Ok, so this is the short story I’ve been working on all day..and it’s finally finished! It was inspired by this quote: Gymnastics tells you no. All day long. It mocks you over and over again. Telling you you’re an idiot. That you’re crazy. If you like running fullspeed towards a stationary object, vault’s for you. If you like pealing pieces of skin the size of quarters of your hands… bars is for you. Because the only thing more fun then rips, is when your rips get rips. It’s super sexy. And floor, are you serious, I mean who doesn’t want to parade around in a leotard getting wedgies and doing dorky choreography? It’s delicious. If you like falling, then gymnastics is thee sport for you! You get to fall on your face, your ass, your back, your knees, and your pride! It’s a good thing I didn’t like falling… I LOVED IT!
&&. Now it needs a name. So if you guys could read it and respond with the name, it would be muuuuucho appreciated!
This Is Where the Name Will Go, in Case You Were Wondering.
On Valentine’s Day, candy companies manufacture confectionaries in the shape of hearts. These hearts, sweet-tart hearts, became a staple in Haley’s gymnastics bag. She was holding them up now, blurring the outline of Kara on the balance beam. It directed attention to Haley, eliciting a giggle from her teammates, and Haley read aloud,
“Fax me.”
The surrounding nine, ten, and eleven year olds snorted at the fact that it was supposed to be romantic. They’d made a game of it, attempting to hold a conversation with only what they said. Haley, however, used the game as a distraction from Kara. She didn’t need to see Kara land the perfect dismount to know that she would. All she wanted to do was compete herself, and prove once and for all that she was not the best gymnast there. This meet was no different than any other to her. The same chalk cloud hung over everything, the same dull floor music pounded out every four and a half minutes on a loop for five hours. None of the girls were ever any different; bright eyed, covered from head to toe in sweat, and chalk. Hair spray stuck their hair in a sculpture that wouldn’t melt for days. The only difference was the gymnast’s own story about how they’d gotten there, and why they stuck out a sport that told you every day you weren’t perfect. Gymnastics told you every day that you failed. It told you that you weren’t good enough, that you never would be good enough, and yet we continued striving for the ephemeral ten-o, the perfect score.
“Dream on.”
Another girl read off the sweet tart heart, and the team giggled again, including Haley. Balance beam was Haley’s best event. In the sport of Gymnastics, at meets such as this, teams would follow Olympic order. When there were enough teams, as there were now, every team would start on a different event to rotate. Haley hated to start on her best, as it meant ending on the Uneven Parallel Bars- her worst. It gave her the impression that she’d lowered her all around score before even stepping foot on the events.
Kara didn’t have a best or a worst event.
At practice, she would lecture them all. “If you decree one to be more important, basic psychology will dictate low scores on the rest.” As if the eleven year old knew any form of basic psychology. It was easy for her, Haley would think. Kara was the one with the medals. She wore them to every meet, claiming they were good luck charms. Haley had papered her gym bag in ribbons, but the medals were reserved, it seemed, for Kara. The other girls on the team would ask her, whenever she’d gotten up to the podium, what the carpeted platform felt like. Those who placed first, second, or third, would know. Haley wasn’t. The best she could place was fifth, hard as she tried. At this stage, that meant a ribbon.
Everyone knew that was a load of crap, though. In the Olympics, there were no ribbons, and everyone there was there in someway because of the Olympics. Every exhausted, overdriven child there had their eyes on the Olympics. Everyone was told from day one the stories of Nadia Comaneci’s perfect 10.0. A fall in practice earned the renowned story of Kerri Strug. In the 1996 Olympic’s Kerri Strug had fallen, broken her ankle, and still managed to compete one final time. Her heroic effort would win the team that gold medal, awarded atop that carpeted podium. This was the level of dedication that was assumed would be given.
There was a sudden cheer from the team around her, and Haley realized that Kara had dismounted. Sourly, Haley stood herself. Kara didn’t look at her as she passed to take her own turn, but she spotted her father in the stands. With a wide-eyed grin, he had both thumbs up as he indicated her. Even far away, she could feel his expectation. Her heart plummeting somewhere into her stomach, Haley took a few breaths before stepping up to the beam.
