Prologue
Dismount. That’s all I need.
Roundoff. Layout double full. Stick. A recipe for my third Kansas state beam title—if I can just hold it together.
My mind, my back, fate: There’s a lot that can fall apart and take my victory with it.
A small bell rings—I have ten seconds remaining. Olga is the perfect statue of a coach in my periphery, all crossed arms and tight jaw beside my dismount mat. My teammates are a fuzzy blur of blue and chalked skin beyond her. I set my stance, all my weight on my back leg on the very end of the beam, lead-off leg out and toes aggressively pointed.
Come on, back, we can do this. I can do this.
Without hesitation I run three steps and toss myself into a roundoff, punching the end of the beam with all my might. My lower back seizes on impact, as oblivious to the amount of ibuprofen I have running through my system as it is to how hard I’ve worked for this. How much I want it. The tweak of pain is enough to toss my muscle memory off autopilot, and I enter my double twist late. I know it as a sixth sense, and every minute I’ve spent in the gym for the last ten years adds up to what I do next to save it.
My rotation speeds up. The blue landing mat is coming faster than I like, and if I don’t get all the way around, I might take a step or fall. Or worse, do both after obviously underrotating, and not get credit for the skill because I didn’t complete both twists.
In less than a breath my feet drive into the cool plastic-y cushion of the mat. My eyes spot the end of the beam for orientation as my body adjusts to how I’ve landed. My hips aren’t square, but I don’t take a step, bringing my lower half in line with my shoulders with an almost imperceptible adjustment as I sit back into the stick. My arms spring over my head in salute.
A smile spreads across my face as applause rises from behind me—my coach, my team, my family in the stands, decked out in Balan’s Gymnastics shirts. I swivel to face the judges for a direct salute, careful not to shuffle my feet and inadvertently draw a last-second deduction from a particularly picky judge. The movement is easier than anything I’ve just completed in the past ninety seconds, and yet somehow it’s
My back twinges, and my arms fly down in a reaction as automatic as my in-air adjustments. The smile on my face wavers as a shock of pain shoots the length of my spine, from the scoop of my lower back up to the split between my shoulder blades.
For one horrible moment, I can’t move forward, can’t recover my smile, can’t depart the mat.
The pain teases tears into the corners of my eyes as Olga crashes the mat and draws me into a hug. Her hand cradles my head as she presses me into her body, only aware in that moment of what I’ve achieved, not what it cost.
“That was good, very good. Worth the cry!” Of course she’s noticed the tears. She never misses anything. “A little late on the dismount, but you’re a fighter, Caroline, always my little fighter. I’m sure this is number three. Queen of the Beam yet again.”
I let her direct me off the mat, squeezing me tight as we get my feet moving toward the embrace of my teammates, my back screaming the entire way. 1
“Gymnastics is a sport with plenty of fifteen-year-old retirees.”
Dr. Kennedy’s words tumble through my brain, bouncing off all the gray matter and viscera before landing back in the forefront of my mind every thirty seconds. It’s been like that for the past hour, ever since Dad and I wordlessly left the sports medicine office and pointed his Prius to Balan’s Gymnastics.
The same thing, over and over: A thoughtful lean forward from his high-backed chair. A tenting of fingers that have healed far worse cases than mine. A smile kind enough to mean bad news. Then, the hammer.
“Caroline, you’ve sought me out for treatment, but I want to be frank. There’s no therapy or shot or surgery that can improve chronic back pain. The only way for it to heal is to stop what’s causing it to be chronic.”
This man—who installs new hips, who ferries ligaments from healthy body parts to damaged elbows, who kept my brother’s career as the world’s shortest varsity point guard intact despite a royally messed-up knee—could do nothing for me.
He can suck it. My back can suck it. Everything can suck it.
I shake him out of my head, blond ponytail brushing my ears, because it’s literally the only thing I can do to try to stop the replay of the worst doctor’s appointment in the history of my life.
“Anytime you’re ready, Caroline.”
Oh. Right. I blink at Olga’s patented “coach” voice, and the world floods back in. The chalk-filled air. Lack of air-conditioning despite the sweltering afternoon—Kansas in early June. Tinny sound system blasting to eleven because for the next two hours it’s the most elite of us on the gym floor at Balan’s.
Okay, only one of us is actually elite: Sunny Chavez. She’s qualified for nationals later this summer and placed thirteenth there last year, which sounds horrible but is actually super good. And now Sunny and the rest of my teammates are silently watching me from all corners of the floor mat as I hold up our pass progression warm-up.
