“Audrey!” Mom yells when she finally sees me and they push past the security guard in front of them. Almost instantly, her arms are around me, pulling me in close. “I’m so proud of you, sweetie!”
“You were fantastic, Rey,” Dad adds in his deep rumbling voice. His large hand cradles the back of my head, drawing both me and Mom into a group hug. It’s a perfect moment. It’s the moment I’ve dreamed of since I was old enough to understand what the Olympics were. It hasn’t been easy on them, watching me all these years.
I wince when Mom squeezes a little tighter. Clearly, she feels me tense and pulls away immediately. “Do you need to go see the trainer?”
Nodding, I smile past the pain. “When we get home, I need to get a cortisone shot. Dr. Gupta said it should last me through the Games if I made the team.”
“Go on,” Dad says and motions toward the trainers’ room across the hall. “We’ll meet you back at the hotel. The NGC is throwing you girls a party.”
My eyebrows lift at that idea. I don’t exactly associate the NGC with parties—more like early curfews and surprise bed checks at three in the morning—but, hell, it’s the Olympics, so why not?
“I’ll see you guys over there.” I hand Mom the flowers and give them each a fierce hug before I turn toward the trainers’ room.
The other girls, everyone except Dani, are headed in that direction as well, some hugging their parents too, but most headed straight for the treatment—massage, heat, and ice—that will push down the pain for the rest of the night.
“Where’s Dani?” I ask Emma, who shrugs uncomfortably and then makes a beeline for a training table.
“She’s still giving interviews,” Sierra says, rolling her eyes. There are tear tracks on her cheeks, and I know those weren’t tears of joy. She’s an alternate, caught in a weird vortex between making the team and not. I guess I can forgive the eye roll and the sharpness in her voice. “Apparently, she beat Emma in the all-around today. They’re treating it like some kind of miracle.”
Wow, I hadn’t noticed she’d outscored Emma today, even if Em’s two-day total was higher.
“I mean, it’s sort of a big deal,” Jaime says. “Emma’s national and world champ, and she beat her.”
Sierra scoffs. “Yeah, because scores at trials definitely always hold up once we get to international competition.”
That’s not a bad point. I’m pretty sure all of our scores were inflated at least a little bit today. Judges sometimes get caught up in the Olympic hype as much as the rest of us.
I follow them into the trainers’ room, and Gibby waves me over to an empty table. Josh, one of the NGC trainers, has bags of ice ready for me.
“Congrats,” Josh says, sitting down on a stool in front of me as I lift myself onto the table, trying to suppress the wince as a dull ache radiates through my lower back. Gibby’s right here, and seeing me wrapped in massive ice blocks is enough of a reminder of my injury issues for the man who decides my role on the team.
“Thanks,” I say, smiling at Josh. He’s been around the national team since forever.
“You did great work out there, Audrey,” Gibby says, his eyes not on me, but darting around the room to the other girls. I’m convinced he does it on purpose, letting us know that while he’s talking to us, there’s always someone else who can take our place.
“Thank y—” I try to say, but he cuts me off.
“I’m sure you know that all spots on the team are conditional upon preparedness leading up to the Games.”
I swallow down the panic that flares up in my chest and nod once to show I understand.
“You and Emma have dreamed of winning team gold together since you were little. She’s holding up her end of the bargain. You were named to the team today, but I’m sure you know how close it was. I expect you to give me more than you have so far, do you understand?”
“Yes, of course.” It’s a lie. What more could he want from me? I’m maxed out on the difficulty I can manage with the amount of pain I’m in—which he definitely knows—and there’s no time to upgrade even if I weren’t. My bars have been consistent since I came back, and I have a good shot at a gold if I hit in event finals. And even though their difficulty scores are lower, my floor and vault have been solid all the way through the selection process.
Duh, Audrey, he means beam.
The connections between my skills have been shaky at times, and while I’m capable of hitting them, it’s been tough to do it in competition with the pressure of making the team constantly looming. Plus, it’s where I take the most risks with my back. The beam is punishing on the joints, whether you’re falling off it or staying on. I’ve tried to avoid overtraining on the event, but that’s an excuse. It looks like it’s gonna be balance beam or bust before Tokyo. I can increase my score by two- to four-tenths if I consistently nail those connections.
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Good,” he says. Suddenly, he shifts his gaze to me and winks, the smallest of smiles appearing. “Just so you know, I’m rooting for you here.”
I nod firmly and smile through the ever-growing flares of pain radiating from my spine.
Then he wanders toward Sierra, who’s getting her shoulder wrapped with an ice pack that makes my back wraps look tiny. Jaime is on the table next to hers having her elbows wrapped the same way. I wonder what he’s going to say to them. Gibby’s a great coach, but he’s definitely not above mind games and pitting us against one another. But he said he’s rooting for me—that has to be good, right? It’s definitely good.
I take a deep breath and see Josh looking at me with concern. “How’s your back?” he asks.
I kick my legs around and settle facedown on the table. “It’s fine.”
“All right, then—let’s make sure it stays that way for the party tonight,” Josh says as his fingers probe against the sore spot near my fourth vertebra. There’s scar tissue and all kinds of fun things going on between his hand and where my formerly herniated discs reside. Involuntarily, I groan in protest, instantly exposing that my back is so not fine. I screw my eyes shut as Josh continues his massage, and I hope against hope that Gibby didn’t hear me. If he wants more from me, he’ll get it, and I’ll start with working through this pain.
chapter three
“Iknow, I know,” I say, leaping up the bus’s stairs. Everyone’s attention swings toward me, mostly with laughter in their eyes, but I think I catch a twist of the mouth from Sierra. Plopping into the seat beside Emma, I sigh in relief.
“It’s okay, Rey,” she says, shifting over in her seat to give me room. “Peeing on demand is hard.”
“It is!”
We all got drug tested after the competition, and, like always, I’m the last one done. Ask me to hit a gymnastics routine in front of thousands of people, no problem, but peeing exactly when the anti-doping monitors ask is almost impossible.
The only people on the bus, besides our NGC security guard, are the gymnasts going to Tokyo. Sarah and Brooke are in the first row. It’s fitting that they’re kind of removed from the rest of us. Their qualifications process was totally separate from ours, and they’re not even going to train with us in the lead-up to Tokyo. After we all fly out of San Jose tomorrow, we won’t see them again until we hit the Olympic Village.