“Are you going to get a medal this time?” Haley blushed as her father spoke. He’d asked her the same question before every meet, to no different result. Whether they were dragging her sister along, or Haley’s mom was bringing the video camera- the question was the same. It had nothing to do with what tricks she was performing, what new routines. Everything was about results.
Haley grinned up nervously at her dad, responding, “Sure, Dad. Whatever.”
“Come on. Up, up!”
Haley’s father was a big sort of man, with a presence that spoke volumes without him opening his mouth. Tall, and round, he had a natural crinkle around his eyes that reminded Haley often of Santa Clause. With wild eyes, he alternatively excited her, and evoked a sense of intense expectation from her. She had to get a medal. Another ribbon was just a postponement of that inevitable day. She smiled as beckoned her, and clambered onto his lap.
“Well little girl…what is it you want today?”
It was part of their ritual. She acted as young as she possibly could, pink from embarrassment. He’d pretend to be her Santa, ask for a medal- as expected, and scurry off to go get ready for the meet. Her mother would grab a brush, and run it through the tangled nest of brown, somehow managing to twist it expertly into a stiff helmet. Her sister would fetch make up— insisting that even at eleven it was important to look your best. Haley thought it best not to point out that it would be sweated off within five minutes. Her sister wouldn’t have paid attention anyways. She never put down her phone long enough.
They piled from there into the car, her sister waving from the driveway, and then hurrying back into the house. What she did all day, alone in her room, was a mystery to Haley. One she didn’t have time for, of course. Her life was the sport of gymnastics. Her tee that day even said so. Her closet was full of them, shirts that proclaimed sayings such as: “If gymnastics was easy, it would be called football”, or “Eat. Sleep. Gymnastics. What else is there?”
The ride to the meet was long. She’d heard other parents complain of the drives. Other parents remarked upon the irony of driving four hours for a five hour meet and six minutes of videotape. Her dad never did. Haley was painfully aware the entire time there how glad he was that another meet had come. With twenty-two hours of practice a week, meets were what they all lived for.
“Hey, mom?”
Haley was speaking over her father at that instant without realizing it. Whatever it was he was babbling on, he stopped. She had been staring out the grimy window, and even though she’d addressed her mother, her Dad responded.
“What is it, Hales? Did you see a hawk?”
“Yes, Haley?”
A hawk was supposedly a good luck charm. Haley had seen one when she was four, and made the gymnastics team the next day.
“No hawk. I have a homework question.”
Haley had been sitting on this one for a while. Kara had pronounced quite haughtily at practice the other day that her mother did her homework for her. If it hadn’t been Kara to say it, the team wouldn’t have believed her. Kara was special though. Kara, with her perfect blonde hair that never ratted around her head, but hung elegantly in a dancers bun.
“Well, keep your eyes out Hales, you never know.” Was her father still talking about the non-existent hawk?
“Sure Dad.” Haley shrugged, blinking.
“What’s the homework question?” Her mom didn’t look up from her knitting.
“Well. Kara was saying the other day…that because we have a meet today, her mom was going to do her homework for her.” It wasn’t phrased as a question of course, but her mother got it anyways. With a nonchalant shrug, her mom responded, “Oh? That’s nice of her mother.”
“Right.”
Haley slumped back against the seat, deciding not to bring up the poem she hadn’t even started due in approximately thirty-six hours.
Kara had always been late. No one ever cared either. Haley always seemed to get more anxious when it happened, as she was sure that it meant Kara wouldn’t show up. If Kara didn’t show, they’d have to disqualify themselves. Not because they didn’t have an alternate—they did, but because Bridget was just not up to Kara’s standards. Kara made this team. They won half of the meets they did because Kara pulled a stunt like Kerri Strug.
As such, while they waited to be chosen for an event, Haley tucked at her hair and bounced on the balls of her toes. Bridget was standing off in the distance, not even bothering to change. Haley always felt badly for her. Gymnastics was always technical, with seven members to a team, not six and not eight. It was not sentimental. There was no room for the person who ranked eighth. Haley, being ranked fifth, didn’t even have to worry about herself being that eighth.
She did, though. In her mind, Kara was the only one that could be sure that she would never be the alternate in the situation. Even the number two was nervous about it. It’s just how the sport worked.