It’s something we do nearly every day—working our way up from skills we could do in our sleep to the most difficult passes in our routine, going back and forth in two groups set up
on the diagonal. Olga and Dad stare from where they’re perched against the tumble track, shoulder to shoulder, deep in conversation. They’ve been dating for a little over a year, and though I think that’s weird and sort of embarrassing, I actually wish that they were whispering cringe-inducing sweet nothings instead of discussing my future without me.
“Double back,” a voice breathes in my ear—my best friend, Peregrine, hinting at where we are in the routine by outright telling me what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. She’s next up after me on this diagonal that we’re sharing with Sunny.
I launch myself into a pass I’ve been successfully landing for nearly four years.
Roundoff, back handspring, back handspring, double back.
Lower back tensing, I land with just a slight hop, which is totally annoying because after beam, floor is my best event—my music is a compilation from Hamilton, and it is amazing, let me tell you—and immediately file behind Sunny so Jada can have the opposite diagonal to do the very same thing. She and Avalon are level nines, and somehow we always divide up like this: the two level tens and single elite, and the two level nines. Hierarchy, even among the best.
When I step into line behind Sunny, she turns and lifts a beautifully maintained brow, her voice low but laced with concern turned up all the way. “The appointment?”
“Yeah.”
Everyone knew I was going to see Dr. Kennedy in the lunch break between our summer two-a-day workouts. My teammates, my coach—heck, probably even the delivery guy who visits every day around noon because Dad’s preferred method of grocery shopping is Amazon Pantry. I really need to get Dad to the farmers’ market on the Saturday mornings I have open these days.
My back has been bad news for a few years now, but nothing that a ritual of prepractice ibuprofen couldn’t fix—or at least mitigate. My range of motion has been slowly worsening since I won a third state beam title in the spring, my first at level ten. I tweaked my back during that routine, but within a week it was right back to the usual dull ache of muscles worn stiff. It’s chronic and annoying—a dissonant undercurrent running through my life. A constant chorus of dun-dun-dunnnnnnn.
When I couldn’t hide it anymore and Olga and Dad began to make noise about getting my back checked out, I thought the whole procedure was going to be a cakewalk. Maybe as simple as Dr. Kennedy taking one look at my file, muttering “mmmhmmm,” lining up a big ol’ cortisone shot with my lumbar curve, and sending me on my way.
Though I did demand and receive the shot, the reality was… not that.
What Dr. Kennedy doesn’t get is that gymnastics is my life. That is not me being dramatic. That’s the truth.
I can’t quit when I’m a breath away from not only repeating as state beam champion, but maybe winning the all-around. When I’m a blink from cracking open the last remaining level of my dreams: elite status, a college scholarship, a trip to nationals. When I’m so close I can’t just metaphorically taste it, I can see it every day at practice with Sunny. My dreams, 3D printed on one of my oldest friends.
Said friend doesn’t look at me like I’m being dramatic. Instead, her face softens and tilts, her curly bun slanting with it. She’s very serious about her role as the team’s big sister, and even though I still have a year with her before she heads to UCLA on a full ride, something wells up in my throat. I already miss her and she’s standing right in front of my face. “You want to talk about it?”
Fresh tears spike in my eyes, sliding into the same spots still wet and red-rimmed from earlier. My lips begin to tremble, that lump growing and blocking my windpipe and any chance I have at verbally responding. I nod.
Peregrine arrives after her own double-back sequence, and for the length of Avalon’s next pass, the three of us are together. The two of them exchange a glance, and Sunny announces, “I’m going to tell Olga we need five.”
I vigorously shake my head. Wipe the tears that have collected with the back of my hand so as not to get chalk stuck to what’s left of my mascara. Words crawl out, my voice off, hurried and hushed. “She and Dad are already talking about it. I don’t want it to be a thing.” I swallow as more tears form. Gah. This is so hideously embarrassing. “Not here.”
Peregrine bites her lip and tugs on her purple-and-black braid. “Salad Bros after practice?” Peregrine asks me but looks to Sunny—the only one of us with a car.
Dinner is a possibility because we’re done at five o’clock, which is part of the reason we love summer workouts. Thirty-five hours of practice per week yet we get more time to ourselves than any other time of the year. It’s glorious: Friday nights, full days to do whatever we want on Saturdays and Sundays. During the school year, we’re not so lucky—in the gym until nine o’clock every weekday and for hours on end each weekend for practices or meets.
I nod in agreement and Sunny whispers, “Deal,” as Olga loudly clears her throat from the tumble track, coach stare going full tilt at the back of our hair-sprayed heads.
“Sorry, Coach.” Sunny apologizes with a wave and then launches herself into a ridiculously perfect full-twisting double back.
suddenly too much.
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