My PSAT success came from a fire that has since been reduced to embers. It was all for Ocean State Buccaneers gymnastics, not because of my love for academics and the pursuit of standardized testing.
“You work hard,” he’s saying now. “You know what it’s like to focus on a goal.”
I do, except that the things I once wanted wound up as fleeting as the early morning fog that rolls in off the ocean.
“Also.” He shifts so that we’re touching, his arm wrapping around my back, and now every part of me is warm. “Cassie is lucky to have you as a friend.”
Yeah, right. But when I lean my head on his shoulder, I start to relax for the first time since Mr. Riley’s assembly. “How about that math?” I say into his collarbone.
Outside, the dog keeps barking. Car doors slam shut, engines rumble up and down the block, and once in a while, someone laughs. No police sirens or the sounds of, I don’t know, fists connecting with bones. The looks from Victor and Tommy Brown feel like they happened months ago. Whatever the hell Cassie was trying to imply about what I could handle, I’m not seeing it. The place is alive, that’s all.
Marcos reaches up with the other hand to scratch the back of his neck. “I’ve learned all of this before, but I can’t stay awake in class.”
“Why’s that?”
“Work.” I feel the word against his throat. “Too much damn work. Gotta pay the bills.”
It occurs to me that a senior Castillo might walk in and ask what the hell I’m doing in here with his youngest son. “Where are your parents, by the way?”
His shoulder tenses. It’s like asking about soccer. It’s something that he’d rather not share. I’m about to tell him it doesn’t matter when he surprises me by answering. “My parents don’t live here.” Absentmindedly, he begins rubbing my side. “They’re in Mexico.”
I wasn’t expecting that. At work, sure. Permanently in Mexico, no. I try to fight back the waves of warmth so I can focus on asking coherent questions. “It’s just you, Victor, and expired cheese?”
“Pretty much.”
“Do you visit them?”
He shifts, uncomfortable. Looks like Marcos is better at being the interrogator than the interrogated. “Too expensive. Hopefully after I graduate.”
The dog finishes barking. The television through the walls shuts off.
I cough.
He clears his throat.
I cough again, willing Marcos to speak. For once, the boy doesn’t have any questions. You first, buddy. He’s not budging. He’s waiting for me to make a move. One of his eyebrows quirks up as if he’s inviting me to change the subject, or make out with him, or… anything besides sit here.
I could do that, I guess. Toss aside the textbook and the still-neglected bag of chips and…what? Pin him to the bed? Apparently I’m okay with kissing Marcos in front of the eight hundred or so students of Ponquogue High School, but not in this small room where we are clearly alone, all angles accounted for.
This goes on for five minutes. Okay, ten seconds. “Practice is going to kick my ass later,” I announce without any noticeable trigger.
“Yeah?” He sits up a little straighter.
“We have a competition soon that will be a spectacular failure.” To put it mildly.
“Impossible. I can see it now.” He nudges me playfully with his shoulder, a motion which makes the bed creak and my heart flip. “Lights, cameras, Savannah Gregory on the still rings.”
I glare at him. “You didn’t say still rings.”
“I may have.”
“Boy, do you know anything about women’s gymnastics?”
There’s no tension in his shoulders, no tapping of his fingers, just a mischievous look in his eyes. “Enlighten me.”
So I do.
Marcos doesn’t stop me as I discuss the different levels, explaining that while being a Level 10 is solid, ahead of most gymnasts, it’s not the same as elite, the Olympic-level gymnasts.
He shakes his head when I finish my spiel. “As far as I’m concerned, any kind of flip is death-defying.”
I demonstrate a few jumps in the space between the bed and the wall, ignoring the way my muscles groan. Besides last night, this is the most I’ve jumped since physical therapy. The thin strip of wooden floor vibrates beneath me. Close enough to a balance beam. “If you do them in combination, you get bonus points,” I tell him as I transition from a split jump to a tuck jump three-quarters. Stuck it. “But if you wobble in between, forget it.”
He stands next to me, tugging up his jeans preemptively and shaking out his arms. “All right, all right.” He pauses from his silly warm-up, exhales, cracks his neck once. “How do you do the goat jump?”
“Wolf jump,” I correct him with a grin. He’s so eager, so genuinely ready to try despite the fact that his neighbors are probably wondering what the hell the stampede is all about. “No goats allowed.” I do it again, jumping into the air with my legs up to hip level. One leg straight, the other bent.
Although we’re in his tiny bedroom on a warm fall afternoon and none of what I’m doing is for a coach or a judge, I can’t fight the confidence that fills me each time I explain something, demonstrate something else, and he watches with approval.
He takes a dramatic moment to gather himself and then jumps with surprising agility. I applaud. “You’ve officially qualified for the Olympic Trials. Just gotta work on pointing those toes.”
A neighbor bangs against the wall. “Knock it off,” a voice calls.
“Say I’m a seventeen-year-old gymnast with wolf jumps and Olympic dreams,” says Marcos, undeterred by his irritated neighbor. His hands rest on his hips like we’re taking a brief water break before the next segment of practice. “Who do I have to talk to in order to make the team?”
“If only it were as easy as showing up and talking to someone.” I’m off and running again, Marcos following along like we’re on a grand adventure.