Page 15 of It’s All in How You Fall
“Iwaswhat I do.” I bat at my face. God this is embarrassing. “Level ten, winning awards, on the path to a college scholarship and possibly elite status. That’s who I was. And everything was tied in—my friends, my passion, my talent. I was and then I was not. And face it, the rest of high school is going to suck. I’m wallpaper, window dressing, a doormat. A girl without a country.Nothing.”
Amazingly, he doesn’t bail. Doesn’t get back in his muscle car and gun it away from his best friend’s hot mess of a sister. Nope. He actually inches closer and puts a big hand on my shoulder. His mom’s a therapist and I sort of wonder if some of it has rubbed off on him. “You are something—someone—without gymnastics. You’d feel better if you do something. Anything.”
Ihavebeen doing things. Ignoring my friends except on Sundays. Moping my way through a severe sunburn. Eating all the chocolate I haven’t had in the past three years in one gluttonous swoop.
I take a hot shaky breath.
“I don’t know how to do anything else.”
I stomp my foot a little on the sidewalk because I’m stubborn, and it’s stupid because I strike the concrete just right to send a tensing jolt up my jerkwad lower spine. “I’ve spent ten years doing one thing. At the expense of literally everything else. I mean, good lord, the most consistent thing I’ve done out of the gym is watch you two play basketball, and I could barely get on the board playing horse.”
“Okay, so maybe hoops isn’t your thing—”
“That’s an understatement.” I rub my eyes with my forearm. The sun is barely hanging on and I wish it would go down completely and leave my tears to fall in the dark of a Kansas night. “Nothingis my thing.” God, maybe my stubbornness really has slid into stupidity. Did I really fall from the top of my game to being relegated to doingnothingfor the rest of my life?
Another big Alex hand finds my other shoulder and both squeeze with an idea. I can almost feel it zip out of his brain before it falls from his lips.
“How about this?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for me to actually answer his question. He probably knows it would just be a snot-filled slurp anyway. “How about I coach you?”
I gape at him. Bat at the wetness on my cheeks again. “What?”
Alex smiles, and suddenly he looks like the boy I’ve known forever and a day and also not like himself at all. Like a total adult. The wheels are turning behind his dark eyes, and it’s completely baffling because the hamster in my head has gone for an extended water break. “Consider it an education. I coach you in the sports of the mortals. One sport a week for the rest of the summer.”
Gym class.
Alex Zavala is going to give me my own personal gym class. Somehow that sounds less weird despite me being the only participant than saying something like “private lessons.” Which, you know, might give the wrong impression.
“It won’t fill the hole you’re feeling, but it’ll at least help you adjust to this life AG.”
“AG?”
“After gymnastics.”
I sob-cough and read his eyes, finding my voice. “Really?”
“Really. You say you don’t know how to do anything else? You will when I’m finished with you. Whether it’s just for fun or whether you want to actually go out for a team, you’ll know how to do something a mere mortal can do.”
I should just nod and be grateful but instead I say, “Why?” He blinks and I clarify. “Why would you want to do this?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Because I can and it’s the least I can do.” He doesn’t backpedal or try to explain further. He just watches me as the opportunity he’s set between us hangs in the balance.
The heat has suddenly hit me. I wet my lips. “Okay.”
Though I haven’t moved, I feel as if I’ve finally taken a step. Alex must feel it too because he flashes a grin. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow afternoon. Say, three?”
Nat usually gets home from work at two, so that seems a bit of a crunch. Plus, my big brother’s excuse to talk with the Rodinsky siblings pops into my brain. “But don’t you have stadium stairs?”
“Nice try. We’re doing them after dinner.”
“Oh.” No matter how he plays it, I have this sinking feeling that I’m intruding on his summer, even though he suggested this whole thing. “I can just meet you—” I start because, yeah, I don’t have a car yet but I am very capable of walking pretty much everywhere. As he’s seen already today.
“Nope, I’m picking you up. Not letting you chicken out.”
“I’m no chicken.”
“I know,” he says, backing away. “Later, Caro.”
The car rumbles to life and my brain kicks back into gear. “Wait! What sport are we doing? And don’t say basketball because we both know how that’s going to go.”
