It’s not flying, but it’s as close to it as a human will ever achieve. Now, a giant swing up to a pirouette and down, and then a release into a back layout, my body held stick straight with one, two, three twists, and land, controlling the smallest step, barely a flicker.
It’s done.
A hit routine and a massive sigh of relief. I clap my hands together, the grips sending a cloud of dust up into the air, and salute the judges, maybe for the final time.
Hopping down from the podium, Emma hugs me before I really find my feet. Coach Pauline is next, a woman who knows me better than even my parents. Over her shoulder I catch Gibby’s eye, but there’s no emotion there. No pleasure or satisfaction, only an unidentifiable steeliness. He looks away.
I’d done what he’d asked, hadn’t I?
Was it enough?
“C’mon,” Emma murmurs as our coach lets me go. There are tears in Pauline’s eyes when I pull away. Tears of joy? Sadness? Both?
I grab Emma’s hand and squeeze.
“I knew you had it,” she says, squeezing back.
That’s what breaks me. I yank her hand and pull her close, the tears starting to gather in the corner of my eyes. “I’m so proud of you. So proud of us.”
“Me too.” Her voice cracks, but she sniffs past the emotion, something else she’s better at than me.
Pauline slides her arms around our shoulders as we pull away. Then together, we walk toward the corner of the arena as the final competitor is announced.
“And now on floor exercise, from Redwood Shores Gymnastics, Daniela Olivero!”
The powers that be knew what they were doing when they assigned Dani the final spot in the final rotation. Her The Greatest Showman routine is super popular with gym fans, and she’s pretty spectacular on the floor, with insanely high tumbling and a ridiculous amount of energy throughout.
Up until last year, she was on the fringes of the elite ranks, but everything’s sort of come together for her in the months leading up to the Games.
The music gets the crowd on its feet immediately. I look at Emma, and her eyes twinkle back at me. Together, we start dancing along. The choreography of Dani’s routine is fabulous, and we’ve seen it over and over again at National Gymnastics Committee camps.
Sierra Montgomery and Jaime Pederson, two white Oklahoma girls who always do everything together, are laughing at us, but they get swept up in the song too, letting their hips sway with the rhythm.
The music comes to an end as Dani nails her final tumbling pass and the whole arena roars in approval, a wave of sound crashing over us. My pain is a fleeting thing now, a tingle at the back of my mind as every single competitor on the floor starts to give one another impromptu hugs.
I pull away from Sierra and then Jaime and try to catch my breath when I’m nearly bowled over by Chelsea Cameron. Despite barely topping out at five feet tall, she nearly takes me down on impact, her textured brown curls catching against my damp cheek. She’s crying and probably not even aware of who she’s hugging because we’ve barely exchanged more than a couple of words over the years. Dani is still hugging her coach, but eventually Emma gets her in a bear hug—as much as a girl who weighs ninety pounds can bear-hug anyone—and then she’s pulled over to the rest of us.
Bittersweet tears prick in the corners of my eyes. It’s overwhelming, going out and doing everything you can to prove you belong and still not knowing if it was enough.
Almost against my will, my gaze flickers to the scoreboard. I don’t want to look, but I have to. The combined scores from two days of competition are displayed for everyone to see, and before I let my fate be decided by Gibby, I need to know where I stand. Though my vision is increasingly blurry from the gathering tears, I can see my name clearly enough.
1. Emma Sadowsky
118.2
2. Daniela Olivero
118.0
3. Sierra Montgomery
117.1
4. Jaime Pederson
116.3
5. Audrey Lee
115.4
6. Chelsea Cameron
110.5
Everyone finished as expected, though I’m a little surprised at how close it is between Emma and Dani. There are four spots on the Olympic team, and I’m in fifth, but all-around scores don’t matter as much as what Gibby wants. Let’s be real: his opinion is the only thing that matters.
Somehow in the midst of the chaos, I slip on the black tracksuit Emma and I wear. It has the New York skyline emblazoned on the back in silver glittering rhinestones and NYC GYM on the left lapel. Obnoxious, maybe, but gymnastics fashion is rarely subtle. The tears are really falling now. No matter what happens, this is the last time I’ll wear my NYC Gymnastics tracksuit. From here on out, it’ll be USA gear or nothing.
Stop it, Audrey. Enjoy the moment.
I try to channel Emma and push down the emotion. It only half works. Better than nothing, though. As I shoulder my bag, one of the workers I vaguely recognize as an NGC official is motioning for us to leave the floor. I shuffle in behind the rest of the girls, twelve of us about to be whittled down to four, plus two alternates.
Behind me, the announcer calls out to the crowd, “While we wait for the decision from the selection committee, please join us in honoring Olympic silver and bronze medalist Janet Dorsey-Adams, owner and head coach of Coronado Gymnastics and Dance, on her induction into the NGC Hall of Fame!”
The spotlight follows Janet up onto the floor, where there’s a trophy waiting for her. It’s pretty cool to be in the Hall of Fame; maybe in a few years I’ll be—
“Audrey, come on!” Emma’s voice interrupts my thoughts from farther down the hall than I thought she’d be.
I turn to catch up with her, but instead my eyes meet the chest of someone a lot taller than me. We nearly collide, my nose to his pec, before strong hands reach out, holding on to my upper arms lightly. In a quick leading step, we’re clear of each other and he releases me. I glance up and gasp in surprise. I know him.
Leo Adams, son of Janet Dorsey-Adams and world champion snowboarder. His mom used to drag him along to competitions when we were little. We follow each other online, but I haven’t actually seen him in person for years.
Wearing a sardonic grin and a THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE T-shirt, he’s tall compared to my five feet four inches, maybe six feet or a little more. He’s biracial—half Black, half white—and there’s a dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose.
“Hey, Leo.”
I inwardly cringe at not having a better opener, and, like, what if I remember his name, but he doesn’t remember mine?
This could be bad.
A smile lights up his face, though, and I find myself matching it. “Audrey Lee,” he says. Oh, thank God, he knows who I am. “Careful. Don’t want you to lose your spot on the team for being clumsy.”
I let myself smile. “It might be worth the risk.”
What the hell, Audrey? Are you flirting? Must be the high from the competition, and it’s made you completely insane.
“Audrey!” Emma calls again from down the large corridor, her voice bouncing off the concrete walls. She frantically waves me toward her, but I hesitate. She and the rest of the girls are disappearing into the locker room.
It’s weird. I’ve entered some kind of alternate universe where the adrenaline is still numbing my pain and my gymnastics career might be about to end and there’s something totally liberating about that thought.