“The thing I want to say is, you still have it,” Jeanine said.
I glanced toward her, incredulous. I had no idea what she meant.
“What I mean is, you still have that fire behind your eyes. That drive to get you all the way to wherever it is you want to go,” Jeanine stated. “Whether that’s just next year’s Nationals or the Olympic Trials or the Olympics themselves. I still see that fire in you. And I want you to remember that you have it. Nobody can take it away from you unless you let them.”
What she said couldn’t have been more perfect, or more difficult to hear. I felt like I was at the bottom of a well, staring up at an impossibly black sky. I had no idea how to crawl out. I swallowed and whispered, “Thank you,” then reared over and hugged her harder than I’d ever hugged anyone in my life. I made sure not to make a sound, although all I wanted to do was cry.
Don’t show weakness. Never.
Our hug broke. She squeezed my shoulder a final time and told me she would be there for me at the mid-semester competition. “You know where I always sit,” she said, and I did. I nodded a final time and ripped out of the car and bounded back toward my dorm room. I just had to live through this last week. Then, I would find a way to prove to everyone that I deserved to be there.
Chapter Seventeen
When I caught up with Chloe after practice that night, her shoulders were slumped and her eyes were hollow. She leaned heavily against the ladder of her bunk bed and just stared at the floor. I paced in front of her, my fists clenched, and stammered, “Chloe, if we mean anything to each other, you have to believe me. You have to understand. There’s no way in hell that I would ever even flirt at your boyfriend. He—he cornered me to ask you about your birthday present! I swear to God, Chloe. And those photos...”
At this, inch by inch, Chloe’s face broke into a soft grin.
“My birthday?” she asked. Her hair hung, green and curly, around her ears.
I nodded, exhausted and strung-out, but so goddamn grateful she’d actually given me a moment to explain myself. “Seriously. He is like... obsessed with you, Chloe. And it must have been Poppy who spotted us and gave you those photos. God, I swear I can’t do anything...”
Suddenly, Chloe burst toward me and hugged me so hard, she felt like a linebacker. I nearly toppled back, my knees clacking together. And when she fell back, her eyes glittered with tears.
“I’m so, so sorry...” Chloe stammered. “I know. I mean, I always knew that you would never do something like that. I’m just always so fucking exhausted and... I guess it just hit some kind of anxious part of me. Like, how I told you, I never thought I would ever find love. I never thought that this would last. I...”
I gripped her shoulders and gave her my sternest expression. “Chloe. It’s okay. Nothing else matters. Take it one day at a time. And know that you’ve found a really, really good guy—one of the best. And, dammit, he believes in the power of a Snickers bar. What more could you want from someone?”
I knew better than to think that Chloe would have extended her anger toward me longer than a few hours. After that, I explained to her, in a few words, what had happened the night before, and, in response, she grabbed a bottle of sparkling water and a single pack of fruit snacks and we crawled into my bed to eat slowly and dream about a future when we weren’t so in pain, mentally and physically.
Of course, throughout the next week, Poppy had made it her mission to spread rumors about my little escapade in the bathroom. Or how much a slut I had been. She hadn’t seen anything, had only found me in the bathroom with Zed and Theo, but she had created a whole narrative around it, about Theo having actual sex with me, and Zed watching. The boys hadn’t corrected her and had kept their distance from me, and I didn’t care to correct it. I just wanted to focus on the competition. If Poppy was busy crafting this story about me, maybe she was only half-focused on the skills she was meant to be honing. I had heard Coach Jonathon blaring at her three times. “Get your head together, Poppy! I thought you were supposed to be America’s best gymnast!”
On the morning of the mid-semester competition, Chloe woke up in a good hour before me and headed to the pool. The swimming competition happened after the track team and a few hours before the gymnastics competition, and everything was spaced out just enough to allow everyone to watch everyone else. Just before she opened the door, I lurched up and whispered, “Hey. Chloe. Good luck.”
From the door, she gave me a sleepy smile. “Thanks.”
“And Chloe?”
“What?”
“I’m so fucking sorry that Poppy got between us for a second. I just... I couldn’t live with myself if...”
“I know,” she said. She shrugged slightly.
“Oh, fuck. And happy birthday!” I added, my smile widening.
“Ugh. Don’t remind me. Getting old!”
“You’re seventeen, Chloe. It’s the perfect age.”
She clicked the door shut behind her after that. I fell back for a few minutes, cozy beneath my blankets and stitched tight across my pillow. God, I was so glad that Chloe and I had worked everything out—but I had a whole other host of problems to deal with that day.
After I got up, I grabbed my gymnastics clothes and walked alone to the track stadium, where I watched Zed out-perform every other guy on his team. When he ripped across the finish line, he beat his chest with his fists and I let myself remember, for just a moment, that he had kissed me with so much intensity like I was the only person he wanted in the world. Maybe it had been a lie, but it had felt so real at that moment.
