“I wanted to…get your perspective, I guess.” My palms sweat. “What do you think about all of this?”
Dad’s hazel eyes scrutinize me, analyzing the question. The longer he pauses, the more my heart rate accelerates. I’m afraid he’s going to say something that aligns with the guy sitting outside of 7-Eleven, holding his Secure Our Borders sign, something that means my timeline of having Marcos meet Dad will change from “ninety years from now” to “never.”
“It’s complicated,” he says finally, and I let out a tiny breath. “I won’t lie when I say that the influx of immigrant students has put a huge financial strain on the district. It means more staff and more space is needed, and of course that means finding money in the budget.”
“Right,” I say. “Isn’t the budget always a problem?” He smiles a little. “This is true. It’s also a problem in Galway Beach, Southampton, East Hampton, the rest of Long Island, Texas, California–you ask ten different people and they’re going to give you ten different answers about what they think the federal response should be.”
“What’s your answer?” Without meaning to, I’m wringing my hands like Mom waiting for Richard to call.
He doesn’t hesitate. “As an educator,” he says, “my goal is to help all of my students be the best they can be, regardless of where they’re from and how they got here. I understand the difference between choices that their parents made and choices that their kids make. Not everyone in this building feels the same way. That’s my philosophy, though, and I’m sticking with it.”
I consider running over to my father and hugging him. A tiny freshman knocks tentatively on the doorframe, though, so I just offer up a sincere, “Thank you, Dad.”
“You’re welcome. Also,” he says on my way out, “when are you going to let me meet this guy?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NO SUSPENSION, THANK God, Marcos texts me as I walk into the gym. I almost cried. Dimitri is a saint.
The fight is still on my mind as Emery and I heave mats into the pit. Every step and tug plunges me deeper amid the blue and red foam blocks. The little kids “help” by running, jumping, and sliding down the mats into the foam.
“If you don’t get out in the next three seconds, you have one hundred push-ups!” Vanessa calls. “Three, two–” Children scramble and an errant pit block flies up, hitting me in the nose.
Emery, the twins, and I mark our spots for tumbling. Nicola goes first, running down the strip of floor, taking off, and landing on the stack of mats. She has so much power that she bounces off the mat and rolls into the foam, earning a round of applause.
Okay, I can do this. The landing will be squishy, easy to absorb.
“You can go first,” I tell Erica, who’s whispering to herself as she draws her arms close to her chest and twists. If you’re prone to overthinking, gymnastics is an excellent athletic pursuit.
“You can go next,” I say to Emery, who’s in the middle of fixing her hair. She blows a stray chunk out of her eyes and takes off.
“Nic, did you want to go again?”
“Savannah,” Matt calls. “Sometime today?”
Dammit.
I step forward to my mark, take a breath, and stare down the next twenty feet or so of my future.
Just a warm-up, I remind myself. One skill at a time. Except as I start running, my mind’s skipping ahead already: single full, double full, two-and-a-half, knee snapping upon landing–
I run onto the mats.
“Do you want a spot?” asks Matt without sarcasm, which makes me feel like more of a wimp.
“You got this, Savannah!” Emery calls too loudly as I resume my starting position, and the rest of them take up the chant. The little girls stand on the beams and face me, eager to watch this train wreck.
The day I performed my beam routine in front of them, I felt confident again. The old competitive Savannah who would fight her damnedest to stay on was back. The one who, no matter how much she liked her teammates, would set her jaw and do her utmost to beat them. Today, that Savannah’s hiding in the pit as my palms sweat copious amounts.
Enough’s enough. I extend my arms, point my left foot forward, and take the first step.
I feel better the instant I move forward. Stronger, powerful, not a shadow of myself but the same girl I was.
Do it.
Hands down for the round-off, feet snap together fast, back handspring, punch–
You got it–
My foot crumbles.
The pain is sharp, sudden, and I’ve rolled enough ankles to know that this isn’t anything worse; it’ll be fine in a couple of days.
Doesn’t make it sting less, though.
“Do you need ice?” someone calls, and when footsteps thud toward me, I think for a moment that one of them is about to land on me. Instead it’s Emery racing over with an icepack, Matt following close behind. Emery’s green eyes are worried as she sits down next to me, something that our coaches never condone. “Get back to work,” they’ll tell the other gymnasts when someone goes down with an injury. The message is clear–maintain focus, even when things are crumbling around you. Matt says nothing to her now, which means he must think something’s really wrong. Great. I swallow back the anxiety rising up my throat. I could be wrong; after all, I’d thought I was okay at the Springfield hospital with my knee, hadn’t I?
Matt makes me point my foot in all directions–up, down, left, right, “north by northwest,” he says and Emery chuckles, so I finally offer up a tiny smile to make him quit trying to make me feel better.
The little ones walk on their toes across the beam, arms held high above their heads, still staring. “Focus, ladies,” Vanessa snaps as one wobbles. Erica whispers to Nicola, who shakes her head. Even though they weren’t at Regionals that day, I know the question is on their minds. On a scale of one to broken, how bad is it this time?
I smile wider, ignoring the throb in my ankle, until they look away.