When Kara strolled into the gym, Haley and the rest of the team watched her with a glare. Bridget leaned back, and took out a bag of popcorn. All of them noticed the fact that Kara didn’t seem to walk, but float. Kara was a constant presence of grace. Kara was perfection. Kara was the perfect-ten, whether she scored it or not.
“Beam first, ladies?” She asked as she drew up level with her teammates. The line-up already decided, Kara had half the amount of time as we did to warm-up, and still would perform first. We all knew she’d do it perfectly, and as such, there were no qualms about this line-ups. Haley bitterrly removed the bag of conversation hearts from her bag when Kara stepped up to compete, drawing the chalk line against the beam to mark where she should dismount. It was such a common occurrence to the gymnasts, that none of them paid attention to the action; an action that, if incorrectly exercised, could mean a broken neck.
As the flag hit the air for Kara to begin, Haley lifted the first heart from the ribbon-covered bag and turned to her teammates. Some of them held stuffed animals for good luck. Most had on crazy socks, to protect their feet from the arena ice they’d spread mats down upon. None of them imagined that cheering on Kara might even be possible. All she’d do, after all, was yell at them about breaking concentration.
Following Kara in the line-up was a thorn in Haley’s side. Kara didn’t acknowledge her as they traded places. Music on the floor once again struck up when Haley drew her own line across the beam. It was the rudimentary music that pulsed through all of them, the same beat of compulsory gymnastics. They didn’t get their own routines until they’d hit the next level, but they all yearned for the day they might not have to hear the same music a hundred times a day. Haley’s eyes swiveled from her jovial father, to Kara’s platonic smile. Kara was mouthing something about where Haley had drawn her dismount cue, but Kara always assumed that she knew more about these things. Haley didn’t pay attention.
Kara sat down to watch her. Haley felt her skin was burning under the gazes of her father, Kara, teammates, coaches, and the judges. The judges wore dead blue suits to indicate their authority. Every gymnast had sat beside them at one point and held up the scores they were handed to tell the previous competitor how far from perfection they were. One such score was shown now, a nine-point-four-five, for Kara’s routine. Haley knew that was perfectly high enough for second place on beam, if not first. She didn’t look at the score, but rather the girl holding it up. The expression proved to Haley these judges were no different then the others. The consensus was that judges were the gymnasts that hadn’t made it, and remained embittered about it, enjoying telling others they weren’t good enough. The bizarrely twisted scribbles they made without pause were an indication of failure, technical symbols that gymnasts hoped they’d never learn. They looked back at Haley without emotion, silently asking if she was ready to mount. Without thinking what it meant, Haley threw her shoulders back and saluted.
As it always did, the gazes slid off of her when her hand grasped the beam. Her mount was simple in comparison to Kara’s, but it was one of her favorite moves to perform, and she lost herself in the motion. Holding herself up, she slowly straddled the beam, twisted her hand behind her and pivoted up to stand on her hands. After remaining stationary for a few moments, she kicked down, and came to be standing at the end of the beam. The hardest tricks were those to get out of the way first, besides the dismount. Though a routine was a fluid motion, they were heavily choreographed, from every jump performed to every hand flick. Gymnasts like Kara went through them with mechanical perfection, which was what the judges preferred. Haley had never mastered that. She flowed through her routine, focusing on being in the moment, instead of stark contrast from move to move. That was why her optional floor music was Bach, where Kara’s mirrored ‘Great Balls of Fire’.
Taking a breath, she spun on her heel, swung her arms, and breathlessly drew her feet to the dismount mark, unaware of the world around her. She was, in that moment, living for the freedom that Gymnastics gave you. The sport they went through hell for, gave them the free fall of adrenaline. As they spun, jumped, kicked, arched, flipped, twisted, held, and flew through the air—there were no rules. There was just the action, the pure moment of existing. To watch someone like Kara do it, to watch the perfect ten routine so yearned for, was secondary when they were actually performing themselves.
Haley hesitated a minute, before springing to action, swinging her hands down to her side, and diving backwards, onto her hands, feet, hands, feet, and pushed off hard for the third time to launch her off the beam and into the air. A simple layout flip later, she’d have landed, and she was aware that her routine had been one of the best of her life.