After track finished up and I walked alone to the Olympic-sized swimming pool, I noticed there were swarms of groups of friends, all walking together. Had everyone always had so many friends? Had I not noticed because Chloe had befriended me and we’d created such a strong friendship together? I wrapped my scarf tight around my neck and shivered on the walk. I could hardly imagine my muscles loosening up enough for the stunts I was meant to perform in just a few hours. I felt like a clunky skeleton. When I reached the swimming stadium, I found a seat in the third row, at least twenty five feet away from Poppy, Ellison and the rest of her girl gang.
Chloe and Ashley were up against one another in the five hundred meters free. Chloe had told me that she wanted nothing more than to beat Ashley at this event. They both looked very toned and strong up on the blocks. Both adjusted their goggles and caps and then placed their hands at the base of the block and waited. In the next second, the timer blared and they burst from the blocks and tore into the water. The way they swam was exactly how I felt I performed when I flipped and leaped—they did it with ferocity, drive and endless focus. When they reached the wall, they sprung into a flip and then pushed back through the water with incredible strength. I leaped up and cried out Chloe’s name, cheering her on.
Ashley and Chloe were neck and neck throughout the entire five hundred meters. It was the longest race of the day and most other students lost interest after a minute or two, but I remained standing and smashing my hands together. I felt like Chloe could somehow hear me.
When Chloe smashed into the wall first, not second, I screeched so loud that my voice echoed off the windows of the swimming arena. Chloe ripped her cap off and cast her eyes toward the seating and grinned madly. Her eyes connected with mine first. I wrapped my hands around my mouth and screamed, “Chloe wins! Chloe is the best! Happy birthday, Chloe!!” And she just smiled even wider.
But I didn’t have time to hang out and wait. The minute Chloe hit the wall, I had to rush to the gymnastics stadium to warm up. I walked a little too fast, my muscles pumping, as I leaped across campus. When I reached the locker room to change, Poppy and several other girls were already in there, stripping or yanking spandex up over their muscular forms. The second I entered, everyone stopped talking, yet another indication that they talked about me behind my back. I shrugged and decided to live in the adrenaline of Chloe’s win. What-ever. And besides. That afternoon, Jeanine
would be in the crowd. If all went right, I would tear above Poppy in competition and prove myself, once and for all, as the top gymnast at the Denver Academy. Fuck everything else. It didn’t matter.
I left my bag on the bench as I went to the bathroom. When I reappeared back in the locker room, I wrapped my body up in the tight fabric of the performance uniform and then glanced back in my bag again.
What I saw there made my heart drop into my stomach.
Sitting there inside my bag was none other than the ring that Thomas Everton had won at Nationals. It was a bright ruby glowing and worth thousands of dollars, probably. It had been the thing I’d coveted, if only because it represented everything I owed to Denver Athletics. But I hadn't been the one who had stolen it.
Yet here it was in my bag.
I glanced up at the horrible banner on the wall of the locker room, the one that read, “If you don’t leap, you’ll never know what it’s like to fly.” My hands clenched into fists. Poppy had set me up. Probably even now, she whispered in someone’s ear that she had seen the ring in my bag. I wouldn’t be able to get myself out of it very easily. We had all been at Theo’s house, and none of those horrible creatures wanted anything to do with me. Since I had run out, Theo, Zed and Clinton hadn’t said a single word to me. Again, I was a pariah.
I bucked out of the locker room and walked out into the bright light of the gymnastics stadium. My heart raced too fast like I could sense what it would feel like to have a heart attack. I spotted Poppy in the middle of a stretch and I wanted to go over and grab her ponytail and yank it so fucking hard.
As I walked toward the group of gymnastics girls, I heard my name off to the side and yanked around to see Mr. Everton. My heart pattered in my throat. I had his fucking ring in my bag and I didn’t know what to do. My throat and mouth were dry as bones.
“Rooney. I wanted to catch you before you warmed up,” Mr. Everton said.
I imagined him saying it. You took my ring. You’re from nothing and you stole from me.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck.
“Hey, Mr. Everton,” I said. My voice was high-pitched and nervous.
“Rooney, I wanted to ask you something,” Mr. Everton said. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and said, “You don’t know who your parents are, do you?”
I arched my brow. This was completely outside the bounds of what I had thought he would say. “Um. No. I’m a foster kid.” I shrugged. Weirdly, this was the easiest thing to say right then.
“Yeah. Well.” He palmed the back of his neck and glanced around. “I might know.”
My head felt like it had been hit with a huge rock. I just blinked at him and almost confessed that I found his ring in my bag, but I held back. He looked honest like he hadn’t wanted to say what he had just said. But before I could pry, Coach Jonathon called my name and I turned and scampered over to him. I could still feel Mr. Everton’s eyes on me. When I reached him, he grabbed my shoulders and looked me in this eye with all this intensity.
“Come on, Rooney. You’ve got this,” he said.
