I never knew I had this much to say to anyone until he asked. I’m used to everything being implicit, to Cassie already knowing what I’m thinking after I’ve spoken half a sentence. To my teammates, who could watch my routine and know by my facial expressions whether I was pleased or disappointed.
“Why did we never talk before Senior Cut Day?” I’m a little winded. By this point, the textbook’s on the floor, completely abandoned. I knocked it down when an attempted press handstand went awry. (Bet the neighbors loved that one.)
He scratches the back of his head, making his shirt ride up. Focus, Savannah. “I guess we run in different circles.”
My former circle: gymnastics, Cassie, and more gymnastics. “Cass is friends with Juliana,” I remind him. “This should have happened sooner.”
His eyes crinkle. “Yeah? What’s this?”
“This, uh…” I’m good at explaining cotangents. Hand me an on-the-spot emotional moment, though, and I’m reduced to waving my hands around, my cheeks heating up the longer I stumble for the words. Tutoring–except we’ve done none of that today. Prelude to making out again–perhaps, if we weren’t so busy pissing off the neighbors with our frolicking. “This training session,” I finish, and that’s enough to make him chuckle. Time for a change of topic. “What are you going to do with your scholarship?”
“It’ll cover two years at Suffolk. I want to be an environmental engineer, but my math grades are pathetic. Get the GPA up, hopefully get a scholarship somewhere else. Are you training for college gymnastics? Are coaches beating down your door?”
“Not so much.” I know I should be excited about Coach Barry’s e-mails. Flattered. The truth is, though, in November of my senior year with months off from the sport, I’m a recruiting spinster. Leftovers. Coach Barry’s probably looking for someone to ride the bench in case someone’s injured.
Owego State, however, is irrelevant. I’m going to do the Golden Leaf Classic and officially say farewell to gymnastics without a catastrophic fall as my last competition memory. That’s it. “I want to study kinesiology, possibly physical therapy school after.” His eyes have that go on look and once again, I can’t resist. “I’d love to work for a sports team and help athletes with recovery.”
“See,” he says like I’ve made a point, which I’m pretty sure I have not, “you want to put things back together. I want to create from scratch.”
“Sure, something like that.”
He leans over, forcing the bed to sink, and pulls a lime-green Pav’s Place T-shirt from his drawer. The thing’s bright enough to stop traffic at midnight. “Juliana and I work at Pav’s twenty-five hours a week. She wants to work to survive, help out her mom, and that’s fine,” he says. “It’s not right for me. I have to feel like what I do will have more meaning.”
“Yes!” I bounce in place, causing Marcos to windmill his arms for balance. Oops.
“SORRY I TOOK up your afternoon with my life story,” I say when he pulls up in front of my house.
“We should do it again sometime,” he says, not sarcastically, and leans forward just as I lean around for, I don’t know, a hug or a high-five or something that inexplicably involves my left hand leaping in front of me. Which leads to the sides of our faces colliding, like those fake kisses on the cheek you give to your relatives where lips don’t touch skin. All in all, quite sensuous.
“Hmm,” he says.
“I’ll talk to you later.” I stumble out of the car. Gracefully done, gymnast.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ON A SCALE of one to ten, how pumped are you for today?” Emery says as we pull into South Ocean’s lot.
“Eh, a solid two,” I say. “Three points for seeing you, three points for the twins, and minus four points for the ache in my back.” By “back,” I mean “everywhere.”
“Excellent.” She offers me a whack on the shoulder, which helps nothing, and tosses me a protein bar. “See you out there, champ.”
“She’s back! She’s back!” Tiana leaps into my arms as soon as we enter the gym. She can’t weigh more than forty pounds, and it’s definitely all muscle.
“Told you I would be,” I groan.
“Tee! Look at my new socks!” another tiny Level 3 calls, and Tiana jumps off me and goes running.
“Thank God you’re here,” Emery says. “It’s tough being their one-woman jungle gym.”
As the Level 3s sprint into the gym and cartwheel onto the floor exercise (“Girls!” Vanessa shouts, and that’s enough to make them fall into an obedient line and start jogging), I think about the kids riding their bikes in and out of Pine Needle Street. My limited time in El Pueblo is enough for me to know that it’s not the kind of place where parents have the money for their kids to do competitive gymnastics. Don’t get me wrong; if I get into NYU, my dad sure isn’t writing me a check and saying, “Have fun, sweetheart.” However, the hundreds of dollars a month toward training–gym tuition, competition entry fees, coaching fees for said competitions–isn’t petty change.
My parents are never going to get that investment back with a full ride, either. Not like they’ve said anything–sure, Dad tried to run analytics on my YouTube channel to see if he could tell which schools had viewed my routines (“You’re getting hits from Alabama–Roll Tide!”)–but neither he nor Mom made me feel that if I didn’t get a scholarship, I’d be a black sheep.
God, I ache. Everywhere. If I say I have to go to the bathroom, I can hide out until this soreness passes.
“Savannah and Emery, you’re leading stretches,” Vanessa calls.
Great.
DURING OUR WATER break, while Erica and Nicola argue over who took whose ankle brace (“You guys are the same size!” Emery intervenes, but to no avail), I surreptitiously pull out my cell phone.
NEWS! Cassie writes, and the subsequent texts appear like a news ticker across a TV. Coming home tomorrow + no school just yet = life is better.
“Oh, my God,” I say.
“Savannah agrees, and she’s nicer than me,” Emery says to the twins. “You guys need to get a grip.”