Kara, it transpired, had been correct about where her dismount mark had been. It occurred to Haley as she fell on her butt, her foot awkwardly beneath her.
Haley didn’t let herself wince or look at her father. Gymnastics didn’t although for such sentimental actions. What she did, was spring back up, salute the judges with a beam, and hobble over to her teammates. They showered her with conversation hearts, and Kara chattered advice at her ear. When the score came, Kara shut up momentarily, her arm around Haley.
“Haley, want me to look?” Kara asked her.
Haley muttered something, but nodded ruefully. Kara was the last person she wanted to inform her how far her score had dropped because of a simple mistake. A mistake she could have prevented, of course, had she listened to Kara. Stupidly, she’d ignored her, and now …
Now her score came back. Eight-point-six. Good enough for the fifth-place ribbon.
The entire team watched anxiously. They had pens out, scorebooks, and calculators. Even with the computers in the corner having decided fifteen minutes ago who had won, and what place, the team still had to figure out for themselves before hand. Anxiety was the killer. Haley sat in silence, ducking the looks from her father. She knew he was going to be only good-naturedly disappointed that she wouldn’t be getting a medal. His look, however, said that he was still waiting for a miracle. With her eyes, Haley tried to correct him. The facts were the facts. Haley had fallen, Kara hadn’t. Gymnastics was built of rules and technicalities. Hard facts won out.
As the scores were called out, Haley watched in a daze as she gained a ribbon for her floor vault routine, and was passed over for bars. Kara was up both times, a ribbon on vault, which she tossed in her bag irreverently, and a medal on bars. Haley was glaring at her whenever she knew Kara wasn’t looking. Her teammate could have been more gracious about her boastful answers to “So what does the carpet feel like?” After all, it wasn’t like Kara’s dad was sitting there with a goofy expression on his face, waiting for his daughter to get a medal.
As the beam scores were called out, Haley did the calculations mentally sixteen more times before concluding that nothing spectacular was going to happen. As it turned out, Haley was half right. Kara scored second, clanging the silver beam medal against her bronze from bars. Haley scored fourth, standing on the ground beside that carpet. There was a grin on her face, captured forever on camera by her father, who had a tear in his eye.
Haley stood apart from the team now, proudly displaying the two new ribbons, and cautiously realizing that her dad was smiling, with his right eye glistening. As she approached him, Haley could hear him saying things. “Guess you needed the hawk, hm?” Or maybe it would be just, “Next time, Hales, it’ll be a medal.”
She stopped moving about a foot away from him. Her mother held the camera as her father engulfed her in a hug and said with a guffaw, “Fourth, Hales, fourth!”
It was the highest place Haley had ever gotten, medal or no. A relieved grin cracked across her face, and she muttered sheepishly, “It’d have been first if I’d listened to Kara.”
Obviously, Haley’s father didn’t quite get this concept, but he indicated Kara over his shoulder.
“Oh! Well, you can go congratulate her if you want. I think she’s back there…somewhere. Does she have an older brother? Want her to come out with us to ice cream?”
Haley’s eyes widened with horror. After all, Kara hovered near her shoulder constantly. Didn’t she have other friends? And Kara was the one that had pointed out the mistake costing her a medal. Kara had been the one with her arm over her shoulder, telling her just how low her score was. Why would she want her to come to ice cream with her?
“No…No, thanks Dad, I’ll just go congratulate her, and we’ll be off.”
Scurrying around her father, to placate him, her eyes searched out Kara in the crowd of over-excited kids, sweaty and chalked. When she found Kara, finally, Haley swallowed to see Kara ignored and bored, with her brother texting besides her. There was a friction in the air there, of desperation, and Haley’s heart plummeted again, even as she walked buoyant, proud of her fourth. Here was Kara, the one that everyone knew would achieve a perfect ten one day, perfectly content, and yet alone.
Approaching her awkwardly, Haley tilted her head and stuck out her gym bag. Kara blinked.
“Oh, I’m not…We’re just waiting for my dad to pick us up. He’s bought me a big screen television for qualifying for nationals you know. ”
Haley just shook her head offering her bag while saying,
“Thanks for the tip. I’ll be sure to listen next time. Candy heart?”