I most definitely didn’t feel like I had this. I had never been so fucking lost. I found myself in our familiar stretch circle and tilted my head back and forth. Thoughts of the ring, then Poppy and of Mr. Everton’s weird false-reveal filled my head. My parents? I didn’t have any parents. I glanced toward the balance beam, where I was meant to perform in little less than twenty-five minutes, and felt like someone had punched me in the gut. How had this turned into the worst day of my life? It was meant to be the best. The day I was meant to prove myself.
Poppy eased into the circle next to me and cranked her head back and forth. Her neck creaked. “Hey, Roon,” she said. “What’s wrong? You look a little pale.”
My eyes flickered. “You know what’s wrong.”
Poppy’s smile widened. “Did you see the lineup? I’m going on right before you. I hope that’s okay. The entire crowd comparing us two—the two Olympic hopefuls.” She brought her hand around my shoulder and squeezed it a little too hard so that my muscles felt tweaked.
“Get your paws off me,” I warned her.
Poppy let out a little laugh. She sprung back and then leaped into a backflip across the mat. She landed perfectly and tilted her chest and chin up. Coach Jonathon smashed his hands together and hollered, “That’s it, Poppy! Keep up that energy!”
The auditorium was mostly full: hundreds of people, far more than I’d ever performed in front of. I tried to tell myself that on the day of Nationals or Olympic Trials or the Olympics themselves, there would be far more. This did nothing to assuage my fear. I glanced to the side and spotted Poppy next to another balance beam. Her hand traced the back part of it, as though she was checking something. I rolled my eyes.
Mallory was up first. She looked petrified, her cheeks green as she swept toward the balance beam and eased herself up. She wasn’t the most graceful, and I’d even heard Coach Jonathon speak in whispers about potentially kicking her off the team. Her jaw was set and the auditorium fell silent.
The intensity was too much. I spun around and darted back to the locker room. I wanted to sit, to breathe, to focus on not vomiting. As I passed by Poppy, she smirked at me. I wanted to say fuck you. I wanted to tell her just how little she was. But the fact was if she beat me that day at the mid-semester competition, there was nothing I could do. The entire school—no, the world—would see her on top. I would have nothing.
I raced into the locker room and heaved on the bench. I listened as girl after girl was called to the balance beam until finally, it was time for Poppy. I lurched up and tore back to the stadium. There was no way in hell I could miss her performance. I swept toward the mat and watched as she walked swiftly toward the balance beam. As I drew forward, I felt someone’s hand on my shoulder.
“You’re next, Rooney. But listen. Don’t think you’ll get away with it. Don’t think for a second you will.”
I whirled around to see Theo. This was the first time he’d spoken to me since I’d had my hand wrapped around his cock. I balked and said, “What did you say?”
And to this, he leered and said, “You’re going to kill it, Rooney.”
Did he know somehow that I had the ring? Was this a crazy set-up to get me kicked out of school?
“Listen, Theo. I don’t want anything to do with you,” I muttered under my breath. I wasn’t the type of girl to just take how he treated me—ignoring me after making me come like that—making me feel like an idiot, a loner.
I wouldn’t stand for it.
But at that moment, there was literally nothing I could do about it.
I turned to watch Poppy’s performance. My legs quaked beneath me. Everything in my life rode on this moment, yet I felt depleted and exhausted and absolutely strung-out. What the fuck was I supposed to do?
There was a five-minute break before my turn. I cranked my head around to try to find Jeanine in the stands, but there were too many blank faces, too much chaos. I swallowed and turned to see them changing out the balance beams. Poppy’s ponytail whipped around and she beamed at me. Her performance had been stellar, one of her best—and that was saying something.
It was time again. The announcer’s voice echoed across the stadium. “It’s time to start back up. If I could ask the crowd to please quiet down for our next competitor. She’s a top-level gymnast and was just admitted to Denver Top-Level Athletics this semester. She is a junior with her heart set on the Olympic Team. Everyone—give it up for Rooney Calloway!”
I swallowed and arched my back and walked as regally as I could toward the balance beam, as I had done time and time again. I pressed my hands against the rough yet familiar texture of the beam and eased myself up to stand. I tried to force all thoughts of Poppy, of Chloe, of whatever it was Mr. Everton thought he had up his sleeve, out of my head. And then, I pointed my leg out far in front of me and dropped my toe against the beam.
It didn’t take long before I knew something was wrong. I burst up int
o a backflip and heard the balance beam crank and break beneath me. I knew as I flailed back that my hands would have nothing to grip onto. It was like being pushed from a cliff, flailing into the abyss. In those moments—nothing else mattered because I truly thought I would die. In those moments, as the entire crowd was upside down and my feet were pointed toward the enormous, cathedral-like ceiling, I had nothing to do but pray that everything would be ok.
Maybe, when all this is over, I’ll wake up back at Karla’s house. Maybe, none of this was real.
I smashed my skull against the side of the fallen balance beam, and everything in the world went black. The shrieks, the cries, probably Poppy’s strained laugher—none of that met my ears. I was dead to the world.
And in some ways, I should have been dead for real.
To be continued...
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Out for Blood Page 15
