “Fine, if you’re planning on chickening out of throwing a double back, go get a drink. If not, stay in line.” He turns back to me. “Better?”
I shake my head and rub my temples. Is it lunchtime yet?
“Coach Jordan! It’s my turn, it’s my turn!” a girl in my group is shouting from up on the bar. Since it looks like she might combust if she doesn’t get to try the flip off the high bar before it’s time to rotate, I leave TJ alone with his one remaining gymnast. Everyone else opted for the drink break.
By the time I’m finishing up my fourth group of campers this morning, I’m exhausted and dying to go find Karen or Stevie and make sure she’s okay. TJ follows me out of the gym. “Why do girls cry so much?” he says. “I don’t get it.”
“Haven’t you coached girls before?”
“No,” he admits. “So, what am I supposed to do with them?”
“Don’t make them cry.” I pick up my pace after spotting Karen and Stevie heading toward us. Karen’s holding a bag of ice against her forehead. I leave TJ lagging behind and reach for Karen, lifting the ice and taking in the sizable bump that’s formed in the past couple of hours. “Are you okay? What did the trainer say?”
Her face reddens instantly. “I’m fine. No concussion. No anything.”
“Good.” I lean down and give her a quick kiss on the mouth. As I’m pulling away, I catch sight of the woman with the wild gray hair now standing behind Karen. Nina Jones.
She scowls at me and turns her attention to TJ. “If you’re going to loiter in our gym every morning you might as well make yourself useful and learn how to spot properly.” Her gaze shifts to Karen and Stevie. “Practice starts in two minutes.”
TJ’s scratching his head as Nina walks off. I have no idea if she was insulting his spotting or she actually wants to use him to help coach the elite girls. He looks Karen over and his mouth opens like he’s about to say something, but she grabs my arm and pulls me away, toward the gym.
“I think crawling in a hole in the middle of the woods and staying there for the next three weeks sounds like a great idea,” she says, before throwing her arms around my neck and hugging me. I tighten my arms around her waist. She brushes her lips against my neck, giving me instant goose bumps, then her mouth moves to my cheek. “I knew it.”
I pull back and examine her face. “Knew what?”
“You’re sick again, aren’t you?” She gives my other cheek a kiss. “You have a fever.”
I release her and step back. The last thing I need is Karen worrying about me. “It’s hot out here.”
She narrows her eyes, but Stevie’s beside her now, grabbing her arm and tugging her toward the gym. “Practice, remember? Nina’s waiting.”
Karen pats my cheek. “Get some rest, okay? Maybe go see the doctor?”
“Good idea, I’ve got a few hours to lie down.” That answer must have been enough to satisfy her because she takes off at a jog, trailing behind Stevie. I get inside my cabin, heading for my bunk, when Dad calls.
“Jordy, what’s going on?”
“Um… besides the usual?” I can’t tell if he’s got a purpose to this call or is just checking in on me.
“Karen,” he says. “I just watched a video of her peeling off the bar and I have no idea what happened and who the hell is that kid that snatched her out of thin air?”
“She’s not hurt. The trainer checked her out already. And that was TJ who caught her. He was in the gym working out.” TJ snaps around to face me, tuning into my phone conversation. “Who posted a video of that?”
“I don’t know, that’s what I was calling to ask,” Dad says. “Where’s Karen? Can you put her on the phone?”
I suppress a frustrated sigh. “Sure, because I’m here to follow her around twenty-four-seven. It’s not like I have other responsibilities.”
“Jordan,” he warns.
I flop down onto my bed. “She’s at practice, Dad.”
“Are you coaching right now? Do you think you could do me a favor and watch her workout today? Just in case there are any issues.”
Probably if anybody but Dad had asked me this, I wouldn’t feel the surge of anger I’m feeling at the moment. “I don’t think Nina would be too happy about that.”
Eventually, I end up telling him I’ll try to make it over to the gym in a little while, before making up an excuse to get off the phone. Of course I’m gonna check on her if he thinks it’s important, but I’d rather not let him know how compliant I can be.
I push myself up off the bed again and a wave of dizziness hits me so hard I have to grip the bedpost to keep from falling over.
“Dude, you look like shit,” TJ says.
That’s exactly how I feel. “Thanks.” I shake my head, attempting to stop the room from spinning, but of course that only makes it worse. “I’ve been ordered to spy on Karen’s practice.”
TJ presses a hand against my chest, pushing me back down onto the bed. “Stay here. I heard you tell Karen you were gonna rest. I’ll watch practice. That crazy lady told me to anyway, so…”
“You sure you don’t mind?” I’m not up for arguing.
“It’s no problem.”
Right before I allow my eyes to close, I search for the video of Karen’s bar routine on my phone. Even though I know it’s coming, I flinch the second she peels off the bar, right before smacking her head into it. And damn, TJ really did move fast to snatch her out of thin air practically. She would have had a broken arm for sure, if not worse, had he not come to her rescue.
I lift the covers up to my shoulders and fall into a restless sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
~KAREN~
“Why the hell is TJ’s ass planted in the bleachers like he’s never going to leave?” Stevie whispers over the chalk bowl.
He’s been watching our workout since halfway through stretching. I felt his eyes on me during dance and beam.
“Don’t know.” I reposition my grips and stand in front of the low bar. I’m shaking. Like really shaking. I close my eyes, draw in a slow deep breath, and begin the process of releasing it over ten counts. But when I get to number seven, the image of my head crashing into the high bar
replays. I gasp and my eyes fly open, my heart racing.
“Let’s go, Karen,” Nina says from her position on the side of the uneven bars.
One skill at a time. You can do this.
I go into autopilot mode and nail skill after skill. But as I’m prepping for my dismount, it’s like a panic switch flips back on and a voice inside my head is screaming: don’t let go. Don’t. Let. Go.
I can’t let go. But the result of hanging on too long causes my hands to peel and before I can process what’s happening, I’m flat on my back on the mats below, the wind completely knocked out of me.
I don’t move until I can feel air entering my lungs again. This fall wasn’t like earlier, where everything shifted into slow motion and I could foresee the coming danger. Slowly, I pull myself up to a sitting position, to find that both Nina and Stevie have moved closer.
“Sorry,” I say instinctively.
Nina’s face is calm, but there’s something in her eyes that indicates she may have had a concerned moment of her own. “Okay?”
“Yeah.” I roll out my neck, give my arms a shake, and then I’m up on my feet again. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” she says with a nod. And because she’s not lecturing or ignoring me, I can assume that she’d been satisfied with my bar routine. At least up until the dismount. More like the not-dismount.
Stevie’s studying me as I walk over to the chalk bowl, but Nina calls her up to the bars before she can say anything. My gaze is glued to the chalk bowl—I’m not in the mood to make eye contact with concerned or curious teammates. But I do glance up for half a second and catch TJ letting out a breath and sitting back down like he might have jumped to his feet after I fell.
My cheeks heat up, remembering the breakdown he witnessed earlier from me. I turn my back to him, whipping around to watch Stevie’s bar routine.
“Tighter,” Nina instructs. “Handstands!”
Stevie’s not a bad bar worker, but it isn’t her strongest event. However, she’s really pushing herself on any and all weak areas. I can see her alter each movement as Nina shouts corrections, her leotard even more drenched with sweat than anyone else’s, including mine.
